Message given by Rex Beck on November 6, 2022

In one Spirit we were baptized into one body

1 Corinthians 12:12–13
¹²For 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. ¹³ For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

To each of us was given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good

1 Corinthians 12:7–10
⁷ To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ⁸ For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, ¹⁰ to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

The Spirit empowers each and apportions to each

1 Corinthians 12:11
All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

We learn to live in the body with the other members

1 Corinthians 12:14–15
¹⁴ For the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵ 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.

1 Corinthians 12:21
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

We care for and are connected to the other members

1 Corinthians 12:22–26
²² On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³ and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, ²⁴ which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, ²⁵ that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶ If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

We are the body of Christ

1 Corinthians 12:27
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.