I recently heard a person in my church family claim that it is wrong for the rainbow to be used by those who promote gay pride. I suggested to this person that the Scriptures do not delineate how the rainbow can be used as a symbol. They agreed, but still felt it was wrong. I disagree with their viewpoint.
Are there people in your church family who think differently from you? What do you do about that? Avoid them?
Read Philippians 2:1-11 again, and I want you to notice the selfless movement in the passage. I believe that selfless movement is precisely how we can achieve peace even when we strongly disagree with people. What direction is the movement? The movement flows two ways in this passage. In this post we look at the first direction, and in the next post, the second direction.
The first direction of movement is outward.
In verses 1 through 4 Paul is talking about relationships in the church. In verses 1 and 2, the theme is unity. In verses 3 and 4, the theme is humble otherness. I would argue that to achieve unity and humble otherness, two incredibly important qualities needed for peace, we must have a viewpoint that looks outward.
What I mean is that we cannot expect that others will look toward us. That’s when we expect others to support us, think like us, give to us, serve us. If we expect others to bend to us, then the focus is really on us. Worse, we are less likely to think that we need to serve them, support them, give to them.
Peace and unity point the individuals in a church family to have primarily an outward focused view. Peace and unity encourage us to ask “How can I help, serve, love, give to the others in the church family? Who is hurting? Who is marginalized? Who is oppressed? Who is difficult? Who is struggling? I give of myself to serve them.” We don’t wait for them to come to ask. We actively keep our eyes open, and we observe, we seek to put ourselves in their shoes, and try to understand their perspective, what they are going through, so that we are the ones who take the initiative and serve them.
Paul uses the word “like-minded”. The word Paul uses there is about attitude. He is not saying that we need to have all the same ideologies, but we do have the same attitude. Having the same attitude is especially important because there will be so many times when we have different ideologies. That same attitude is the foundation for unity. It a willingness to have a Christ-like attitude while living in close community with people you might differ with when it comes to ideology.
Purple Church is just about the church. The question of the week, however, “How do we allow the love of Jesus to bring peace to America?” is talking about the wider society. Not just the church. And yet, the inclusion of “the love of Jesus” in the question narrows the answer primarily to Christians. Furthermore, my blog is written to Christians. Do any of my readers have a national impact? Maybe. But my guess is that most of you do not have a national impact. And that is okay. It’s normal not to have a national impact. That doesn’t make you any less important.
So let me reframe the question a bit: How can we allow the love of Jesus to bring peace to the people who live in our local communities? You and I rub shoulders with a variety of people each day. Our neighbors, coworkers, family and friends. What will it take to allow the love of Jesus to bring peace in the communities, workplaces, school, homes, where you and I actually live?
It will take selfless, self-sacrifice, in which we give ourselves in gracious love just like Jesus gave his life. Read Philippians 2:1–11.
That’s it.
In my book I talk about how sin, from a togetherness perspective, is selfishness. Selfishness is a very American way of thinking, because we are culturally conditioned to believe in the power of one, in individualism, in personal responsibility. I can do it myself. Like Mr. Incredible says in the Pixar film, “I work alone.” I need to do this on my own. There is something less about me if I have to ask for help. There is something wrong with me if I can’t figure it out. Have you ever thought any of those statements? I have many times.
Those individualistic ways of thinking are not all bad. There is something to be said for personal responsibility, for learning new things, for trying new experiences, for stepping out of your comfort zone. I have written about that often on the blog. I do believe that we need to step out on our own, start a new business, travel to a new place, volunteer for a new ministry, sing a new song. Discipleship to Jesus is hampered if we never try new things.
Adventuring and experimentation requires that an individual strike out on their own, at least in part, take a risk, and go for it. And when we do so, we learn and grow as individuals. Even when we fail. Maybe we grow as individuals more quickly and more deeply when we fail, if we have the humble teachability to learn from our mistakes. Suffice it to say, individualistic goals and achievement are not all bad.
