24.What does Paul teach us in verses fourteen through seventeen? .

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The physical body is made up of many integrated parts. Each of the parts is dependent on and derives its importance from the rest of the body.

The concept of the interdependence of the parts of the physical body teaches us certain facts concerning the Church, the Body of Christ, and of Christ Himself.

One fact concerns sectarian loyalties within the one Christian Church. What a destructive abomination they are when viewed from the concept of the many-membered Christ!

Another fact concerns the relationship of the Church to Christ. It is the relationship of spiritual marriage. A head cannot function without a body. A body is nothing at all without a head.

A third fact concerns the relationship of the saints to each other. If we consider the believers as parts of one body, of which Christ Himself is the Head, we understand that a much closer bond exists among the saints than we may have realized. Before the Holy Spirit is through constructing the Church we shall be one in a very deep sense, just as Jesus prayed in the Seventeenth Chapter of John.

It is obvious the multitude of competing institutions that today term themselves Christian churches are primitive, unformed raw material from which God will create the Body of Christ, the Wife of the Lamb, the new Jerusalem.

The varied manifestations given to the saints are organs and parts of one Body of Christ. Each saint is necessary for the proper health and functioning of the Body, and each saint is dependent on every other member of the Body.

For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith (Romans 12:4-6).