The Body of Christ - part 1

All right, so we're hand out now at this point, which may be good, actually. I do have an open Bible here, so we will begin reading it. I thought in preparation for today that we really had to go back and read from verse 1 through 20, as Roger taught last week. And it sets the stage for next week. Randy, you up next week? So this is a kind of a continuum and it's really a chapter that really holds itself together only from one through the end of the chapter. So I thought it'd be worthwhile. I think we have time this morning because the section that Roger's given me is one of the simpler sections he's given me. That doesn't mean I'm cocky about this presentation. But anyway, yes ma'am. they got the readout, it's not leukemia.

Chapter 12, verse 1, now concerning spiritual gifts, actually gifts is in parenthesis or italics, so therefore not in the original language. Brethren, I would not have you be ignorant. You know that you were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as you were led. Wherefore, I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which works all in all.

But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, and another word of knowledge, and by the same Spirit. And to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit. and to another, the working of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another, discerning of spirits, and to another, diverse kinds of tongues, and to another, the interpretation of tongues. Now, the new section for today. But all these work that one, the self-same spirit, divides to every man severally as he will.

For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, or whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one spirit. For the body is not one member, but many.

And that the foot shall say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body. Is it therefore not of the body? And if the ears shall say, Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? And if the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? And if the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now hath God set the members, every one of them, in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are many members, yet but one body.

The gifts, and I think it would be interesting for us as responsible to bring the word here and discuss it with you that what was mentioned in 12 may in fact in part transition to the gifts in 13 but not entirely. So I think we have to put this into perspective in terms of what's for today.

All right, so you've got the handout and now I'm sharing with you. I'm not waiting for the next thing to come up on the screen because I don't have a presentation on the screen this morning. I have one, but my stick got left at home. Anyway, so Randy, I'm not sure it's worth trying to retrieve that. We can just go with the handout today. I mean, the thing is it went to your dad's personal email. I was at left field this morning. So anyway, OK.

So, verse 12, but one and the same spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as he wills. What things? Well, the handout has an answer already. So these are the things, that's why we read the first ten verses. I mean, these are the things that the spirit is going to work through, right? Distributing to each one individually. So I think a question that often comes up is, which one do I have?

Well, let's not think about that or worry about that right now. And some of these may have been for the time only. We'll come back to that. So I call them endowments, these various things, wisdom and teaching, et cetera. And notice the freedom and flexibility of the spirit. The Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as he wills. Does that mean that some of these endowments in fact could go to the same person at different times? Yes, I think so. Margaret says yes, I hear no disagreement. Presumably this could be transition from one person to the other, gifts of healing, gifts of prophecy, tongues, interpretation of tongues, etc. Notice the freedom and flexibility.

I've also brought up to you Hebrews 2.4, God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will? But in context, this is fully capable of God manifesting himself individually, flexibly, to meet the need for the expanding gospel of the time.

And the question is, how much does that relate to us today? And I just made a note there, remember the historical timing of these things. Well Bob, last week when I presented the gifts that are mentioned in the first part of the chapter there, all the ones that are mentioned there seem to be focused on the early church. And you don't see that, you don't see those. Later on you'll see gifts that are focused on the church age. But those, as I mentioned before, some people take that and kind of run with those and think, well that's how I should live. And like I said, they live in the book of, try to live in the book of Acts, which is of all this early church things going on.

But it's just not the way the church, not the way Paul presents the church certainly. And he'll address these later on. He'll go through. He's not spent a long time on tongues about about the whole issue of tongues. In fact, that seems to be the focus of why you present a lot of this material. Well, we'll get there.

