Drawing on a fact we live with daily—the interdependence of all the varied parts of our physical body—Paul created a new image to describe God’s intention for the church. We are, he said, “the body of Christ.” The image is now so familiar that we don’t often think about what it actually means. Paul was saying our varied gifts relate to one another in the same way all the different parts of our body interact. Wholeness depends on each part doing what God designed it to do.

• Paul addressed two challenges in today’s passage. The first is our human tendency to think, “Everyone else should be like me—do what I do, be passionate about the same things I’m passionate about.” So he asked, “If the whole body were an eye, what would happen to the hearing? And if the whole body were an ear, what would happen to the sense of smell?” (verse 17) How hard or easy do you find it to value people whose gifts are very different from yours?
• The second challenge Paul spoke to is our tendency to envy other people’s gifts, to want to be like them. “If the foot says, ‘I’m not part of the body because I’m not a hand,’ does that mean it’s not part of the body?” he wrote in verse 15. Have you ever wished you had the same gifts as someone you greatly admire? What has helped you learn to value and use your own gifts, rather than trying to imitate someone else with different gifts?