More Than Meets the Eye or Ear

Most of the time, when I read 1 Corinthians 12, I start thinking about the different parts of the Body of Christ.

Paul identifies feet, hands, eyes, ears, and the nose. I can imagine how each of these parts could be represented in the Body of Christ. However, Paul also mentions other parts:

On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

1 Corinthians 12:22-25 (NIV)

What are these “weaker” parts? Fingers and toes? What about the less honorable parts we treat with special honor? I think the unpresentable parts would be our private areas.

But what I think about is what corresponding roles exist for these parts in the Body of Christ.

Who is the butt? What does it look like to be a butt? How about those other parts?

Why Is Preaching Free of Charge a Reward for Paul?

Since I’ve been a Christian, I have mostly been in ministry. That is, I’ve almost always served as a team leader, teacher, or occasional preacher. I never considered earning an income from ministry as a part-time worker. I had a full-time job and didn’t need the money. But I never had an issue with people who got paid for their ministry work. After all, I aspired to work full-time at a church one day.

However, in the last couple of years, I’ve thought about earning a wage for my work. At my local church, I taught twice a week, but in my “free time,” I worked on this blog. In fact, I’ve put thousands of hours into this blog, producing over 1.9 million published words since 2021. While I’ve tried earning from it through various means, such as ad revenue and donation widgets, I’ve earned nothing—not a single penny. I couldn’t even earn enough to sustain a paid account, so I had to drop to a free tier.

But thank God, the traffic hasn’t stopped flowing. If anything, I get more and more visitors each day, significantly surpassing my previous engagement. While Scripture says I might earn some sort of reward in heaven, I wouldn’t mind cashing in a little of that to upgrade the site. Still, it’s God’s will that this site functions as it does, so who am I to say otherwise?

Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but think of my situation while reading 1 Corinthians 9 and Paul’s view of paid ministry. But what struck me as ironic was Paul’s idea of what constituted a “reward.”

Words

like
birds
circle
and
swoop.

teasing—

Was Paul’s Advice on Marriage Good?

One of the most difficult parts of being a Christian leader is when people listen to you and do what you suggest. You might think that people ignoring your teaching is bad—and it is. But when people trust you, it’s even harder when you make a mistake. In some cases, we learn about our mistakes and can correct them. In other cases, we don’t, and there’s nothing we can do.

I think Paul describes well the hazards of teaching in his first letter to the Corinthians: