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The Whole Body of Christ: Removing Western Individualism from the Reading of Scripture · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking, a deep dive into the cultural
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  lenses we wear when we read the Bible.
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  Specifically, we are unpacking the clash between Western
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  individualism and biblical covenantalism today.
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  Yeah, it is a massive clash. It really changes everything
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  about how we read the text. It really does.
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  Today's material comes from some very comprehensive essays
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  analyzing First Corinthians 6 and 1st Corinthians 12 and the
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  core argument we are looking at is that reading scripture as an
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  isolated, autonomous individual, what it distorts the text at a
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  structural level, it. Absolutely.
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  Does we miss the point entirely? Right, so I want to pose a
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  question directly to you, the listener.
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  Have you ever read a Bible verse, maybe sitting at your
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  kitchen table and immediately ask yourself, what does this
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  mean for my life without, you know first asking, what did God
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  say to his gathered people? I mean, we all do it, it is just
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  the water we swim in. Exactly.
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  But the thesis we were looking at today argues that this
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  tendency makes us treat the local church as like a voluntary
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  association. Right.
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  Like a health club or a subscription service?
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  Yes. You pay your dues, you expect
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  certain religious goods and services, and if you dislike the
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  music style you just cancel your membership.
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  You take your consumer preferences elsewhere, yeah.
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  And the sources point out that this consumer mindset causes us
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  to miss the corporate reality of the blood blot bride of Christ.
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  Because the church is a covenant community, right?
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  It is not a religious marketplace.
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  No, not at all. So to grasp what the biblical
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  authors actually meant, we first have to understand the invisible
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  biases we bring to the text. We have to look at the cultural
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  default of the ancient world versus our own.
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  Which is really hard to do because we do not even realize
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  we have these biases. Right, it is like wearing tinted
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  sunglasses indoors. Oh, that is a good way to put.
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  It Yeah, you are completely unaware that everything you see
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  is colored by them until someone actually points it out.
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  In the West, we have this this captain of my soul mindset.
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  Oh yeah, the rugged individualist.
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  Exactly. Modern society praises
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  self-expression, autonomy, independence from societal
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  expectations. We treat those as the highest
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  virtues. And if you trace that mindset
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  back, it is incredibly revealing.
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  You can look back to the Enlightenment and secular
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  humanism. Right, like Rene Descartes.
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  Yeah, Descartes and his famous, you know, I think therefore I
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  am. He located reality and truth
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  entirely within the individual mind.
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  Wow. And then secular humanism just
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  took that and elevated the individual as the absolute
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  arbiter of truth and identity. But the ancient world was
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  nothing like that, right? The Ancient Near East and the
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  Greco Roman worlds were very collectivist.
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  Extremely. In those societies, the family,
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  the tribe, the city, those were the primary units of identity.
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  You did not exist as this free floating atom.
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  So the group came first. Always.
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  Just look at Roman naming conventions.
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  Oh, I'm reading about this in the source material.
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  It is fascinating. It really is.
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  So the family and clan names, the Gnomen and the cognomen,
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  they took absolute over the individual given name.
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  The prenomen. Yeah, the prenomen.
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  The group was primary and the individual was completely
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  secondary. Your identity was wrapped up in
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  who you belong to. Which brings up that amazing
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  anecdote about the Kumas tribe of Laos.
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  Oh I love that story, it is so eye opening.
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  It really is so. Missionaries presented this
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  tribe with a literal translation of Psalm 23.
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  And you would think they would love it.
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  Right. You would think they would be
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  comforted, but when they read the line, I shall dwell in the
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  House of the Lord forever, they were terrified.
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  Because to their collectivist minds, that sounded awful.
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  Awful. They interpreted A solitary,
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  individualized eternal reward as a permanent alienation from
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  their family and tribe. Like a punishment.
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  Yes, to them, an eternal house for just one person sounded like
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  horrifying solitary confinement. Wow, and that really exposes our
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  own cultural blinders. We read Psalm 23 and we
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  naturally envision a quiet personal retreat.
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  Just me and God in the woods, yeah?
