1 Corinthians 12:27, The Body of Christ

Posted on Friday, November 14, 2014 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular

//This is Pauline theology, and it’s an interesting concept. The Church, says Paul, is the body of Christ.

I’ve mentioned before that the word Christ is a greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah, and both mean anointed, or “the anointed one,” named after the oil of anointing worn by kings. In Greek, oil for hair is Chrism, and the title for Jesus becomes Christ.

So we are the body of the Messiah in today’s world. Put another way, the Church is the current-day messianic reach of the kingdom. It is what the king is doing in the world today.

But what does this really mean? Do any of us feel like world leaders? I doubt it. Rather, we recognize the Kingdom of God as a grassroots movement, starting like a pinch of leaven in a loaf of bread, destined to expand and permeate the whole loaf with the fruits of the Spirit. We are an extension of the life of Christ, the man who “went about doing good” (Acts 10:38) as we seek to continue what Jesus began 2,000 years ago.