But we can elevate the individualistic approach too high, as if individualistic focus is the most important goal in life. And that individualistic way of thinking, therefore, can have a negative effect on the way we view the world, including on how we think about God. If our view of our relationship with God is primarily about you and God, or too much about you and God, then you can miss out on how God views the mission of his Kingdom.
As humans we are not capable of having a complete view of God. His ways are ultimately higher than our ways. But we can have a much more complete view of God by pulling Jesus out of the pockets where we hide him, and allow him to show us how he views the world around us. And in Philippians 2:1-11, Paul does just that. Of course, as do the Gospels. Philippians 2:1-11 happens to be a powerful summation of Jesus’ example that I think is precisely the answer we need to the question. More on that in the next post.
Allowing ourselves to encounter and express the love of Jesus, I believe, starts with humility. By saying, “I need more of you Jesus.” By saying, “I don’t have your love all figured out. I could learn more about it, maybe a lot more. I could live your love more in the day to day, hour by hour moments of my life, maybe a lot more. Teach me to love like you love.” Allowing the love of Jesus to saturate our lives starts with humility. We allow Jesus to be our teacher, our guide, our mentor. Allowing the love of Jesus to bring peace in our land, therefore, starts with us. It requires vulnerability. Let yourself be loved by him, accept the astounding gift of his love in your life.
Back to the question of the week: what will it take to allow the love of Jesus to bring peace to America? As we are examining each part of the question, are you starting to see an answer take shape? The answer has something to do with Christians, followers of Jesus, freely choosing to make the love of Jesus the pattern and practice of their lives.
What about those who are not Christians? Can we force them to believe in and practice the love of Jesus? We could try, but would we want to? No. Free will says that we don’t want to force people to believe in or follow Jesus. We want them to be free, not coerced. That is the beauty of Freedom of Religion. And since this is a question that specifically asked about America, I’ll mention America now.
The United States is a place where all religious views are free to believe and practice their own unique point of view. In other words, the Christian theology of free will supports and encourages the right of people to not be Christian. I’m not saying that we agree with the theology of every other religion. I’m saying that we support their right to be different. That is freedom.
As a result, when the question mentions Jesus’ love, it means that we do not become belligerent and aggressive if there are people in our country or communities who do not agree with Jesus being God, or that Jesus’ particular kind of love is what they want to live their lives by. If we want the love of Jesus to bring peace, we live with love, even toward those we disagree with.
Look at the example of Jesus. The only people he became aggressive to, were people claiming to be God-followers who were legalistic and unloving, primarily the Jewish religious leaders. Jesus, in other words was only aggressive toward those in his own religious family.
That said, the kind of love that Jesus lived his life by, the kind of love he taught, is astounding in its purity, and even atheists have commended Jesus’ love as pure. So the question’s focus on Jesus’ love, I think, would hold true for nearly everyone. And that brings us to the final part of the question, the goal, peace.
In recent years, we have seen lots of unrest in the United States of America. I would argue that the amount of unrest we have seen pales in comparison to other eras in our nation’s history. The Civil War being the worst, by far. We’re nowhere close that level of unrest. Our current national climate also pales in comparison to the unrest going on in many other places in the world today. With that perspective in mind, do we need more peace in America in our day? Yes.
To talk about how to allow the love of Jesus to bring peace to America, I thought about simply re-posting my Purple Church posts from 2021. Some of you who were here then might remember that. Talk about unrest. 2020 was awful. 2021 wasn’t much better. In the summer of 2020, we were dealing with the Covid lockdown and massive disagreements about it. We were dealing with ethnic conflict. George Floyd and many, many other African-Americans had been shot. Third, it was an election year, so we had the intensity of the primaries, the conventions, the millions of political ads, and it was bitter. The upheaval was mountainous. And it pretty much continued right through 2021.