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  But the Krumas tribe saw permanent isolation.
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  Our localized Western assumptions distort so many
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  historical biblical events. Like the Nativity?
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  Oh, the Nativity is a perfect example.
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  We have this Victorian romanticism we grew up with.
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  A quiet, isolated barn birth in the snow.
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  Right, Mary, Joseph, and a couple of sheep in total
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  silence. Just a nuclear family.
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  But the historical reality is so different.
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  Joseph and Mary were of David's lineage, so they traveled to
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  Bethlehem with large clans. Because the Roman census
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  required whole families to move together.
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  Exactly. So when they arrived, the family
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  guest rims, the Cataluma, were already full of other relatives.
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  Relatives who had just arrived earlier.
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  Right, so the Nativity was this bustling, highly communal event.
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  It was embedded in the kinship networks of 1st century Judea.
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  It was a crowded, shared reality, not a private moment at
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  all. No, not at.
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  All OK. But I have to push back a little
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  here, or at least ask a question.
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  Sure, if the ancient world was collectivist, does that make
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  collectivism automatically holy? I mean, should modern believers
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  just adopt Eastern collectivism? That is such a vital distinction
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  to make. No, collectivism is not
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  automatically holy. Because group loyalty can go
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  wrong, right? Oh.
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  Horribly wrong. Scripture judges both individual
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  pride and collectivist idolatry. Group loyalty can become this
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  terrifying idol that suppresses the conscience.
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  Like when family honor requires someone to commit a sin.
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  Exactly. The Orthodox doctrine of
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  justification by faith alone is absolute.
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  No one is saved simply by belonging to a family or a
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  tribe. God has no grandchildren.
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  Right, the individual must repent.
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  But, and this is the key, they are never saved into spiritual
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  isolation. OK.
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  So we are justified individually but brought into a covenant
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  community. Yes, that makes a lot of sense.
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  And understanding that really shifts how we view the physical
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  reality of the biblical text itself.
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  Oh, the actual production of the letters.
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  Yeah, I know. I used to have this totally
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  false picture of the Apostle Paul.
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  I always pictured him sitting quietly at a mahogany desk
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  penning letters by himself. Like a modern solitary scholar.
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  Exactly total isolation. But that is complete literary
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  fiction. Antiquity just did not have
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  private writing desks like that. So how did he write them?
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  Letters are collaborative. They were communal endeavors
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  dictated out loud to ascribe and emanuensis.
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  So he is talking out loud in a room full of people.
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  Yeah, often in highly public spaces like a patrons atrium.
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  Paul was always operating within a ministry team.
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  He always names people in his greetings, right?
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  So symphonies. Timothy Silas.
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  Right. He was deeply embedded in
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  community, in acts. When Paul is left alone in
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  Athens, he feels incredibly vulnerable.
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  He was not a lone wolf guy. Not at all.
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  You know, there is a linguistic point the sources bring up that
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  I find fascinating. The English word you actually
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  works against us here. Oh, because it is singular and
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  plural. Right, since English translates
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  both as you, we modern readers just individualize corporate
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  commands. We read you and think me.
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  Yeah, honestly, a southern y'all or all y'all would be a much
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  more accurate translation of the Greek plural most of the time.
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  And that completely changes the tone of the epistles.
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  These letters were explicitly designed for corporate reading.
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  Like First Timothy 4.13, right? Yes, Paul commands Timothy to
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  devote himself to the public reading of scripture.
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  They did not have letter bound study Bibles to read silently at
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  home. They heard it together.
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  The Spirit breathed out these words to shape a holy community,
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  not just a bunch of isolated individual.
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  OK, so if the you is usually plural, we need to talk about
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  First Corinthian 6. The your body is a temple verse.
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  Oh boy, the classic gym bag verse.
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  Yes, people use this verse constantly as a mantra for
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  personal fitness or healthy eating, but based on what you
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  were saying about the grammar, does that interpretation hold
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  up? The original Greek syntax
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  completely flips that modern interpretation.
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  It is actually wild when you break it down.
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  Walk me through it. OK, so the word for your human
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  is plural. OK, plural yore.
