#3 Fitly Joined Together

(1 Corinthians 1:25-26 NIV) For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. {26} Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.

Unity without diversity would produce uniformity, and uniformity tends to produce death. Life is a balance between unity and diversity. As a human body weakens, its “systems” slow down and everything tends to become uniform. The ultimate, of course, is that the body itself turns to dust.

This helps to explain why some churches (and other Christian ministries) have weakened and died: there was not sufficient diversity to keep unity from becoming uniformity. Dr. Vance Havner has expressed it, “First there is a man, then a movement, then a machine, and then a monument.” Many ministries that began as a protest against “dead orthodoxy” became dead themselves; because in their desire to remain pure and doctrinally sound, they stifled creativity and new ideas.

However, if diversity is not kept under control, it could destroy unity; and then you have anarchy. We shall discover in 1 Corinthians 13 that it is maturity that balances unity and diversity. The tension in the body between individual members and the total organism can only be solved by maturity.

Using the human body as his illustration, Paul explained three important facts about diversity in the body of Christ. Why are there different members?

The body needs different functions if it is to live, grow, and serve (vv. 14-20).

No member should compare or contrast itself with any other member, because each one is different and each one is important. I suppose I could learn to walk on my hands, but I prefer to use my feet, even though I have not yet learned to type or to eat with my feet. The ear cannot see and the eye cannot hear, yet each organ has an important ministry. And have you ever tried to smell through your ears?

There is a tendency today for some people to magnify the “sensational” gifts. Some believers feel very guilty because they possess gifts that do not put them into the limelight. It is this attitude that Paul opposed and refuted in this paragraph. Diversity does not suggest inferiority. Are we to believe that the sovereign Lord made a mistake when He bestowed the gifts?

The members promote unity as they discover their dependence on one another (vv. 21-26).

Diversity in the body is an evidence of the wisdom of God. Each member needs the other members, and no member can afford to become independent. When a part of the human body becomes independent, you have a serious problem that could lead to sickness and even death. In a healthy human body, the various members cooperate with each other and even compensate for each other when a crisis occurs. The instant any part of the body says to any other part, “I don’t need you!” it begins to weaken and die and create problems for the whole body.

Paul may be referring to the private parts of the body in 1 Corinthians 12:23-24. If so, then to “bestow honor” on them refers to the use of attractive clothing. The more beautiful parts of the body need no special help.

God’s desire is that there be no division (“schism”) in the church. Diversity leads to disunity when the members compete with one another; but diversity leads to unity when the members care for one another. How do the members care for each other? By each one functioning according to God’s will and helping the other members to function. If one member suffers, it affects every member. If one member is healthy, it helps the others to be strong.

It is God who bestows the gifts and assigns the offices. He has a perfect plan, not only for the church as a whole, but also for each local congregation. We have no reason to believe that each congregation in the New Testament possessed all of the gifts. The church at Corinth was an especially gifted assembly (1 Cor. 1:4-7; 2 Cor. 8:7). However, God gives to each congregation just the gifts it needs when they are needed.

In this paragraph, Paul pointed out that there is a “priority list” for the gifts, that some have more significance than others. But this fact does not contradict the lesson already shared—that each gift is important and each individual believer is important. Even in the human body, there are some parts that we can do without, even though their absence might handicap us a bit.

The Apostles and prophets, of course, appeared first on the scene because they had a foundational ministry (Eph. 2:20). Teachers were needed to help establish believers in the faith. The other gifts were needed from time to time to help individual believers and to build the church.

The construction of the Greek in 1 Corinthians 12:29-30 demands no as the answer to each of these questions. No individual believer possesses all the spiritual gifts. Each believer has the gift (or gifts) assigned to him by the Lord and needed at that time.

The word translated best in 1 Corinthians 12:31 simply means “greater.” Some spiritual gifts are greater in significance than others, and it is proper for the believer to desire these gifts (1 Cor. 14:1). Paul put a high value on prophecy, but the Corinthians valued the gift of tongues. Paul put tongues at the end of the list.

Unity and diversity must be balanced by maturity, and that maturity comes with love. It is not enough to have the gift of the Spirit and gifts from the Spirit. We must also have the graces of the Spirit as we use our gifts to serve one another.

(Ephesians 4:16 NIV) From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Unity is not uniformity. Unity comes from within and is a spiritual grace, while uniformity is the result of pressure from without. Paul used the human body as a picture of Christian unity (1 Cor. 12), and he adapts the same illustration here in this section (Eph. 4:13-16). Each part of the body is different from the other parts, yet all make up one body and work together.

