1 Corinthians 12:20Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

If there were not great difference among you, you would not be a body. Not being a body, you would not be one. Not being one, you would not have equal honor. If you all had equal honor, you would not be a body. Not being a body, you would not be one. Not being one, how would you have equal honor? But now, because you do not all have one gift, you constitute a body. And being a body, you all constitute one whole. You do not differ from one another in the respect that you constitute a body. Therefore this very difference produces equality of honor. For this reason he adds: “But now there are many members, yet one body.” Keeping this in mind, let us also put away all envy. Let us neither envy those who have greater gifts nor despise those who have lesser ones. Thus it pleased God; let us not resist. If you are still troubled, consider that another often cannot fulfill your work. Therefore, although you are less than he, in this respect you surpass him. And although he is greater than you, in this respect he is less. Thus you are equal. In the body, members that seem unimportant perform actions that are not unimportant. Yet they often bring ruin even to important members if they are separated from them. What, for example, is more unimportant in the body than hair? But if you destroy it on the eyebrows and eyelashes, you take away all comeliness from the face. The eye will no longer be so beautiful. Though the loss is not great, all comeliness is lost through it. Not only comeliness, but also, to a great degree, the use of the eyes. Each of our members has its own particular activity and a common one. Likewise its beauty is both particular and common. Though they seem divided from one another, in reality they are closely joined. When one is harmed, another is also harmed. Consider this. Let someone have bright eyes, smiling cheeks, rosy lips, a straight nose, and well-ordered brows. Yet if you damage any one of these, you mar the common beauty of the whole. Everything becomes ugly, and what formerly seemed beautiful appears repulsive. If, for example, you disfigure only the edge of the nose, you produce great ugliness in the whole, although only one member is disfigured. The same happens with the hand if you tear off even the nail of one finger.

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you.’ Nor again can the head say to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Cor. 12:21). On the contrary, the members of the body that seem weaker, such as the tongue, the heart, and others, are much more necessary (1 Cor. 12:22). And the members we think less honorable in the body, such as the stomach, the feet, and others, receive greater care from us (1 Cor. 12:23). Therefore, if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it (1 Cor. 12:26). “And you,” the Apostle concludes, “are the body of Christ, and individually members” (1 Cor. 12:27).

This is especially so for the members that seem, for some reason, insufficiently protected or to impair the dignity of the whole body. So also in the Church, those bearers of gifts of grace who possess them in lesser measure may receive the care of others who bear higher gifts. Thus, as in a normal body no member can complain against its position or condition, but all hasten to serve one another and the whole body, so there must be common contentment and mutual help among members of the Church. This applies both generally and especially among the bearers of various spiritual gifts of grace. Finally, the members of the body cannot leave their own condition, perform functions not proper to them, or occupy another place. Each member performs its functions not by accidental position, but according to the foreseen plan of our all-wise Creator. So each member of the Church must necessarily perform his own work, according to his gift. He does this by faith in the all-working and all-sustaining wisdom and goodness of God the Provider, our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the perfecting Spirit, the one Author of all gifts. As though summing up the Apostle’s thought, blessed Theodoret says: “Therefore let each one love what has been given. For if God has apportioned active powers to the parts of the body, then whoever does not remain within the appointed limits goes directly against Him who set those limits.” St. John Chrysostom says: “As the supreme Artist willed, so it came to be. For He wills as is profitable. If we must not be inquisitive about the members in our own body, still less must we be so in the Church.”