To address the unrest, I preached a sermon about how in the church, we are neither red nor blue. We are Christians, first and foremost. Jesus is our king. We pledge our allegiance to him. The church is a family where red-minded people and blue-minded people put the peaceful love of Jesus far above political ideology, and they practicing loving unity. Red and blue together make purple. One of our goals at Faith Church is to be a purple church, a church family where red and blue mix together in unity, focusing on the love of Jesus that brings them together in peace.
How do we do that? How do we mix when our culture has for years now become more and more divided? When I mention “mix”, I’m talking about peace. How do red and blue have peace? We’ll talk about that in the next post.
In the first century when Jesus was alive, the land of Israel was controlled by the Roman Empire. Rome was the superpower of the day, and they had an ideology called the Pax Romana. Roman Peace. They wanted peace in their empire. And largely they achieved peace.
Do you know how the Romans achieved peace? Peace through strength. They had military bases all over the Empire, including in other nations they conquered. Roman soldiers policed all those lands. If you were walking the streets of Jerusalem or Capernaum with Jesus, you would notice the Roman military everywhere. And when there were uprisings, what did the Roman military do? They acted swiftly with overwhelming force to bring peace. Peace through strength.
That ideology is commonplace in our nation and in our world, and what we will discover this week is that the way of Jesus is very different.
It is another quarterly current events and question and answer week. During these weeks my goal is apply biblical theological teaching to the issues of the day or to answer questions people in my congregation ask. I received the following question:
What would it take to allow the love of Jesus to bring peace to America?
There is a lot to that question. First, the world “allow”. I appreciate that the question mentions the word “allow” because it recognizes the importance of free will.
Jesus himself is not going to force his will on the people of America, let alone any other country in the world. Jesus preserves free will. He does not coerce. He will entice, he will woo, he will interact and speak, but he will not make us choose against our own will. I am very, very glad for that, because that is what love looks like. Love welcomes and pursues. It does not coerce or force. Jesus is love.
When it comes to allowing the love of Jesus to bring peace to America, or any other place in the world, it is the human beings who must choose to allow the love of Jesus to be primary. And because we are talking about the love of Jesus in particular, that means we are talking about people who believe in the love of Jesus as a real and important thing.
Who are the people who believe in the love of Jesus as a real an important thing? His followers. Christians. Christians are people who not only believe in Jesus and his ways, such as his love, Christians are also people who are actively involved in a relationship with Jesus, desiring to become more like him in their thinking and actions, inwardly and outwardly, and they are striving toward that end.
Because this question is asking what we can do to allow the love of Jesus to bring peace, this question is talking to Christians, primarily. Certainly, Christians do not have a corner on the market when it comes to love. Any human can express love, as it is part of the image of God. God is love, and we humans are made in the image of God, so therefore, any human can express love, Christian or not. I believe that nearly every human who has ever lived has expressed love in some form. But this question mentions the love of Jesus. That is a particular kind of love. The love of Jesus is something that we Christians should encounter and demonstrate extremely lavishly, precisely because we are followers of Jesus.
Jesus is God, and God is love, so it follows that Jesus is love. Because we have four books of the Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) that relay the stories of Jesus, we can observe Jesus’ expression of love in action quite clearly. Also, Jesus himself talked about love often. Furthermore, the writers of the New Testament go to great lengths to comment on the love of Jesus. So in the New Testament we have a lot to go on if we want to learn and live the love of Jesus.
Before we begin to look at one of those New Testament passages, in the next post I’m going to talk about how answering this question is uniquely challenging in my American context.
Next week is another Q & A week. Once per quarter I ask people in my congregation for questions or current events suggestions that they would like me to preach about. My goal is to bring biblical theology to bear on that subject to help us think Christianly about the headlines of the day. I received a very interesting question: “What can we do to allow Jesus’ love to bring peace to America?”
How would you answer that question?
Some in America have answered that question by suggesting that public schools need to post copies of the Ten Commandments in their classrooms. A year ago, June 20, 2024, Louisiana passed a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in all Louisiana public school instructional classrooms, regardless of the subject taught in that room.
