I Corinthians represents, in part, Paul’s attempt to respond to a series of crucial issues facing the nascent Corinthian church.  How does wisdom relate to discipleship (see 1-4)?  What are the ethical implications of Christian living when it comes to sexuality and family (see 6-7)?  How should Christians respond to food that has been sacrificed to idols (see 8)?  And, most relevant to today’s lectionary passage, how are spiritual gifts to be properly exercised in the church (see 12-14)?  Here, Paul “informs” his sisters and brothers about the work of the Holy Spirit in creating one body with many diverse parts.  It is in this context – a fractured Christian community that is confused about the Spirit’s gifts – that Paul famously demonstrates the truth that agape love is indeed “a more excellent way” (12:31).

 

Throughout I Corinthians 12, Paul utilizes the metaphor of a body to explain what it means to live into a community that is worthy of the name “Christian.”  “For just as the body is one,” he says, “and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (12:12).  The body is animated only through the combined and unified efforts of its many parts; diversity is not a hindrance to the proper functioning of the body, but rather is completely vital to it.  The body metaphor captures the dynamic relationship between diversity and unity, between varieties of gifts and the same Spirit, between varieties of services and the same Lord, between varieties of activities and the same God.

 

In addition to the notion of the body, Paul interweaves two other key themes into his pastoral wisdom for the Corinthians.  First is the notion of the “common good,” which Paul invokes in verse 7: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”  The sense is clear, yet profound, as individual Christians receive the Spirit not for themselves, but for the benefit (or “profit” or “advantage”) of all.  The activity of the Spirit is for the good of the church, not to be claimed as “private property.”  Paul’s emphasis on what he calls the common good – here animated by the Spirit – drives much of his advice in I Corinthians.

 

Another theme that Paul skillfully incorporates is that of baptism.  In fact, right in the very beginning of I Corinthians, Paul appeals to baptism as the theological foundation that lends support to the genuine unity among Christians.  Even while acknowledging the discord among believers (in 1:12 some say, “‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ’”), he appeals to the fundamental unity that really exists for them all, for all were baptized, as Paul later says, “into one body-- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-- and we were all made to drink of one

Spirit” (12:13).  While even the earliest Christians experienced serious divisions in their midst, Paul emphasizes the notion that the unity to which they have been called, and indeed baptized, in Christ is ultimately more determinative than their disagreements.  They are the very Body of Christ. 

 

BY CHRIS LIU BEERS, PROGRAM ASSOCIATE

NC COUNCIL OF CHURCHES