If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. 1 Corinthians 12:26
The people of the church at Corinth just couldn’t get along with each other. They argued and debated everything! Paul couldn’t return there immediately, so he pens a letter and sends it with Timothy. Chapter 12 very clearly speaks to the need for unity of heart with respect to differentiation of function.
In kindergarten the learning process goes like this: See things, define things, give or learn names of things, then sort things. The sorting is actually organizing and categorizing. It is a very efficient way to prepare and store knowledge for fluent, usable retrieval.
This process refines itself as we grow older, but sometimes it becomes perverted. For instance, a child would not say that a ‘b’ is better than a ‘d’. But, eventually sorting leads to qualifying. Students may say that athletics are better than the arts, math is more important that literacy, one gender is superior to the other. Learning has stopped, fighting has ensued and everybody loses.
Paul is very specifically teaching that assigning value to each other’s contribution is toxic! Through salvation we become One Body and we cannot survive this difficult journey without each other! Through our diversity God’s light shines brightest.
Glad my world has a ‘YOU’ in it.
Love,
Gretchen