1 Corinthians 12
We are Better Together!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, October 1.
I have been an athlete for most of my life. One of the hardest realities of being an athlete is staying healthy. To get to the highest levels of sport you have to push yourself to get even greater results—you can neither undertrain nor overtrain. You come to realize quickly that a significant part of success is the ability to not get hurt and stay healthy, because if even one part of the body is hurt, then your whole performance decreases. It is this way in individual sport and in team sports. Athletes depend on other people’s health as much as they depend on their own health.
Paul uses the human body as an illustration to teach us about our interconnectivity and the unique importance of every member of a local congregation for the church’s success in its mission. Listen to 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many.”
Paul continues to build on this imagery and say in verses 26-27, “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it.”
Seize the moment and care for the full body of Christ. This means paying attention to not only your own spiritual vitality and relationship health, but also caring for the vitality and well-being of others. The body is only as healthy as the individual member. We are in this together and God designed us to be better together!