Daily Devotions – What is a Church? Pt. 7

Daily Devotions – What is a Church? Pt. 7

 

Click this link to hear an audio version of the below text narrated by SOTH member Jerry Rhinehart:

 

1 Corinthians 12:12-20  (NIV)
Unity and Diversity in the Body
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

In the devotions last week, we looked at our scripture readings and how they related to being a church. This week we will do something similar. When the Apostle Paul wrote his letter, 1 Corinthians, he was writing a personal letter to a particular group of Christians in the city of Corinth (in Greece). This Corinthian church had problems. Paul had been their pastor but had moved on to start a church in a new city. In this part of his letter he reminds us that no matter what role we play in the life of the church we are valued because of the “one Spirit we were baptized into”. No one is higher or lower. No one is more or less valuable. What role do you play in the church? Do you volunteer in the church office? Or are you serving the church by raising your children and bringing them to worship! Do you go to work each day striving to honor God and treat others with love and respect? Do you sing in the choir? You are part of the Body of Christ and that means you are a valued and important member of Shepherd of the Hills.