The Disembodied Church

Reflections for this date are based on the following scripture passages:
1 Corinthians 10	1 Corinthians 11	1 Corinthians 12	Leviticus 12	Leviticus 13	Psalms 44	Proverbs 14

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul discusses spiritual gifts and provides us a picture of how God intends for the church to function in fulfillment of His commission to it to be His witnesses throughout the world making disciples in every nation. It is these gifts with which we are endowed as Christians when we first receive Christ that empowers us to fulfill Christ's commission to the church. And it is these gifts which adds the spiritual dimension to what might otherwise be merely a human organization.

Paul used the metaphor of the human body to illustrate the function of spiritual gifts in the church, depicting how the body is healthy when all parts of the body are present and functioning as they are designed to do. Likewise, a church is healthy when all its members are utilizing their spiritual gifts in the manner and grace in which they are intended. Paul makes it clear that when members of the church try to function in ways for which they are not gifted the church becomes dysfunctional and when members fail to exercise the gifts God has given them the church is handicapped.

How is it even possible for a church to operate "in the Spirit" when it gives little attention to the gifts of the Spirit among its members? Few churches of which I have been a part have given more than lip service to the idea of spiritual gifts, and in some hardly even that. Little wonder such churches have no impact in their communities.

The church is the body of Christ. But a church that fails to recognize and function out of the spiritual gifts through which Christ empowers the church to accomplish His commission to it, is, in my mind, a disembodied church.