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  But the word for body soma is singular wait.
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  Plural yore, but singular body. Yes, and the word for temple
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  naos is singular, and then in you human is plural again.
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  So the literal translation is what?
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  Do you all not know that the body of you all is a singular
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  temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you all?
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  Oh wow, so it is literally all y'all?
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  Single body is a single temple. Exactly.
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  Paul's not saying God has millions of miniature individual
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  temples walking around. That completely changes the
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  verse. It does, and the specific Greek
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  word for temple adds even more context.
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  He uses the word naos. Is that different from other
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  words for temple? Yes, there is another word,
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  hyrone, which refers to the broader temple priest, the
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  courtyards, the outer walls. But nios means the inner
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  sanctuary, the. Holy of Holies, right?
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  The specific place where the Shekinah glory dwelled, the
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  local gathered church constitutes the singular
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  physical dwelling place of God on earth.
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  That ties into first Peter 2.5 doesn't it, being living stones.
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  Perfect connection. A single stone sitting in a
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  field is useless. It only functions as a stone
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  when it is mortared into the building alongside other stones.
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  But wait, I have a logical question about First Corinthians
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  6. Then sure, if the temple is
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  corporate, why is Paul talking about individual physical sins
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  in that chapter? He is talking about sexual
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  immorality, right? How does a private individual
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  act affect the whole corporate sanctuary?
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  To understand that, you have to look at the specific problem
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  happening in Corinth. It was a Greco Roman
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  protonosticism. Protonosticism, meaning they
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  separated the physical from the spiritual.
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  Exactly. They compartmentalize their
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  lives. They had the slogan all things
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  are lawful. For me, they thought their
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  physical actions had no bearing on their spiritual standing.
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  So they were going to temple prostitutes and thinking it
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  didn't matter. Right.
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  They thought they were just exercising their private
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  autonomy. And what is Paul's correction to
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  that? His theological correction is
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  that a hidden individual sin is actually an act of corporate
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  vandalism. Vandalism.
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  Wow. Because you are a member of the
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  corporate body, defiling your physical body desecrates the
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  gathered sanctuary of God. Because you belong to the Lord
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  and you are linked to the congregation.
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  Exactly. You cannot bring immorality into
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  your body without dragging the corporate inner sanctuary of
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  Christ into it. That is a heavy thought.
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  It really is. So, moving from the temple
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  metaphor to the body metaphor in First Corinthians 12.
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  But your 12 is so rich. Well, it is so full of detail.
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  On this, yeah. And there is a striking detail
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  in First Corinthians 12.12. Paul writes, so also is Christ.
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  He does not write, so also is the church.
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  Yes. Why does he phrase it like that?
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  So also is Christ. That highlights the doctrine of
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  union with Christ. The Spirit baptizes believers
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  into one body, and that overrides massive ancient social
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  divides. Like Jews and Greeks, slaves and
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  free. Exactly.
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  The ground at the cross is completely level.
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  And the text says God arranges the members in the body exactly
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  as he chooses. Yes, this is the doctrine of
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  Providence regarding Church membership.
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  Diversity is a feature of divine design.
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  It is not a problem we need to solve.
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  No. If everyone were an eye, where
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  would the hearing be? Uniformity would completely
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  destroy the body. And to make that point, Paul
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  sets up these really funny, absurd hypothetical
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  conversations between body parts.
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  I love those verses. I look at them as two distinct
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  traps for us. Two sins of comparison, OK.
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  What is the first trap? The first is comparison from
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  below, like an inferiority complex, the foot or the ear
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  saying because I am not a hand or an eye, I do not belong.
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  Which is really disguise envy. Exactly.
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  It was questioning God's sovereign placement.
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  And the second trap is comparison from above
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  superiority. The I saying to the hand, I have
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  no need of you. And Paul uses that to completely
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  upend the Corinthian honor code, which to be honest, is very
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  similar to our modern Western honor code.
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  How so? Society prizes the visible
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  right, the wealthy, the articulate, the impressive, the.
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  People on this stage. Exactly.
