We are all baptised into one body

For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. – 1 Corinthians 12v12-13

I really love 1 Corinthians 12. To my mind it may very well be the centre and focus of the entire letter. Paul really makes an amazing illustration which equates the body of Christ to a physical body. I can’t wait to read about the parts, but for the moment I want to focus in the unity aspect.

Here Paul, sent out by the far off church at Antioch, in modern terms he would be a member of the church at Antioch reaches out to the assembly at Corinth and says, “We are all baptised into one body, as unified as Christ is. All of us - Jews, Greeks, slaves, and free - are all baptised into the same body which is as unified as Christ’s body. There are local assemblies, but there are not thousands of little bodies running around. One body, with all its diversity, is made up of many parts which all have their own functions.

I really like this. I really, really do. One of the greatest blessings of serving the Lord where we do is that we get to meet members of the body from all over the world. I know Christians from the US, the UK, Canada, Ireland, Spain, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, South Africa, the Philippines, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, well, you get the idea. We have several nationalities in our church at the moment, and it is always fun, exciting, and moving when other parts of the body visit us. We are not all the same. I have a Polish Christian friend, a fellow member of the body, who wears dreadlocks; but he also wears the sweetest appearance of the joy of the Lord in his face.

Praise God for the diversity in the body. Praise God we are not all toes, or eyes, or…oh wait, that’s for later.