Last Friday, June 20, 2025, though, the US 5th Circuit of Appeals rejected that notion, blocking the law. The very next day, June 21, 2025, Texas governor Greg Abbott signed a law defying the appellate court decision, requiring all Texas public schools to post the Ten Commandments anyway. Now some Texas parents are suing the state.
It seems the opposite of peace has resulted from the idea of posting the Ten Commandments.
If it is so controversial, why do some people believe that posting the Ten Commandments is a good thing? Their rationale is that the ethical statements in the Ten Commandments are the foundation of the Judeo-Christian heritage of the Founding Fathers, and that it would benefit children in our country to have a regular reminder of those ethical statements, whether they are studying math, science, or English. Continue following the logic of that rationale, and the hope is that posting ethical statements will lead to children becoming ethical people, and that will bring peace to America. Also, the proponents suggest, it is just a good thing for children to learn about the ethical heritage of our country.
How do you feel about that? I disagree with the logic undergirding the Ten Commandment Posters. Please hear my heart. I do not disagree with the ethical content of the Ten Commandments. In my view, all but one of the ten are repeated in the New Testament. Guess which one is not repeated? Answer is at the conclusion of the post below! What I disagree with is simply the logic that individual and cultural change flows from posting ethical statements in public school classrooms. Jesus clearly chose not to disciple his disciples that way. There are far better, more scripturally sound ways to disciple people.
Therefore, on the blog this coming week, I’ll try to present what I believe is a superior answer to the question “What can we do to allow Jesus’ love to bring peace to America?” As I’ve thought about this question this week, I was drawn to Philippians 2:1–11. In that teaching, Paul’s approach to peace is radically different from just posting the Ten Commandments. As a faithful Jew, Paul was far more familiar with the Ten Commandments than just about all of us. Yet, he doesn’t mention them when he talks about peace. He could have, especially because the Mosaic Law says something that could be construed as “Post the Ten Commandments” (see Deuteronomy 6). What Paul does mention, however, is an idea that I believe is exactly what we American Christians need to apply to our lives to bring the kind of peace that God desires in our communities.
The answer to which of the Ten Commandments is not repeated in the New Testament? #4 about the Sabbath. Christians, no longer under the Old Covenant, are not required to follow the Sabbath law. We can, however, follow the sabbath principle, and that is what my sermon mini-series in July will be about.
Some people might think that because they aren’t public speakers and don’t teach a class or lead a ministry team, they are not as valuable to the mission of Jesus.
But think about people who come in during the week and clean the toys in the church nursery? Those people are just as important as the people who teach the kids. Think about people who show up unannounced and pull weeds around the church property? We need those people just as much as we need the people whose names are listed on the staff page on the church website. Think about people who regularly visit homebound members? Those people are just as important as the people who are up front singing or playing instruments. All are important! All are needed. Let us support and encourage one another. Care for one another equally!!!
Paul’s illustration of the body reminds us that while some gifts were greater, all are important.
Hands could easily start to go around acting like they are more important because of the unique elements of their role. They could argue, “Well, we put food in the mouth, and without us, none of you would get the energy you need to keep going. So we are best. You better start seeing things our way, and you better accommodate our needs first of all.”
This happens in the church too. We can start to think like that about our gifts, our role, our importance. This passage is a clear teaching that it is not about me. It is about putting Jesus in the position of pre-eminence.
I am so encouraged how I see people using their gifts at Faith Church. I hear about people paying for other people’s bills in a time of need. They are using the gift of giving. Some keep the use of their gifts very private. I greatly respect that.
From my viewpoint it is so cool to see how people of all shapes and sizes, hands, feet, eyes, and ears are using their gifts for the Lord!
If you don’t know your gifts, one of the best ways to start learning how the Spirit has gifted you is to start serving. Try out many different areas of service. Even ones that seem a bit scary. Serve in a church ministry for a year. Help out behind the scenes. As you serve, ask God to reveal to you more about your gifts. Ask for input from others around you.
