The NFL draft starts tomorrow. For months, pro football coaches and general managers have been assessing college players’ athletic abilities and character traits with an eye toward strengthening team weaknesses. Some teams need a quick-thinking quarterback with pinpoint accuracy. Some seek linemen — behemoths with both the heft to open a running lane and the agility to drop back into pass protection. Others lack defensive backs who can go stride for stride against receivers with world class speed. The meat market shopping list goes on, each position demanding its own attributes. We gawk at these individual athletes, but winning depends on team unity, the resolve of each to commit to the whole.
So it is with the body of Christ: “A spiritual gift is given to each of us,”1 and “It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.”2 Then each believer’s individual giftedness leads to a collective diversity among us, some of us spiritually graced with wisdom, others teaching, others mercy — a host of spiritual manifestations bestowed among believers in Christ Jesus. Yet diversity in the body of Christ must not lead to division amid it. Paul uses an anatomical analogy: “There are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you.’ The head can’t say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you.’”3 (And no quarterback in his right mind would ever tell his blindside tackle, “I don’t need you.”) Yes, there is diversity in Christ, but never unto division.
Nor may our unity in Christ translate into conformity among us. Paul writes: “If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?”4 (If the entire offense were wide receivers lined up to sprint downfield, who would ever snap the ball to begin the play?) “But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it.”5
So now what? Peter speaks: “Use [your spiritual gifts] well to serve one another. Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies.”6 Is teaching truly your gift? Then guide the church in the full Word of God. Is it hospitality? Then welcome others with honor into your peaceful oasis of rest. If you are a gifted administrator, leaders need you to bring order to their visionary chaos. Then as we serve each other through our gifts, Peter promises this: “Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ.”7 Isn’t this what we want? Isn’t this our purpose?
(And doesn’t the NFL draft feel a little smaller now?)
Father, thank You not only for including us in Your plan, but also for gifting each one of us for our part in it. May we devote ourselves entirely to Your Kingdom call. In Christ we pray. Amen.
1 1 Corinthians 12:7 NLT, emphasis added
2 1 Corinthians 12:11 NLT, emphasis added
3 1 Corinthians 12:20-21 NLT
4 1 Corinthians 12:17 NLT
5 1 Corinthians 12:18 NLT
6 1 Peter 4:10-11 NLT
7 1 Peter 4:11 NLT)
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Paul Nordman—Author 