And I think that's why I mentioned remember the historical timing of these things. These, for the most part, not entirely were really for the apostolic age. Well, I, I remember contact with this idea of spiritual gifts and particularly tongues was emphasized as you said and it was one of those things where I'd heard nothing about it all the way up until somewhere in late junior high and then suddenly it was everywhere and then I had no answers I had no context I didn't understand Acts I didn't understand 1st Corinthians But I certainly did not understand this verse here, where the Holy Spirit gives as He wills. I really wanted... Everybody always emphasized, you know, seek the greater gifts at the end of this chapter. Especially prophecy. And I was obsessed with all of the wrong information. So teaching through this carefully and actually looking at what it says is super important. I guess this came up at a dinner table with some friends last week.

Does God still prove himself by miracles? Is that relevant for today? We know God is capable of every miracle, historically documented and prophetically to come. But yet, interpreting this section we have to think that the spread of the gospel and the age in which the gospel is being spread, these gifts were for a time only. Prophecy. miraculous healings.

I mean, people maybe would claim that Susanna's bone marrow was not leukemic because God did a miracle. I actually don't believe that. I think we live in a real world with negative outcomes from the human life we live. The other side of that is that we live in a supernatural world that God is sustaining rather than... We like to treat everything as natural when the reality is that God sustains the natural. He was sovereign over this. The miraculous is everything in that regard.

Do we depend on miracles for God to prove Himself who He is to each one of us as believers? No. Certainly not. Well, now we have the Word. At that time they didn't have the Word. They were sharing by word of mouth. In order for people to believe because of all the... They had all these pagan gods who they worshipped but didn't do anything. I mean, you know, couldn't speak or couldn't... And now they have a God who actually spoke to people and walked among them. And I think they were trying to bring people to the Lord and the miracles were what brought them, you know, to a saving position.

I think there's a certain key verse further along, maybe in the second Corinthians, I'm a little off on the location, but when the words begin, when the perfect comes, the imperfect things will be done away with. 1 Corinthians 13. Yeah, that's in the next chapter. So look at the power of this verse though in the times it was written and it's certainly powerful today.

I think the spirit manifests themselves uniquely and differently in each one of us. Some people believe we all have one gift and we'll get to that as the text continues over the next few weeks. But one and the same spirit works all of these things. All of these endowments are commitments of the Lord, the spread of the Gospel, the Spirit worked all those things and he distributed them, each one individually as he willed.

Boy, powerful verse if you think about it, in terms of the Holy Spirit and his role in that time and now today in a different manner. Any other thoughts on this verse? I think of the section that I studied, I thought this verse really stood out in terms of its importance. And Roger set the stage last week in terms of the temporality of these things for the age. Alright, good.

Verse 12 in first, the body is one, and I think the theme now over the next nine verses is going to be fairly redundant. That's not a criticism, it's simply that the scripture in fact builds on the same theme of the body having many members. To look at this sequentially, For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many, are one body, so also is Christ. So my thoughts here is just as our bodies function as one, so should the body of Christ. I mean, it's a fairly simple allegory or metaphor. I mean, does your right hand think about what the left foot's doing? Not usually.

So Ephesians 1.23, which is the body, which is his body, it's a continuation of 22, which I didn't put for some reason, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all, and Ephesians 5.23, and he is the head of the body, the church who is the beginning, firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminent. Christ is the body, and that's really pretty simplistic, but yet very profound. The body, the church, is the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. And the church has many members, just like our fleshly or physical body has many members.

So I don't think we need to overly spiritualize this. It's simply an allegory or a metaphor that relates the human body that we understand well or maybe don't understand very much. Being a physician-scientist, the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know.

So this is good because it leaves God where he belongs as the creator of all things for all time. But anyway, the verse says one body and that body is Christ. So we'll come back to that too because the verses again going forward are somewhat redundant in terms of this truth. That must make it important. We'll reflect on that too.

Okay, verse 13, for by one spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we are a Jew or a Greek, or whether we are a slave or free, and have all been made to drink into one spirit. Again, that theme of oneness continues to be manifested in this chapter. So I say, if by one spirit we are all baptized into one body, why is there so much division and confusion? Because we're human, and everybody sees everything differently.

