1 Corinthians 12 (5)

Pray Psalm 143.1, 2.
Hear my prayer, O LORD,
Give ear to my supplications!
In Your faithfulness answer me,
And in Your righteousness.
Do not enter into judgment with Your servant,
For in Your sight no one living is righteous.

Sing Psalm 143.1, 2.
(Divinum Mysterium: Of the Father’s Love Begotten)
Hear my earnest prayer, O LORD! Give ear to my pleas for grace!
In Your faithfulness and righteousness, look upon me with Your face!
Enter not to judgment with Your servant, LORD,
with Your loving servant, LORD:
None can stand before Your Word.

Read 1 Corinthians 12.1-26; meditate on verses 20-26.

Preparation
1. How should we regard the other members of Christ’s Body?

2. What does God want for His Church?

Meditation
All the members of the Body of Christ matter. Whether their gifts are few or many, great or small, visible or invisible, all matter and all contribute to the building-up of the Body of Christ in unity and maturity in the Lord (Eph. 4.11-16).

Imagine if your body were as wracked with division as the churches in Corinth. Your hand would tell your mouth to get its own food. Your eyes wouldn’t care if you stubbed your toe; sorry, they were just too busy taking in all the view. With the members of your body warring against one another, vaunting themselves over the others, refusing to cooperate, and turning a blind eye to questionable practices, you’d just be better off staying in bed.

But God intends His Church to be sign of the Kingdom’s having arrived and an outpost from which it advances throughout the world. So we need each other. We must refuse to let anything divide us as we cling to Jesus and delight in His fellowship. As we care for one another, suffer and weep with one another, rejoice and give thanks together, and make the most of every opportunity to build one another up in Jesus, we will become true temples of the Lord, and the people in our world will take note.

Division doesn’t always take the form of hostility or competition. Sometimes the most common form of division is indifference: We just don’t care to discover and use our gifts; it doesn’t matter to us whether our church is growing in Christlikeness. But God calls His churches—He has so composed them (v. 24)—that they should be beautiful in unity and mutual care. And we all have something to contribute to that.

 Treasures Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
Paul used the picture of a healthy, functioning body to describe the Church that puts a smile on God’s face.

A diseased Church is diametrically opposed to one that functions properly, for disease is defined as a disordered or abnormal condition of the body, or any harmful condition of society. (And we can safely include here, the ailing Church).

All of us have been sick with something or other, and we know that it lays us low. We can empathize with Paul’s analogy. We get it. And on a personal level, Paul experienced this kind of physical discordance, yet was comforted by the Lord Jesus that His grace would be sufficient to see him through his trial because, as it turns out, Jesus’ “strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12.9). Personal or corporate weakness.

The Church must apply this same remedy. It does not need to despair, even though it may look at its body and see a huge gaping schism, oozing sin at every level. Repentance brings remission. “John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins” (Mk. 1.4). Peter added a bonus, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2.38).

Do we truly want to be a healthy, vibrant, active, living, Christ-like Church?
If the answer is “yes”, God’s life-giving regime is the one to follow:
“If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God
and do what is right in His sight,
give ear to His commandments
and keep all His statutes,
I will put none of the diseases on you
which I have brought on the Egyptians.
For I AM the LORD who heals you” (Ex. 15.26).

Healthy and free to follow His Plan for mutual care and love within the Body of Christ.

For reflection
1. How can we tell when our church is not healthy, when it is not living up to God’s desire?

2. What is your responsibility in helping your church to mutual care and love?

3. Pray daily for your church, that it might be more like what God intends. And pray for yourself, that you might be a faithful “member” of Christ’s Body. What will that look like today?

If there were not great diversity among you, you could not be a body. If you were not a body, you could not be unified. If you were not one, you would not be equal in honor. It is because you are not all endowed with the same gift that you are a body. John Chrysostom (344-407), Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians 30.5

Pray Psalm 143.5-12.
Pray for your church, that the Lord would bring out all the gifts He has bestowed on your fellow believers and grow your church in greater unity and maturity in the Lord.

Sing Psalm 143.5-12.
(Divinum Mysterium: Of the Father’s Love Begotten)
I recall the days of old; on Your works I meditate—
all the wonders of Your mighty hand, works both small, O LORD, and great.
LORD, my thirsty soul cries out for help to You! 
To You, LORD, I reach my hand
in a dry and weary land.

Answer quickly, O my LORD! Do not hide from me Your face!
For my spirit fails and I am like those who do not know Your grace.
In the morning let me hear Your steadfast love;
LORD I trust You, show my way!
I lift up my soul and pray!

Rescue me from all my enemies! LORD, I refuge seek in You.
Let me know Your will, O LORD my God; make me know what I must do.
Let Your Spirit lead me on to level ground;
save my life! Preserve my soul!
Rescue, LORD, and make me whole!

T. M. and Susie Moore

The Church in Corinth was in need of revival. But there was much to be done before that would happen. The Church today is in need of revival, and the same is true for us. Our book, Revived!, can help us to discern our need for revival and lead us in getting there. Order your copy by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter, available by clicking here.