June 01, 2010
Body Parts
I just had arthroscopic surgery done on a knee. I’ve discovered that by favoring the knee that was operated on, I’m developing aches and pains other parts of my body. My back is strained, the left hip is rebelling from carrying more weight and the right foot is weary of having to be the first foot forward. Paul compares the church body to the human body. I can attest, “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it…” (1 Cor 12:26a NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians during a time when the Christians in Judea were under economic persecution. Those who were acknowledging Christ were being shut out of the market by the people remaining faithful to Judaism, so their living needs were not being met by their own efforts. They were hurting. This was also the period of church history later described in the Letter to the Church of Ephesus dictated by Jesus to John (Rev 2:1-7). The collection Paul was to receive from the Corinthians for the saints in Jerusalem demonstrated the Early Church’s first love to which the Lord referred. John wrote, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (I John 3:17) Certainly then, the burden of financial care for those in Jerusalem was shifted to those in other areas whose financial livelihoods were not under attack. And as the stresses upon other parts of your body to compensate for the weakness of your “scoped” knee caused them pain, the stresses of parting with some of the world’s goods to compensate for the weakness in Jerusalem caused the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Macedonians, and others financial pain.
-----But that is only one of the ways this principle of I Corinthians 12:26 surfaces. We often hear that Jesus internalized the law by His Sermon on the Mount. “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Mat 5:20) The Pharisees were a group of people born of “faithful” reaction to the Hellenistic changes that began occurring after Alexander the Great assumed control of the Middle East. They rejected everything not Jewish and focused sharp attention upon everything commanded in the Scripture. But what they did they did by “monkey see, monkey do” rather than by “monkey see, monkey be.” The Pharisees would have responded much like the Corinthians, Galatians, and Macedonians had they been in the same situation. However, their response would have been from principle of law, rather than from nature of heart.
-----It is precisely this nature of heart which makes those entering the kingdom of heaven more righteous than the Pharisees. Granted, they may not even be as generous as would be the Pharisees. Yet their generosity emerges from a true connection with those who need it. Theirs is an ability to feel another’s pain. That is greater than an ability to avert one’s own pain of penalty from not following a law. To those more righteous than the Pharisees, knowing the joy of the ones they help is cause for joy in themselves. So the incentive becomes receipt of personal joy instead of aversion of personal pain. And Paul said the kingdom of heaven consists of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. So also, when a situation exists that others can not alleviate - the loss of a loved one, the loss of limb, the abandonment of truth, etc., the pain of it registers upon this system of mutual joy and comfort. I have come to believe that the first love of Rev 2:4 is exactly this intersubjective perspective of so feeling the joys, comforts, and grief of others that compulsion to effect joy and comfort in the other naturally occurs within one’s own heart. And its natural occurrence can happen only by the regenerated heart.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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