NOTES for Co1 12:27-31

The definition of the Church, as the body of Christ, became today almost a reading-book. However it is usually understood rather allegorically, it is supposed that the apostle spoke about a certain "spiritual" unity, by which they generally mean the unity of "faith" (by implying by this a dogma), the conformity of ideas, unanimity and other things of this kind, not going beyond the frame of our world, not yet transformed till the end.

And what the apostle wanted to say? To understand it, it is necessary to remember that in the evangelic time was generally perceived in the Jewish environment the view of Jewish people, as a single spiritual whole. And this integrity was not only defined by a national or religious consciousness, but by the fact that the Jewish people, as people of God, are sanctified by this God's presence, which dwells in the Temple of Jerusalem. And were sanctified by this presence in particular all the people, and not only the part of it, which was in Jerusalem for another feast.

That’s how was understood in the Judaism what we usually call spiritual unity. It existed, as an objective reality, and was implied to everyone, who belonged to the people, and this sanctification became updated in the sacred meetings, which included not only the sacrificial meals of the Temple, but also community meetings, as the synagogue quite as domestic, during which came true the breaking of the bread (examples of such domestic meetings can be, for example, the Sabbath or the Passover Seder).

Paul, who looks at the Church, as the messianic remnant chosen by God, transfers on it traditional and doubtless which are well known to him representations of the people of God, as a single spiritual whole. But he connects this spiritual unity already not with the Temple, but with the personality of the Savior, Who sanctifies those who belong to His Kingdom, quite as the Temple sanctifies all those who belong to the Jewish people. The body of Christ for him, as seen, is a new spiritual body of the new people of God. People with this new Covenant, about which had spoken the prophets.

Continuing the conversation about ministries and gifts, Paul turns to the image of the Church as the body of Christ, an image he often uses in his letters. The origin of this image is connected with traditional Jewish ideas about the Jewish people as one spiritual body sanctified by God's presence dwelling in the Jerusalem Temple. The apostle transfers this idea to the Church as the messianic remnant of the people of God, sanctified in the same way by the presence of the risen Christ in church gatherings.

And everyone who belongs to the Church is part of the body of Christ, a spiritual unity that allows the Kingdom to remain in our world and transform it. But in that case the Church cannot simply function the way various organizations function in our world, including religious organizations. The Church's only task is to remain in the world and reveal the Kingdom to the world, and all church activity is only the forms and means of solving this main task.

That is why the significance of each member of the Church cannot be measured by the function he performs in the sense of external activity. The logic of this world suggests that in every organization the most important and most valuable people are those who perform the most important tasks. The director is more important than the cleaning woman, though at times a scientist may prove more important than the director.

However that may be, the cleaning woman in any case cannot claim the most important place. For the Church, such logic is unacceptable. It is unacceptable for two reasons. First, the fullness of life in the Kingdom of a concrete person is, as a rule, little connected with the function he performs in this world.

It may very well turn out that the cleaning woman is ahead of the director in this regard: her spiritual life may be fuller and more intense, and the work of cleaning rooms cannot in any way hinder such fullness. Then it will turn out that for the Church and its witness the cleaning woman does more than the director. And second, every person is absolutely important for the Church.

After all, the Church's only goal is to open the way into the Kingdom to as many people as possible. What ministry they will carry out in the Church once they enter it is a secondary question. In the end, ministry for a Christian is only a way and form of expressing his own spiritual life. The main thing is that life itself. And here no one can be told that the Church does not need him or that he is not important. If a person is faithful to Christ and lives the life of the Kingdom, then the Church needs him, and without him the Church will be incomplete. This, in fact, is what Paul reminds us of.

Reflecting on the Church, Paul turns to the idea traditional for his time of God's people as a single spiritual body, and applies it to the Church, in which the apostle sees the new people of God. According to these traditional ideas, the Jewish people were sanctified through the presence of God that dwelt in the place chosen by God, and, being sanctified, became one spiritual whole. As a result, no one among the people, even if he lived in a diaspora community far from Jerusalem, felt useless or rejected. And the place of God's presence was the Jerusalem Temple, from which the whole people were sanctified, even those who physically could not be present in Jerusalem. Paul, however, speaks of the new people of God, who are sanctified not simply by the presence of God, as before, but by the whole fullness of that breath of God that permeates the Kingdom brought into the world by the Savior.

For Paul the Church is the spiritual body of Christ Himself, living with Him the one life of the Kingdom (vv. 12-13). And each member of the Church is, in the spiritual sense, part of this one body of Christ (v. 27). And the apostle, apparently not by chance, pays special attention to the fact that everyone in the Church has his own place and his own ministry, so that speaking of anyone in the Church as more or less needed is as strange as speaking of whether one or another part of the body is needed or not needed (vv. 14-18).

Evidently, among the Corinthian Christians there were frequent conversations about "high" and "spiritual" ministries in the Church, or, on the contrary, "low" and "unimportant" ones, as well as about "strong" and "weak" brothers. That is probably why Paul had to remind his readers that all ministries are important for the Church, just as all the organs of which the body consists are important for the body, and also that in the body it is precisely the weakest and most vulnerable parts that require special attention (vv. 19-26). And the matter was not only that contempt for certain members of the Church, or for certain ministries, destroyed the church community. The matter was, above all, the Church itself, those who made up its body: for its normal functioning, which allowed all members of the church community to live a full spiritual life, was possible only if it had not been spiritually crippled by contempt for concrete people or concrete ministries. Such contempt destroys the body of the Church, not only depriving the destroyers themselves of the fullness of the life of the Kingdom, but also preventing the other members of the church community from living by it.

Every country has certain authoritative instruments to sustain order – some kind of government, judicial system, police, council of elders etc. are always there. And at first Israel seems to fit into that pattern. The country has its leaders, judges, elders. But the people of God are more than just a state machine. They are a community – a pre-image of the Church. And the services in such a community are assigned by God who entrusts to the people his prerogatives such as justice, power and counsel – the same way as in the first times of the new-born Church the Holy Spirit appoints faithful to various ministries necessary for the life and growth of the community. What differs – both in those days and now ministry from a secular service is the need to fulfill your duties in constant contact with God, listening to his will and commandments. And those who mistake duties for serving, risk separating themselves from the people of God.