We are not Silos
Notes
Transcript
For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body—so also is Christ.
For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all given one Spirit to drink.
Indeed, the body is not one part but many.
If the foot should say, “Because I’m not a hand, I don’t belong to the body,” it is not for that reason any less a part of the body.
And if the ear should say, “Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body,” it is not for that reason any less a part of the body.
If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?
But as it is, God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted.
And if they were all the same part, where would the body be?
As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” Or again, the head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”
On the contrary, those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable.
And those parts of the body that we consider less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor, and our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect,
which our respectable parts do not need. Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable,
so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other.
So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it.
And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, next miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, various kinds of tongues.
Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all do miracles?
Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in other tongues? Do all interpret?
But desire the greater gifts. And I will show you an even better way.
If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant,
is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs.
Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part,
but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known.
Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love.