Is there a better answer than that? Margaret has an answer. No, I don't. Put that thing on your ear. Your microphone is coming off. I know, I realize that. I've got to get it off my glasses to get it on my ears. It seems like we bring home to the church today. I think Cheryl had the answer. We all have a sin nature. Oh good, okay. So it's sound theology, isn't it? And what's sound theology?

Does the sin nature ever change? That's the problem with being a one-naturist. because you think somehow we're going to improve. It's the social gospel is what it is. Somehow working harder, or being more obedient, or being more legal, ultimately that sin nature, the flesh, the human spirit, if you will, really is capable of improving, being buffed up, so that our behavior reflects the old nature improving in some way.

No, wrong theology. So, being one body requires members to be consistent with the theme of one body, doesn't it? And that's another life. And it's right theology. As long as we're going to be buffing ourselves up and improving our behavior means that ultimately my lifestyle may be different than Winnie's in terms of that process. When we are depending on the flesh to make the body one, we are really in error theologically and doctrinally. So we don't study doctrine for doctrine's purpose to be intellectual. We study good doctrine for our lives in terms of how they are transformed. Any further discussion about that? Notice the oneness of all comers. And here's a thought, maybe time for a little discussion. I think we have a little time today because, again, of the redundancy of this section.

With all the political and racial tension we're currently facing, don't you, time and time again, the papers, the news, you know, one person, you know, a courtroom, whatever. This is an important reminder that the body is one because everyone is equal at the cross. Now, for the believer, I mean, we all see the cross as its worth, right? But This whole idea of the prejudice, racial prejudice, religious prejudice, disabilities, and how people are prejudiced against people with disabilities. All this kind of earthly stuff. is the fact that we'll never be equal on this earth in terms of the social environment in which we live. That doesn't mean that racial tensions, et cetera, don't need to be recognized and understood and put into perspective and tried to improve.

I mean, that's a governmental and social and actually an individual process that we all go through and hopefully can be functional in some way in improving that, but nevertheless, The cross is the only solution to the inequalities that exist today. Everybody's equal at the cross. There's no other place ever where everybody's equal. But at the cross, we're all sinners saved by grace. Equality, black, white, tan, Jew, Greek, man, woman, all the way across the board. And you know, occasionally the Lord will allow me to get into this kind of discussion about politics and race and things like this. And ultimately there are two trump cards that I always play out.

I don't vote for him. Where do you stand on abortion? That's kind of a trump card because once you know if you're, which we I think biblically should be against abortion, that there's no conversation that follows that because there's no way we can reconcile those differences. And the second is this issue, the only equality that ever has been made possible is at the cross.

And so those, generally there's not much conversation after that. And you don't do that in a pejorative kind of manner, it's just you state, where you stand and that's either that begins a very interesting conversation to follow or there's really nothing to follow. Right, honey? Right. Dead in the tracks. Kind of like a pale little cobra at the moment. Shuts the whole thing down. I'm not encouraging any of you to acknowledge this and apply it.

I'm just saying that in terms of equality here, Jew, Greek, female, male, Ultimately, slave or free, the cross is a great equality maker. It's interesting that you bring that up. The Greek underlying, the all or the many part is polos, which is the first part of politics. The Greek philosophers would spend a huge amount of time evaluating the one and the many. How do you make laws that are good for the one and good for the many, and what do we do with that? But the only resolution for that political problem is in Christ. That's a really important thing, and that's why we can derive that theologically. That's why it's sound doctrine. that Paul is confronting the philosophers of the time throughout his letters saying, you guys are trying to do it by the flesh.

And we know what that can do. And the answer is not much. Well, but even in the body, I think Carolyn's saying it perfectly well, in the body of Christ we're looked at as one. God declares that we're one, that there are many members, but yet the members ultimately can be divergent and in opposition of what the overall theme of the body should be. And that's the flesh showing up. And again, even if you get your doctrine straight intellectually, it's the life that plays out, that doctrine, in terms of the new life we have in Christ Jesus.