All are gifted, all are important. Let’s use our gifts to glorify God, to bring unity to the church, and to care for one another in need.
As we continue studying 1 Corinthians 12:12–31, in verse 28 Paul puts the gifts of the Spirit in an order appointed by God.
FIRST – Apostles
SECOND – Prophets
THIRD – Teachers
Then, workers of miracles, gifts of healing, help others, administration, speaking in tongues.
If you’re reading that thinking “Time out, Joel. In the previous posts in the series, you said all spiritual gifts are important, but here Paul is clearly saying that God appointed some to be greater gifts?”
I, too, see how that could seem contradictory. But remember the original situation that Paul is addressing? Disunity, because some in the churches were wrongly placing a premium on the gift of tongues. Take a look at where the gift of tongues falls in that list? Dead Last.
Paul is saying that God did appoint some gifts as greater, but not the ones the Corinthian Christians were focusing on. In chapter 14, the gift of tongues, Paul says, has an important role, but the gift of tongues should be seen as far inferior to other gifts.
So is Paul saying that the first three are better? No. Remember he said that all the gifts are important and needed. But he does teach that God appointed some gifts that will serve in a leadership role. Let’s look at each of those three.
Apostles are one who fulfills the role of being a special messenger (generally restricted to the immediate followers of Jesus Christ, but also extended, as in the case of Paul himself, to other early Christians active in proclaiming the message of the gospel)[1].
The original 12 apostles were all chosen by Jesus. Then Judas had his issues. But then in Acts 1 we read the story of when God chose Matthias to fill the spot vacated by Judas. Then lastly, in Acts 9, Jesus chose Paul in a very special manner. Finally it does seem that people like Barnabas and Jesus’ brother James came along later and very much filled an apostolic role. Throughout the ages, apostles are those who extend the kingdom of God in new ways and regions. They are missionary entrepreneurs.
Prophets are people who speak for God, most often for the purpose of pointing to injustice and sin and calling people repent. Rarely do prophets predict the future. Instead the prophetic message is usually “if–then.” “If you continue rebelling against God, then you will face the consequences of separation from God, so repent and return to him.”
Teachers, are pretty easy to describe… “one who provides instruction.” In the church there is to be a primary focus on the teaching of the Word of God.
To make sure that there is no question about how the Spirit of God distributes the gifts, verses 29-30 are a list of seven questions and the form of each question is better translated: “Not are all apostles, are they? Not are all prophets, are they?” And so on, each with the obvious answer…NO!
Paul says that not everyone has all the gifts, and not everyone is gifted in the ways that people consider to be the best gifts, and not all are gifted in the top three gifts.
Yet that is okay! Why? Because of what Paul spent so much time on already! All the gifts of the body of Christ are important and needed.
Do you hear that? All are important and all are needed. You are important and you are needed.
The Lord needs you, the church needs you, the mission of God’s Kingdom needs you.
We need you to use your gifts!
It is okay to desire the greater gifts. That’s how Paul finishes this section: eagerly desire the greater gifts. What does that mean, I think, when I read it? That everyone should desire those top three gifts? The word that Paul uses is where we get our English word zealous. Be zealous for the greater gifts. It could be translated “to be deeply committed to something, with the implication of accompanying desire—‘to be earnest, to set one’s heart on, to be completely intent upon.’“[2] Or translated “set your hearts, then, on the more important gifts”.
Though we might not know precisely how the Spirit gives out gifts, Paul is saying that it is okay to desire these greater ones, but that desire must be held in check by all the things that he already said. That all the gifts are important. That no matter what gift you have, you using your gift is vital to the functioning of the body. We shouldn’t be jealous. We shouldn’t be angry at God because he didn’t give us a different gift. We should learn to be content with the gifts we’ve been given, and we should joyously use them.
You might notice that the NIV stops this section right in the middle of a sentence, something it rarely does. There is a reason for that. Paul is finishing a main idea, unity in diversity of gifts, but he has also set the stage for making one of the most significant points of the entire letter. That though there are a few gifts that are more important, there is something even more excellent than the more important gifts, something more excellent that applies to them all.
