Suffer & Rejoice

1 Corinthians 12:26 "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it."

How often have you stubbed your toe and just not cared? I would guess never. The entirety of your body reacts, your face scrunches up in pain, your hands usually grab the toe in an effort to make it stop hurting, your other foot helps you jump up and down for some odd reason. The point is, the body is so perfectly connected, that what happens to one member, affect the whole body.

Paul is using the body here as a metaphor for the church, Christ's body, the body of believers. The question becomes, have we become so disconnected from each other that we no longer feel the pain or joy from the other members? In your own church, how many people are you this connected with? How many people do you merely shakes hands with on a Sunday and ask (without actually caring) "How'd your week go?"

Imagine that you're the toe in Paul's metaphor. You get stubbed and the body just keeps going, completely unaffected by your pain. A body like that won't last long. We need each other. In order to be an effective church, we must be so closely connected with all the members that we suffer and rejoice as one. This is unity.