And that's not something you just plug in and get. That's something by increasingly fellowshipping and being in the Word and getting to know the Lord Jesus Christ personally. And that's how that is manifested. How do we interpret drink into one spirit? What are your thoughts here? Let me read the John passage and then we'll come back to this.

John 4.14, But whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. I did a word study on water or drink and this is the verse that kind of stood out more than anyone in terms of this fountain of water. of spiritual water that springs up in each one of us. And that relates to everlasting life, which by the way isn't when we're dead here in the flesh, but it's now. In everlasting it's historic, it's current, and it's prophetic for each and every one of us believers. So I think maybe that's going a bit too far astray in terms of the interpretation of drink of the Holy Spirit, but I think it has application here. But then I'm going to ask in context, remember we did the Lord's Table a couple weeks ago. Could this some way relate to the Lord's Table? What do you think? Breaking of the Holy Spirit?

Everybody's participating together. We're in full agreement. Okay, that's good. It is kind of a oneness, isn't it, when we partake of the Lord's Table? That's good, Tom, thanks. Somebody read 1 Corinthians 10, 17, if you could. Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Okay, so that's bread, but it's the table. We're all one body, and Tom brought that up. The table is a place where we all congregate around the same important theme, what the cross was all about.

Remember I taught a few weeks ago that the bread I thought was the, my analogy was that it's the sin nature being crucified and that the wine or the grape juice is in fact the blood paying for the sins. But again, you can take that or leave it, but I think the drink here could relate to that same theme that Paul's bringing up later. Why he didn't mention the bread, I don't know. It's just a thought, that's why I put a question mark. I'm not good at symbolism. I'm going to have to tell you that from there. You're not good at what? Symbolism. That's not my thing.

But what I wonder too is, I mean, when I think of water, it's something you consume and it goes through your whole body. Alright. It goes into everything and, you know, you have to have it to live and, you know, there are just things about water that goes with the spirit. Yeah.

And the way Margaret's niece presented was kind of a septic shock kind of thing, which is typically inadequate volume. So she needed to be volume resuscitated. I can't tell you from a medical perspective how many people died dehydrated from whatever circumstances were there before they got to the emergency department. So yeah, good point Carol.

Any other thoughts about drinking of the spirit? I would just contrast that from the Ephesians 5, 18, where it says do not be drunk with wine, but instead be filled with the spirit. That's good. And of course in the charismatic circles, they are talking about being drunk in the spirit. Don't be drunk with wine, but be drunk with spirit. That's not the point. And this definitely follows along. Alright, that's good. That's a good analogy. All right, now we're going to start combining some verses going forward that have kind of the thematics of two or three verses put together. 14 to 15, for in fact the body is not one member but many, and the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?

So the commentators I looked at here were kind of When you really want help from the commentators, they disagree. I'm not kidding you. It's just amazing how much you... I looked at probably... I have this one thing called Online Bible, which gives me about 15 commentators. Some of them are always long, like Gil never quits. And some are very truncated. But nevertheless, here's the theme that kind of came out of that.

Some believe that this and what follows in terms of the other body parts is dealing with inferiors and superiors within the body. Do we agree with that interpretation? And this is an example of this. So the foot in some way is identified as being at the bottom and inferior some way to the hand.

Now, what do you think? The eye is superior to the ear? I mean, I think that's over-spiritualization of this text. But what are your thoughts? Do you think these various body parts, et cetera, are really made to look inferior and superior one to another in terms of hierarchy? And the idea of the church, maybe you have the elders, and you have the deacons, and so these various roles we play in the body really reflect some kind of higher position versus some lower position. I think there's two pieces to that. And one of them is that Paul is still addressing division. This letter is very focused on that. So you can see that coming out.