That is Paul’s focus in the next chapter, love. The diversity of the gifts works so well together in a church family when the people that make up the church family love one another.
Today let us focus on the idea that gifts are to promote unity in diversity.
I first got glasses in 3rd grade, and then contacts since I was 16 yrs old. My eyes are terribly near-sighted. If I don’t have my contacts in or my glasses on, it feels like my entire world is out of focus, a blur.
For the last couple years I’ve also needed reading glasses. Contacts for distance, reading glasses for up close.
Without either contacts or reading glasses, my eyes are only good super close up. And that’s not so good for living in our world.
Because of my need for corrective lenses, I have felt for many years how important eyes are. When something doesn’t work right, you realize how important it is. And that principle is related to the body metaphor Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 12. Paul writes that the body is analogous to a local church.
It could be very easy for one person to start getting all high and mighty thinking that it doesn’t need the other people. I could be very tempted to think, just like Paul says in verse 21 that the eye doesn’t need the hand.
Yet, doesn’t it seem that some parts of the body are more important than others?
But look at Paul’s corrective in verse 22: those seemingly weaker parts are also indispensable. Take my contacts out, for example, and I am in bad shape. One time while running, I wiped the sweat off my head by rubbing my shoulder against my eye socket. The pressure of my shoulder popped my contact out. It rarely happens, but it did that day, and for the remaining few miles, I had blurry vision in one eye. I didn’t like it at all. It reminded me that eyes, while extremely delicate, are indispensable.
Paul continues this theme in verses 23-24, and he spices it up with some humor: Less honorable parts we treat with special honor. Unpresentable parts are treated with special modesty. But presentable parts need no special treatment.
You read that right, Paul talking about private parts of the body! I think there must have been a snicker in the room when the church at Corinth read that passage. Again, Paul’s point is clear. Certain parts of the body are covered up, treated with a special modesty, meaning that they are important. So if you think your gift, your role is inferior or not important, you are wrong. You are all important! Even if you are serving behind the scenes, hidden.
In verses 24b–26 Paul makes more correlation between the human body and the church. God put the body together and God has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it. There should be no division in the body, and all parts should have equal concern for one another! Suffer and rejoice together!
Next Paul describes how the body metaphor relates to giftedness in the church.
Look at verse 27: Paul reviews how the human body is a metaphor for the church—the church is the body of Christ, each of you are a part of it. Every single one!
Then in verse 28, just like the body has different parts, eyes, ears, hands, feet, etc, so the people in the church, the body of Christ, have different gifts. The parallel is clear:
Human body – different parts
Christ’s body – different gifts
All are important! All should care for one another. There should be no division. All are needed!
Do you have a part of your body that you don’t like? Some people don’t like feet. Another famously disdained part of the body is the nose. I suspect that nearly all humans have a part of their body they don’t like. That fact is what Paul talks about in 1st Corinthians 12:12.
First, Paul points out that the body is a unit. It is one body, but it has so many different parts to it. Inside and out. The amazing thing is how these parts work together.
When we think about our body, do we think of our bodies as a unit? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. We might want to change that part of our body we don’t like. While I am aware of all those different parts, I identify myself as one person. As Paul said, a unit. This is the word for the number ONE. The body is one. We don’t see ourselves as divided up into two or three. We generally see ourselves as one. Count how often in this passage Paul uses the number “one”. In just a moment, he will explain what that observation about the oneness of the body is so vital for Christians.
But, next, within that one body, there is a great amount of diversity, which we clearly see both on the outside, “head and shoulders knees and toes” and on the inside: heart, brain, muscles, bones, etc. Our bodies are comprised of so many unique parts.
Put these two concepts together and we see that the body is unity in diversity. Paul is using common human anatomy to describe the church. In verse 13, he explains how the human body is like the church.
We were baptized by one Spirit, into one body.
