Many Members, One Body

“For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” -Romans 12:4–5

Paul will expound on this idea of the church being a body more thoroughly in 1 Corinthians 12. But Paul was not the first to introduce this idea of a people being likened to a body. This was a thoroughly Roman idea that was first introduced in the 6^th Century BC by Menenius Agrippa who defeated the Sabines and sought to win the sympathies of the plebs by likening the body politic to that of a human body. 

Because the human body is made up of many parts but flourishes when all of the parts function properly and in harmony with each other, by Paul’s time, Romans considered themselves to be body politic that functioned best in similar manner. 

Paul picks up this idea that is deeply embedded in the minds of these Roman Christians and shows them that the church, the body of Christ, functions the same way. The difference being Christ is their new head. Having offered their own bodies as a living sacrifice to Christ because of the multitude of his magnanimous mercies, the Roman Christians were members one of another, each with different gifts and functions within the body of Christ.

And, thus, so are we believers in the 21^st century, members one of another, functioning as one body, Christ being our head.