But the other thing is that culturally there were body parts that were considered. less clean. And I think that's where we sort of get some of the division with like your feet, well your feet, you'd wash your feet when you came in the house because your feet were dirty, you were walking on paths that the animals were defecating on. Your left hand was your unclean hand. I mean those things were literal cultural things that I think sometimes we forget because hygiene in modern-day America is pretty straightforward. We're probably too clean actually. A lot of immunologic disease at least is being attributed to being too clean, not being exposed enough. Okay, go ahead. Forgive my position.

I would say that the greater, lesser attributes, if they're there, they're probably related to cultural areas of those body parts. So you, in a sense, maybe in context, agree that this is a reasonable interpretation, just based on the culture. Yeah, because the Corinthians were so divided about, well, there's the wealthy people who are showing up to communion and they're eating more, or drunk, or whatever else, and the poor are barely making it by. Those kinds of divisions and those greater, lesser things are in the previous context.

All right, good. And that would be the theme that's developed by some of the commentators, too, that in some way the various body parts have different functions and therefore could be looked at relatively inferior and superior because of this type of situation. Yeah. All right, I think my question to the group, second question, is how does this apply within the human and church body?

Well, and I just state here, the medical allegory here is the brain is to the body as Christ is to the church. I mean, again, your brain doesn't cognitively assess what your right hand's doing, your left foot, or what your ears are doing. The brain is the control center. We know from strokes, or people with neurodegenerative disease, that lots of things deteriorate downstream from the brain. So if the brain is the body, I think it relates to Christ being the center of the church. I think the analogy there is a reasonable one, because the brain does control our motor functions.

Again, from eyes to ears, the smell to everything else, the diseases of the brain, which can impact all of these things. That's my medical input here. I think what we see here is that the independent nature of the members is portrayed. How many times have you had just a little ding someplace in your body, maybe in the little finger or something, and you realize how functional that little finger has been? We integrate all these physiological processes into one central reading frame, if you will, in the brain, and when there's a modest harm of any kind, we notice it and it can influence our entire human behavior as we walk and talk. This is a fun section for me medically to think about that.

So I think my opinion here is that although in context and culturally there could be some view of this as kind of making everyone equal, being a foot or a hand, ultimately in terms of the allegory or the metaphor I think this really requires an understanding of the human body and the way it operates, and every part is important, and there's no part that's inferior. We'll come back to that in a second with the eye.

All right, verses 16 and 17, and if the ear, well we're coming back to it right now, and if the ear should say, because I'm not an eye, and I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? And if the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? And if the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? Spelling doesn't get much attention, actually, but it's mentioned here in scripture. So is the eye superior to the ear is the question? It goes along the same line of what we just discussed. Proverbs 20, 12, the hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them. And aren't we thankful we don't have to make a choice of which sense to keep?

Let's take a vote. If you had to lose your vision or your hearing, how many would prefer to lose their hearing? Preferable to see. How many would prefer to lose their vision? I think, you know, isn't it good we don't have to make these choices? I think we all say vision because we can experience one another more in reality. It's virtual. It's really something we're so used to. But think about not being able to hear. Don't you enjoy listening to the radio at times and making your own vision?

What about when you read a book? You don't have to hear to read a book. You need eyes to read a book. But people with braille, I have plenty of patients who are blind for one reason or another. and they're braille-synaptic and friendly, and they experience something differently than we do. But when you read a book, aren't you visualizing what's going on in the text?

So in a sense, that's kind of like hearing. You're experiencing everything. And if you weren't seeing it, anyway, it's an argument that has no end to it. So aren't we, again, glad we don't have to make a choice? I mean, nobody's saying, gee, let's see here. take your hearing away, or take your vision away. I would tend to lean on the fact that my vision is more important than my hearing, but I'm not so sure. I really am not so sure. Now, take my smelling away, that would be fine. It's boring. I wouldn't eat as much. You wouldn't eat as much, right? It smells fun as food intake. It smells the same.