If we are going to preserve the “unity of the Spirit,” we must possess the necessary Christian graces, and there are seven of them listed here. The first is lowliness, or humility. Someone has said, “Humility is that grace that, when you know you have it, you have lost it.” Humility means putting Christ first, others second, and self last. It means knowing ourselves, accepting ourselves, and being ourselves to the glory of God. God does not condemn you when you accept yourself and your gifts (Rom. 12:3). He just does not want us to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to—or less highly than we ought to.

Meekness is not weakness. It is power under control. Moses was a meek man (Num. 12:3), yet see the tremendous power he exercised. Jesus Christ was “meek and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29), yet He drove the money changers from the temple. In the Greek language, this word was used for a soothing medicine, a colt that had been broken, and a soft wind. In each case you have power, but that power is under control.

Allied with meekness is long-suffering, which literally means “long-tempered,” the ability to endure discomfort without fighting back. This leads to the mentioning of forbearance, a grace that cannot be experienced apart from love. “Love suffereth long and is kind” (1 Cor. 13:4). Actually, Paul is describing some of the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22-23); for the “unity of the Spirit” (Eph. 4:3) is the result of the believer “walking in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16).

The next grace that contributes to the unity of the Spirit is endeavor. Literally it reads “being eager to maintain, or guard, the unity of the Spirit.” “It’s great that you love each other,” I once heard a seasoned saint say to a newly wedded couple, “but if you’re going to be happy in marriage, you gotta work at it!” The verb used here is a present participle, which means we must constantly be endeavoring to maintain this unity. In fact, when we think the situation is the best, Satan will move in to wreck it. The spiritual unity of a home, a Sunday School class, or a church is the responsibility of each person involved, and the job never ends.

The final grace is peace—“the bond of peace.” Note that the reason for war on the outside is war on the inside. If a believer cannot get along with God, he cannot get along with other believers. When “the peace of God” rules in our hearts, then we build unity (Col. 3:15).

Many people today attempt to unite Christians in a way that is not biblical. For example, they will say: “We are not interested in doctrines, but in love. Now, let’s forget our doctrines and just love one another!” But Paul did not discuss spiritual unity in the first three chapters; he waited until he had laid the doctrinal foundation. While not all Christians agree on some minor matters of Christian doctrine, they all do agree on the foundation truths of the faith. Unity built on anything other than Bible truth is standing on a very shaky foundation. Paul names here the seven basic spiritual realities that unite all true Christians.

Paul moves now from what all Christians have in common to how Christians differ from each other. He is discussing variety and individuality within the unity of the Spirit. God has given each believer at least one spiritual gift (1 Cor. 12:1-12), and this gift is to be used for the unifying and edifying (building up) of the body of Christ. We must make a distinction between “spiritual gifts” and natural abilities. When you were born into this world God gave you certain natural abilities, perhaps in mechanics, art, athletics, or music. In this regard, all men are not created equal, because some are smarter, or stronger, or more talented than others. But in the spiritual realm, each believer has at least one spiritual gift no matter what natural abilities he may or may not possess. A spiritual gift is a God-given ability to serve God and other Christians in such a way that Christ is glorified and believers are edified.

How does the believer discover and develop his gifts? By fellowshipping with other Christians in the local assembly. Gifts are not toys to play with. They are tools to build with. And if they are not used in love, they become weapons to fight with, which is what happened in the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 12-14). Christians are not to live in isolation, for after all, they are members of the same body.

Paul taught that Christ is the Giver of these gifts, through the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:8-10). He ascended to heaven as Victor forevermore. The picture here is of a military conqueror leading his captives and sharing the spoil with his followers. Only in this case, the “captives” are not His enemies, but His own. Sinners who once were held captives by sin and Satan have now been taken captive by Christ. Even death itself is a defeated foe! When He came to earth, Christ experienced the depths of humiliation (Phil. 2:5-11), but when He ascended to heaven, He experienced the very highest exaltation possible. Paul quotes Psalm 68:18, applying to Jesus Christ a victory song written by David (Eph. 4:8).

There are three lists of spiritual gifts given in the New Testament: 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, 27-31; Romans 12:3-8; and Ephesians 4:11. Since these lists are not identical, it may be that Paul has not named all the gifts that are available. Paul wrote that some gifts are more important than others, but that all believers are needed if the body is to function normally (1 Cor. 14:5, 39). Paul named, not so much “gifts” as the gifted men God has placed in the church, and there are four of them.

The word means “one who is sent with a commission.” Jesus had many disciples, but He selected 12 Apostles (Matt. 10:1-4). A disciple is a “follower” or a “learner,” but an apostle is a “divinely appointed representative.” The Apostles were to give witness of the Resurrection (Acts 1:15-22), and therefore had to have seen the risen Christ personally (1 Cor. 9:1-2). There are no apostles today in the strictest New Testament sense. These men helped to lay the foundation of the church—“the foundation laid by the Apostles and prophets” (Eph. 2:20), and once the foundation was laid, they were no longer needed. God authenticated their ministry with special miracles (Heb. 2:1-4), so we should not demand these same miracles today.

