18 “But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. 19And if they were all one member, where would the body be?”
10:18
But now
Paul now applies the point to the actual case of the Corinthians.
God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.
God Himself sovereignly arranged each gift in the body of Christ to fit His divine design for the church. The “set” is appoint and used that way in John 15:16:
Jn 15:16, You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
10:19
And if they were all one member, where would the body be?
A body with one member, such as an eye, is a bizarre analogy. There is no justification for feelings of insignificance in the body of Christ. We cannot say, “I do not have an adequate place to serve in the church.” Discontent, with our spiritual gifts, reflects on our view of the sovereignty of God.
PRINCIPLE:
The placement of gifts is a matter of God’s judgment.
APPLICATION:
God placed every gift right where it belongs. If it had been to our advantage to place one ear in the back of our head and one eye in the middle of our forehead, God would have done it. We cannot improve on the human body. We cannot improve on a normal baby. God devised every little aspect of our human body, most of which we take for granted or give little attention to until something goes wrong. If some small part fails to function, then we give it great attention.
If all I had were fingers and no thumb, then my hand would not have the dexterity that it does. Dissimilarity is important for dexterity. Uniformity is man’s doctrine; diversity is God’s doctrine. There is variety in fingerprints. Man loves everything stamped out on the assembly line the same. We have no place to complain about our gifts because God sovereignly gave us our gifts in a dissimilar fashion so that He meshed and synchronized the body of Christ together. There are no accidents with God.