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  But God assigns greater honor to the unpresentable weaker parts.
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  Oh, that is so countercultural. Think about the human body, the
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  most vital organs, the heart, the liver.
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  They are completely unseen. You can live without a hand, but
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  not a liver. So in the church.
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  In the church, the unseen prayer of an elderly, bedridden St. is
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  indispensable. That person might be sustaining
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  the body far more than the visible public speaker.
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  That is an amazing perspective. It changes how you look at every
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  single person in the pews. It really does.
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  Yeah. So let's bring this to the core
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  theological reality here, the Christological reality and the
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  covenant application. OK?
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  What are the practical demands this places on our daily?
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  Lives well. The foundation for all of this
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  corporate identity is substitutionary atonement.
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  Christ acted as our federal head.
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  Can you explain federal headship really quickly for the listener?
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  Sure. Think of an ambassador signing a
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  treaty. When they sign it, the whole
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  nation is bound by it, even if you didn't personally sign it.
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  OK, that makes sense. So just as humanity was
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  corporately condemned in the first atom, believers are
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  corporately justified in the last atom.
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  Christ. Because he acted on our behalf.
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  Right. And Christ did not shed his
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  blood to purchase a fragmented assortment of autonomous
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  consumers. He bought a bride.
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  He bought a bride. You know, the sources mentioned
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  the novelist Anne Rice, which I thought was a really interesting
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  example. Yes, her exit from institutional
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  Christianity. Right.
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  She famously claimed that she could quit Christianity while
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  remaining totally committed to Christ.
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  She wanted the head without the body.
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  Yes. And that perfectly captures the
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  modern health club mentality we talked about earlier.
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  People go church hopping the moment they aren't being fed.
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  Or they just treat it like a Spotify playlist.
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  Skip the songs they don't like. Cancel when they are bored.
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  And we have to fiercely refute that idea based on the text.
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  You cannot be united to the head while amputating yourself from
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  the body. It is a theological
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  impossibility. It is self harm.
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  Apathy toward the body is bodily self harm.
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  The text demands mutual care. If one member suffers, all
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  suffer. If one is honored, all rejoice
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  so. You can't be indifferent.
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  You cannot obey First Corinthians 12 and stay
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  emotionally detached from the discipline, poverty, or grief
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  happening in your local church. OK, I have a final clarifying
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  question. I can hear people listening to
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  this and wondering, in pushing back against hyper
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  individualism, do we fall into secular collectivism?
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  Oh, like being grouped by worldly categories?
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  Yeah, like intersectional grievances or grouping people by
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  their class or race. Does this just lead to identity
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  politics? No, absolutely not.
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  Biblical covenantalism rejects both of those extremes.
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  Oh, so it gives personal dignity without autonomy, and it gives
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  corporate belonging without idolatry.
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  It centers on Christ. Exactly.
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  True spirituality is marked by submission to Christ's lordship
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  and the edification of the gathered body.
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  Not worldly categories. Right.
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  And This is why the the ordinary means of grace are so crucial.
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  The word corporate prayer, the sacraments, they.
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  Are flashy. No, they lack the ecstatic
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  display the Corinthians wanted, and they lack the entertainment
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  value modern pragmatism demands. But they are how the spirit
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  builds the body. That is such a good summary.
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  So synthesizing all of this, reading Scripture through a
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  corporate lens, fundamentally alters our faith.
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  It shifts the entire focus. We move from asking what's in it
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  for me to asking how does this build up the body?
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  It is a totally different paradigm it.
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  Really is. So I want to leave you the
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  listener with a final thought to ponder today, Something we
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  haven't explicitly mentioned yet.
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  OK, if our individual physical bodies will eventually die, but
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  the corporate body of Christ will live on into eternity in
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  the New Jerusalem, how should that alter the way we spend our
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  time and resources right now? Does investing our lives into
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  local gathered church actually hold far more eternal weight
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  than building our own solitary personal legacy?
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  That is a heavy question to leave on.
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  It is. Thank you for joining us on this
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  deep dive. Next time you open the word,
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  remember to take off those cultural blinders.