We commonly associate a prophet with predictions of future events, but it is is not his primary function. A New Testament prophet is one who proclaims the Word of God (Acts 11:28; Eph. 3:5). Believers in the New Testament churches did not possess Bibles, nor was the New Testament written and completed. How, then, would these local assemblies discover God’s will? His Spirit would share God’s truth with those possessing the gift of prophecy.

Paul suggests that the gift of prophecy had to do with understanding “all mysteries and all knowledge” (1 Cor. 13:2), meaning, of course, spiritual truths. The purpose of prophecy is “edification, encouragement, and consolation” (1 Cor. 14:3, literal translation). Christians today do not get their spiritual knowledge immediately from the Holy Spirit, but mediately through the Spirit teaching the Word. With the Apostles, the prophets had a foundational ministry in the early church and they are not needed today (Eph. 2:20).

“Bearers of the Good News.” These men traveled from place to place to preach the Gospel and win the lost (Acts 8:26-40; 21:28). All ministers should “do the work of an evangelist,” but this does not mean that all ministers are evangelists (2 Tim. 4:5). The Apostles and prophets laid the foundation of the church, and the evangelists built on it by winning the lost to Christ.

Of course, in the early church, every believer was a witness (Acts 2:41-47; 11:19-21), and so should we be witnesses today. But there are people also today who have the gift of evangelism. The fact that a believer may not possess this gift does not excuse him from being burdened for lost souls or witnessing to them.

The fact that the word “some” is not repeated indicates that we have here one office with two ministries. Pastor means “shepherd,” indicating that the local church is a flock of sheep (Acts 20:28), and it is his responsibility to feed and lead the flock (1 Peter 5:1-4, where “elder” is another name for “pastor”). He does this by means of the Word of God, the food that nourishes the sheep. The Word is the staff that guides and disciplines the sheep. The Word of God is the local church’s protection and provision, and no amount of entertainment, good fellowship, or other religious substitutes can take its place.

Paul was looking at the church on two levels in this section. He saw the body of Christ, made up of all true believers, growing gradually until it reaches spiritual maturity, “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” But he also saw the local body of believers ministering to each other, growing together, and thereby experiencing spiritual unity.

The gifted leaders are supposed to “equip the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the body of Christ” (literal translation). The saints do not call a pastor and pay him to do the work. They call him and follow his leadership as he, through the Word, equips them to do the job (2 Tim. 3:13-17). The members of the church grow by feeding on the Word and ministering to each other. The first evidence of spiritual growth is Christlikeness.

The second evidence is stability. The maturing Christian is not tossed about by every religious novelty that comes along. There are religious quacks waiting to kidnap God’s children and get them into their false cults, but the maturing believer recognizes false doctrine and stays clear of it. The cultists do not try to win lost souls to Christ. They do not establish rescue missions in the slum areas of our cities, because they have no good news for the man on skid row. Instead, these false teachers try to capture immature Christians, and for this reason, most of the membership of the false cults comes from local churches, particularly churches that do not feed their people the Word of God.

The third evidence of maturity is truth joined with love: “Speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15). It has well been said that truth without love is brutality, but love without truth is hypocrisy. Little children do not know how to blend truth and love. They think that if you love someone, you must shield him from the truth if knowing the truth will hurt him. It is a mark of maturity when we are able to share the truth with our fellow Christians, and do it in love. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful” (Prov. 27:6).

One more evidence of maturity is cooperation (Eph. 4:16). We realize that, as members of the one body and a local body, we belong to each other, we affect each other, and we need each other. Each believer, no matter how insignificant he may appear, has a ministry to other believers. The body grows as the individual members grow, and they grow as they feed on the Word and minister to each other. Note once again the emphasis on love: “forbearing one another in love” (Eph. 4:2); “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15); “the edifying of itself in love” (4:16). Love is the circulatory system of the body. It has been discovered that isolated, unloved babies do not grow properly and are especially susceptible to disease, while babies who are loved and handled grow normally and are stronger. So it is with the children of God. An isolated Christian cannot minister to others, nor can others minister to him, and it is impossible for the gifts to be ministered either way.

So, then, spiritual unity is not something we manufacture. It is something we already have in Christ, and we must protect and maintain it. Truth unites, but lies divide. Love unites, but selfishness divides. Therefore, “speaking the truth in love,” let us equip one another and edify one another, that all of us may grow up to be more like Christ.