Think about the last time someone you loved was in real pain. Not inconvenienced. Pain. Maybe it was a phone call late at night. Maybe it was a diagnosis. Maybe it was a grief that showed up in their eyes before they ever said a word.
When that happened, did you feel it too?
Of course you did. Because that is what love does. It makes someone else’s suffering your own. That is not a figure of speech. When the people you are bound to hurt, something in you hurts with them.
Here is the question I want to put before you: Is that what your church is? Is your congregation the kind of place where when one person suffers, the rest feel it? When one person is honored, the rest genuinely rejoice?
The Apostle Paul says it ought to be. In fact, he says that is the very nature of what the church is. And the reason it can be, the only reason, is that we are not just a group of people who happen to share a building on Sunday mornings. We are a body. The body of Christ.
Before we look at the passage, we need to recall who Paul was writing to. First Corinthians was written “to the church of God which is at Corinth” (1:1). This was a letter to a local church, a specific, identifiable congregation of real people in a real city. When Paul wrote about divisions, about discipline, about the Lord’s Supper, he was writing to that church about that church.
That matters here. The word Paul uses for church, the Greek ekklesia, was never used to mean something universal or invisible. B.H. Carroll summarized it well: the primary meaning is “an organized assembly, whose members have been properly called out from private homes or business to attend to public affairs.” This was true of Greek city assemblies, of the Old Testament congregation of Israel, and of the New Testament church.
So when Paul uses the human body as a metaphor for the church in 1 Corinthians 12 (and he uses the word body eighteen times in sixteen verses), he is not describing some invisible, universal spiritual concept. He is describing a local, visible assembly of real people. What he says to Corinth is just as true of your church.
“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 also 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 also the body is not one member, but many.” 1 Corinthians 12:12–14 (LSB)
It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that you have been placed in the Lord’s church, and the same is true of every member sitting there with you. Just as God has arranged the members of the human body according to His own wisdom, so He has arranged the members of the body of Christ. Paul’s point to the Corinthians is pointed: the Spirit that joined them to Christ also joined them to one another, and their common baptism was not a reason for pride or division. It was the foundation of their unity. And it is yours as well. You did not find your way into that congregation by accident, and neither did the person sitting next to you.
“If the foot says, ‘Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,’ it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body… But now God has appointed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired.” 1 Corinthians 12:15, 18 (LSB)
The church at Corinth had members who were dissatisfied with their gifts, some envying the more prominent gifts of others, some questioning whether they mattered at all. The result was a fractured congregation, vulnerable to pride and counterfeit spirituality.
“And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; or again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’” 1 Corinthians 12:21 (LSB)
The danger runs in both directions. Those with visible, prominent gifts can begin to look down on those with quiet, unseen ones. But the eye that says it has no need of the hand is not a strong eye. It is a proud one. No church runs on the gifts of any one person or group of people, and the moment any member begins to believe that it does, they have become a problem rather than a blessing.
“On the contrary, how much more is it that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary… But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.” 1 Corinthians 12:22, 24–25 (LSB)
God has specifically honored the members we are most tempted to overlook. Think about the oldest member of your congregation. Think about the youngest. Think about the one who is slow, or struggling, or never in the spotlight. Paul says God has given them more abundant honor, not less.
It is worth noting that Paul had already told the Corinthians they needed to exclude a member living in open, unrepentant sin (1 Corinthians 5). This passage does not contradict that. Church discipline and genuine care for every member are not opposites. They are both expressions of love for the body.
“And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.” 1 Corinthians 12:26 (LSB)
Paul will address love directly in chapter 13. But he prepares us here by showing what love looks like in the context of a church. The kind of community he describes, where suffering and joy are genuinely shared, is not found among classmates, coworkers, or club members. It belongs uniquely to the local body of believers.
“Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it.” 1 Corinthians 12:27 (LSB)
What was said of the church at Corinth is true of every faithful local church in every age. Each congregation is the body of Christ. Not a chapter of a larger organization. Not a social club with religious sentiments. A living body, individually membered, called to bear one another’s burdens and share one another’s joys.
We began with a question: Is your church the kind of place where when one person suffers, the rest feel it?
Paul’s answer is not merely a challenge. It is a declaration. You are the body of Christ. The Spirit placed you there. The same love that holds that body together is the love that Christ purchased with His own blood. You are not a collection of individuals who happen to attend the same services. You are members of one another.
Live like it.
If you do not have a church home, we would love to have you visit us at Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in Brunswick, Georgia. You can find our service times and location at sgbcbrunswick.com/services, or contact us with any questions.