When my youngest child first moved out of the house he was hyper-focused on physical fitness. The transition to independent living meant, for the first time, he was responsible for his own grocery shopping and his own cooking. The combination of limited finances, his desire to eat healthy and his lack of shopping experience resulted in his decision to regularly eat grilled chicken, turkey burgers and broccoli. By “regularly” I mean for every meal. All of them. A couple months later he began to look unwell, he was chronically tired and had persistent digestive issues. It took some time for us to diagnose that the culprit was his diet. His mother came to the rescue and began to introduce variety back into his system. Voila! The negative effects were undone and he was at full strength within a few days.
There could be no doubt that the body works best when it is fueled by a diversity of foods. As a general principle, making lean meat and a green vegetable a staple of your diet is a healthy choice, but not at the expense of everything else. Other foods (even “less healthy” ones) supplement the main diet and contribute in their own way to the health of the whole body.
Likewise, the church is made up of many kinds of people with a wide diversity of gifts. Without the contribution of each one, the body would suffer.
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. (1 Cor. 12:14–20)
The overarching theme is that there is value in the existence of many parts to the body, but there are two additional things of note in this passage. First, it is God that has “arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as He chose.” Whether God created you to be the ear, the eye or the elbow of the church, be careful not to complain about your part or compare it to others. Dissatisfaction with your role is to complain about God. To covet the gifts of another is to express discontent about the One that arranged each member of the body. Conversely, to disregard or disrespect the role of another part of the body is to criticize God’s design. A condescending attitude takes credit that belongs exclusively to God and assigns it to self. There is no place for grumbling about your set of gifts or of judging others’ because they are handpicked and individually conferred by the God of all gifts.
Second, the purpose of the multifaceted gifts is not to draw attention to diversity itself. In God’s design diversity is employed to promote unity. The context of the variety of body parts passage is 1 Corinthians 12:12, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” The diversity of people and gifts are given in support of the one body. His design is that there is “no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another” (1 Cor. 12:25).
What’s more, Ephesians 4:11–13 reads,
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
This early list of roles within the church was “to equip the saints for the work of the ministry…until we attain to the unity of the faith” that results in “fullness of Christ.” The giving of assorted gifts is to attain a whole-body union in Christ. Gifts have been given to you for the benefit, and to further the maturity, of the church. Diversity serves unity.
Lean meats and a green vegetable are often a good choice, but not exclusively. The body needs many sources of nutrients to be healthy in the long term. The church body needs your gifts. Prayerfully consider how your individual involvement can build up the body of Christ until we ALL attain to the unity of the faith and maturity in Christ. Where can your diversity serve the body’s unity?