Let's turn to Psalms 139. Somebody read a very important part of the scripture. And this is three or four verses that I think really are part of the backbone of who we are. Remember, the Old Testament is for us, but it's not about us. So the Old Testament, the Psalms, by the way, the Psalms, if you think about them, and I'm going to be countered maybe by some others in the class, the Psalms really are one of the best prophetic books in the Scripture. But everybody go to the Psalms, it's kind of that soft pillow to lay your head on. There's nothing wrong with that, but put it into New Testament church age perspective. But this in the Psalms is the principles of God and who he is. We could go back to Genesis if we wanted. Randy, read that, will you? Psalm 139. You have it? Is it chapter one? No, it's 139. The whole Psalm 139? No, 13 through 16. Oh, 13 through 16. That was the part I was missing. Okay.

For you formed my inward parts, you wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and in your book were all written.

The days that were ordained for me win as yet, but it was not one of them. I'll try posting that in an abortion clinic. Ways of the world, right? I don't think the abortion legislation is ever going to be overturned, because this world is not getting better. This, if you will, is as exemplary as it can be, the principles of God and who we are in his view and his sight. The purpose of that wasn't to get into a discussion of abortion but it really does reflect that our eyes and our ears and our feet and our hands are all constructed miraculously through the creation of life that began in the garden many years ago. My next question then is do we need to overly spiritualize the human body part too? Now, taking what Randy said about the cultural implications of this, what about today?

Do we need to look at one person as a member, as an inferior member in some way, and he or she needs to be lifted up? I really don't think so. I really don't think so. I think the analogy to the human body is one that makes perfect sense in terms of the way the body doctrinally should operate. Every member is important. and there's no cultural implications of a foot being of lesser value than a hand or an eye. My opinion.

He's making a great argument for diversity. And that's how the spirit works, right? Even though the many endowments of the spirit acknowledged are no longer operational, we do have gifts. And that is something we're going to cover in the next few weeks. Any other thoughts about this? Alright, the last three verses of the chapter.

But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as he pleased, and if they were all one member, where would the body be? We don't want fifteen hands. Sometimes you like to have an extra hand. But now indeed there are many members yet one body.

So if God sets the numbers just as he pleased, how do we know for sure? Is that applicable today? And I'm going to say that it is applicable today in the extent that the manifestations of the spirit acting individually did occur historically in a way that's no longer occurring today. But as we study the gifts going forward that is applicable today and I think this is also indicative that God in fact is about his business just as he pleased to in fact work through the body to make it one rather than a bunch of members who are acting independently. What are your thoughts? No thoughts. So how do we know for sure? And we'll cover this in the gifts in more detail, but how do you know what your gift is?

Is this a natural kind of tendency for each one of us to have strengths in the flesh that ultimately God uses as a gift? And weaknesses. And weaknesses. Good, Tom. We could have a class where we could determine what our gift is. Many churches, that's what they do, they have classes. Go to these classes and find out what your gift is. But isn't it interesting, it's all about you. Yeah, exactly. Actually, that's the danger of spiritual gifts, in the sense that you really want to spend the time, if God is giving you that natural ability, supernatural ability, then it will work itself out. You don't really have to do anything special. You don't have to go to a class. No, you don't need a class. Gifts 101. And the graduate level is 201. Once you get through your undergraduate training, then you go to graduate.

No, I think if God is in the business of working his body in oneness, we need to be sound doctrinally to begin with. Once we're sound doctrinally, he's going to play out that life in you. We all are part of Holly Hill's Bible Church. But yet we all are playing somewhat of a different role and he's in the business of controlling that by the Spirit in our lives as we live above and live by faith.

