Chapter # 12 Paragraph # 2 Study # 3
November 3, 2019
Humble, Texas
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Thesis: The realities of the physical body adequately illustrate Paul's summons to "right thinking".
Introduction: In our study last week we noted that men have a powerful penchant for longing to be seen as superior to others. Mark said in his Gospel that the "
beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ" was seeing Jesus as The Solution to
that depraved lust. Paul, in this letter, has made reference to this problem area in men on multiple occasions, but primarily he has addressed it as a "problem" for believers. Thus, if we do not see this as the root of Paul's present words, we will misconstrue the "significance" of those words and be led into the shadows of darkness.
Thus, this evening we are going to look into his words on this foundation.
- I. The Words of 12:7-12 Are "Explanation" of What, For Men, Is A Difficult Truth.
- A. The conjunction that Paul chose to use to lead into 12:4 is the typical "For" that always signals that there is an explanation on the way.
- B. But this "For" is immediately followed by a "comparative conjunction" that Paul only used twice in this letter: 4:6 and our current text.
- 1. It is instructive that this comparative conjunction is only used in 13 texts of the New Testament, making it relatively rare for the "comparative" sense: its use is reserved for situations where the parallels in a comparison between items are several and particularly similar.
- 2. It is also instructive that Paul chose to use this same term in 1 Corinthians 12:12 where the issue is the same: the physical body is a unit even though it is a composite of many parts and as such a "multi-particular-unity" it serves to illustrate the relational reality of Christ's "body".
- C. Thus, we can see that Paul is attempting to make sure that his readers, as believers, both understand, and embrace, the issue of the "right thinking" he insisted upon in 12:3.
- 1. In regard to Paul's "right thinking claim", we need to make a clear distinction between what he is addressing and what he is not addressing.
- a. He is addressing the issue of using the appearances of "success" to embolden one to think more highly of himself than is warranted.
- b. He is not addressing the issue of why God has made the decisions He has made in regard to the issues involved in what is "apparently obvious in respect to the levels of fruitfulness that exist among believers".
- 1) Jesus, Himself, taught that there would be varying levels of fruitfulness among the members of the Body of Christ (Matthew 13:8), but He did not address the "whys" of that reality in terms of God's decisions.
- 2) At issue in our text is the declaration that "faith" is the root of the degree of fruitfulness is explained as a matter of God distributing varying "measures of faith" to the members of His Church, but it does not even begin to attempt to explain "why" He has done that.
- 3) Even in the actions of Jesus in respect to "discipling" His apostles, it is clear that He made the choice of Peter, James, and John to be a kind of "inner circle" within the Twelve, but it is not clear why He allowed James to be martyred relatively soon after the "building of the Church" began and preserved Peter by miraculous intervention, or why James was killed early and John lived well into his nineties and died a natural death.
- 2. Additionally, we need to understand that Paul did focus upon the reality that it is "faith" that is the root of the fruitfulness of every believer.
- a. This focus upon "faith" is absolutely critical in what Paul is attempting to do in terms of blocking "pride" from rising into one's "thinking".
- b. The reason for this focus is that "faith" is always presented in the Scriptures as the human side of "results", but it is always God Who actually produces those results.
- c. The reason this is so important is that if it is God Who actually does the "producing", no man has any reason to boast.
- d. But, since this is true, men, in their penchant for self-exaltation, retreat to the "faith" issue and then begin to think of themselves as superior because they have "more faith".
- 3. Thus, we can see with more clarity why Paul addressed the reality of God's varying degrees of "faith" in terms of "measure": if God determines the measure of "faith", man can take no credit and, thus, feel superior.
- a. This entire issue is wrapped around the problem of "feeling superior" and Paul erases every basis for such feelings; destroying "boastfulness" by pointing to God as the Responder to "faith" and by pointing to God as the very Author of the faith to which He responds.
- b. Thus, we can see what Paul is attempting to do.
- D. Thus, it is only man's penchant for self-exalting delusions that makes God's distributing of "faith" in varying "measures" a "difficult truth".
- 1. The "difficulty" is that men turn God's gracious actions into a way to "blame" Him for the absence of "faith" in so many (if He is the root, and producer of the fruit, of "faith", then why does He hold men accountable for their "unbelief"?).
- 2. This is the same issue that he raised in 3:5 and the answer is the same also in 3:9: are we "better"? No.
- II. Paul's Analogy in the Human Body as a "Helper" to Understand.
- A. Creation realities exist.
- 1. As soon as God determined to "create", He had certain limitations upon Himself by the nature of what is possible (He, for instance, could not create "equals" because even God cannot create God).
- 2. As soon as God created the human body, He had certain limitations upon Himself by the same nature of things.
- B. Because the human body is not a body if it is all one, equal-in-function, entity: 1 Corinthians 12:17; If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?
- C. Thus, even in physical creation reality, there are differing functions and impacts of the individual parts (one can more easily get along without an appendix than without a big toe).
- D. So, who is it that makes one member a "pinkie" and another an "eye"?
- E. The bottom line: each member is to function according to God's gracious gifts with humility.
