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designed? The pile of bricks, or the bricks that are fashioned into a wall? In which scenario is it easier to steal a brick? In too many churches the preachers and elders are running around trying to get things done by stacking bricks that aren't cemented together and worrying about the devil coming in and stealing one of those bricks when God wants those bricks to be cemented and bonded together. That's the idea of a body.You don't lose a member of your physical body without knowing it, do you? I know I've got absent-minded children, but I've never looked at one and said, \don't know, I had it when I left this morning.\don't just fall away, they don't just disappear. That's the point. Christians are body members. That's what it takes to make us alive in Christ.\ body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we are all baptized by one Spirit into one body%u2014whether Jews or Greeks, slave or freeand we were all given the one Spirit to drink.\ the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, 'Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.\ eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!' And the head cannot say to the feet, 'I don't need you!' On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while ourpresentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.\ you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.\Implications of meaning of body membership.1.Membership involves dependency.The concept of body membership helps us understand that no Christian can function effectively by himself. I am very fond of my hand. I use it to touch, point, grasp, write, and for all kinds of things. It is very useful to me as long as it's attached to mybody. But the