I'm up here teaching. Is that God's using me in the body? Maybe. I'll let you be the judge. The point is I'm not saying, gee, I'm here because God. No, I'm functioning because of the Spirit You know, the body asking me what I'd be willing to teach, and I learn more by teaching than you do from me. I mean, that's the value of being the teacher, because the teacher needs to learn perhaps more than you all do. And I think Roger and Randy both agree with that. I mean, I think we're humbled to be able to share the Word with you and fellowship with you.

But yet, I don't feel that this is a special gift. Only God can be the judge of that. Other thoughts? That's where your gifts can change over time. When you're first a believer, maybe your gift is different than 20 years, 30 years down the road. You've gone through maybe several things that you've been able to be involved with the body in a different way. And as you've grown, your gifts also, I think, can change. Right. And the more you grow, the more you realize there's more growth that needs to be accomplished.

But he's in control of that. But remember, we're not robots down here. By the way, has anybody seen the IMAX robots kind of thing? You ought to go see that in terms of where the robotic age is these days. And science, which is a major, major medical journal, not medical, scientific journal, deals with geographic and geological science, astronomical science, biologic science. They have a new journal called Science Robotics. So this is really impressive, but we're not robots in the faith.

We have a responsibility to live by faith. And what's living by faith? Believing what God has revealed. And really, if we're abiding, then it doesn't matter what my spiritual gift is. Exactly. And I think that's going to be a theme that hopefully the three of us are going to, I mean we agree, I think that theme is going to continue as we get into chapter 13 after the rest of chapter 12.

Okay, how about this, knowing whether or not God has willed you to be an effective member of the body, how about the life of the Lord Jesus exemplified? How are you doing there by the way? What kind of metric are you putting on your performance? Don't go there.

But life shows up as we live by faith. Secondly, or underneath that is kind of sub-bullets, use and service to the body. Well, that's kind of a metric, isn't it? Well, but we know people in the church who are very useful and servants of the body, and maybe others are not. But I'm not measuring performance here, and I don't think God is either, because members have different roles. Some are very, very service oriented, and some are less so, but that's not necessarily any way we should judge people.

Love and compassion for the members? Boy, that's part of being a believer, isn't it? But how are you doing in the flesh, loving other members of the body? The neat thing about loving one another is the fact that Christ said, I want you to love others as I have loved you. How are you doing at that?

That's only New Nature sound doctrine theology. We've had a Bible study going on now for what it's 35 years in our home. It's the same one we have here. But there was a couple at one time where I used to make a statement that was worthy of a lot of discussion.

And from one member, kind of a pejorative response is that you don't have to like everybody. You just have to love them. And that's true. I mean, I don't know about you. We have unbelieving friends who we enjoy being with a lot. I'm not going to go there, but ultimately there are certain times I'd rather be with unbelievers because of the friendship we have with them, but my love for them is like the love for the body. My love for the world is Christ's love in me. Sometimes that's hard because our human nature gets in the way.

But don't put pressure on loving one another. It's really sound doctrine applied by faith. Because, in the flesh, can we love one another as Christ loved the church or died for the world? Remember, he's paid for every sin of every man and woman for all time. It's just some have entered into that faith.

Alright, good, so just some unanswered questions there in terms of how we know whether God's will is being manifested in each of us as members. So I quote Poole here, I thought this was, he's one of the commentators I look at periodically, the multiplicity of members having several uses and offices for the service of the whole body do not make a multiplicity of bodies, the body still is but one. So he, I think, said that well, so we'll leave it at that. So my final point in this morning's dialogue here, fellowship around the word, is let's not worry about what member we are, but just be in Christ and let that show up as God wills and the Spirit leads. Any thoughts or additional input for this morning's text? Okay, Randy's up next week and will finish first Corinthians 12 and then we're going to look at the schedule.

All right, Tom, pray for us, will you please? Heavenly Father, thank you for this gathering. Thank you for your word being imparted and shared and just expanded and explained through the gifts that you've given Dr. Hickel and all of us who are listening. We give you the glory for it as it is being applied in your perfect time, in Jesus' name. Amen.