Jews, Greeks, slave, free, are the main social categories present in their society. He could have added rich and poor as well. But despite that diversity…
All were given one Spirit to drink.
Interesting the mention of liquid. Baptism and drink, both in connection with the Spirit. Baptism here refers not to water baptism, but the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that moment when the Spirit fills us, when we accept Christ.
Here in 1st Corinthians 12:13, Paul wants to remind the Corinthians of the Spirit who is the unifying presence among them. They might look very different in terms of their ethnicity or position in society, which are the world’s categories, but in God’s eyes they are one, the body of Christ.
As we continue in verses 14-20, Paul illustrates this further. What happens if the parts of the body start thinking that they are less important? Are they actually less important? Not a chance. But they can seem to be.
A foot may start thinking, “Geez…the hands always get to hold stuff. Look how cool that is. The hands are constantly shaking other hands, meeting new people, interacting with the world. We feet rarely meet new people, and we suck at picking stuff up. And we stink! Feet get sweaty and smelly. The hands are constantly getting cleaned, but we get washed maybe once a day. I even hear people say they hate feet! No one says that about hands. Maybe that’s why they cover us up so much with socks and shoes!!!! I hate being a foot. I do not belong to this body.”
Paul’s point is that no matter how disconnected it feels, it still belongs, and the foot is important.
Paul humorously depicts the eyes talking too, and why? He wants to show how the individual parts can feel less important, but actually each part has a super important role! Just lose your feet in an accident, and all of a sudden you’ll find out how drastically your life will change.
Many parts, he says in verse 20, make up one body. All are important. But he goes on in verse 21. It could be very easy for one part to start getting all high and mighty thinking that it doesn’t need the other parts. We’ll talk about that in the next post.
A person once told me they felt they didn’t have any spiritual gifts. I wonder if you have ever felt that way? You look around church on a Sunday morning, and it is easy to just see teachers, worship leaders, singers, musicians, and preachers. Did God pass you by?
Are some gifts more important than others?
What about the pastor? What about the teacher? What about the leaders? What about the Bishop?
Our world is accustomed to seeing certain abilities as better than others. Just look around and who gets the most attention? Surgeons. Athletes. Entertainers. Politicians. We value them. Interview them. Want to hear their opinion.
I have an idea for a No Name Pastor Podcast. Not only would the podcast not interview the big name famous pastors who you can watch on TV or online or read their books. The podcast wouldn’t mention any names at all. It would be entirely anonymous. Even the hosts of the podcasts would never share their names.
My guess is that the podcast wouldn’t work. Wouldn’t gain traction. People want to attach a name to a face, and also there are many ways in which anonymity means avoiding accountability. On a No Name podcast, you could say all manner of craziness and never have any accountability for it. Not good. But there is something in me that still wants to try a fully No Name podcast, precisely because just about everything else in our world, including in our Christian world, is about glorying the Big Name preachers. Even in a small church, a pastor or leader can believe that they are somebody special.
It seems the Christians in the house churches in the Roman city of Corinth were elevating some gifts above others. During a worship service, people who had the gift of tongues were given a high place of prestige. It could easily have left some people feeling like they were missed when the Spirit was handing out gifts. Have you ever felt “I’m not a good public speaker,” or “I’m not gifted musically,” or “I’m really shy”? When we think those thoughts, we can believe we are less than. Though our culture prizes and platforms that kind of thinking, in the church that is faulty thinking. Understandable, but faulty.
Paul comes up with an insightful metaphor to help this church realize their faulty perspective. The body.
When we hear Paul mention the body, especially for people that have been around church terminology for many years, it is very familiar. The church is the Body of Christ. Or we call a certain church a local body of believers. Or sometimes just “the body.” We get this from Paul.
When he first wrote this, he saw the human body as a great analogy for the church. There is much about our bodies and the way they work that is very helpful for churches to think about.
In the next post, we’ll begin to read how Paul’s analogy of the body relates to Christians and churches.
Engaging Scripture 