God's Story Is Our Story: From Acts to New CreationSample

Like we saw yesterday, Corinth was a competitive and individualistic city. It was a place where one could get ahead by being smarter and stronger than others. This culture lead to a divisiveness within the church. Paul urges them to have a unity that is countercultural. He tells them that the church is made up of Jews and Greeks, slaves and freedmen.

In order to help them understand what it means to live in unity, Paul makes a long analogy with the human body. The body has many unique, individual parts, but is still one body. No part should feel insignificant because it's necessary to the body. No part of the body can say I don't need any other part or that I don't need the body.   The church is composed of individuals but functions as a whole.

Paul says that this means instead of thinking merely of our own personal relationship with God, we have a commitment to the wellbeing of other Christians as well. We can't isolate ourselves only with the people we like, that are easy, or that don't require of anything of us. We are called to suffer with each other and to prioritize attention to the parts that are weaker.

This is a different way of doing community than our culture, but Paul tells us this is what Christ is doing. He is joining people together. He is arranging the body. This is the story he is telling.