We Need Each Other
When Paul wrote about the Church and specifically each of us as Christians, he used the unique illustration of the human body to his point across.
More than 30 times in his letters to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Ephesians and the Colossians, he used the word “body” (soma) to illustrate the functioning church.
Almost half of the times that he used the word, he was referring to the physical human body with its many parts and members.
The rest of those times he applied the term to the Church — the body of Christ.
Paul’s most extensive use of this human body analogy is in his letter to the Corinthians.
Because of their immaturity, Paul had said that he could not speak to them as “spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1).
Because of this, he makes the comparison between the “human body” and the “body of Christ” — the Church.
Thirteen times in 1 Corinthians 12:14-26 he uses the word “body” to illustrate how the body actually functions.
Today, as we examine these verses, let us look closer at why Paul places so much emphasis upon the Church as a body.