Frank

Hi, Cheryl. Glad to hear the Lord has brought stability back into your life and ministry. I haven’t stopped by and chatted with you all for awhile. I’ve been busy with my work as an audit support consultant, plus I just completed a 48 page booklet, Egalitarians and the Bible: An Exposition and Defense of the Egalitarian View of Scriptural Inspiration, Authority and Intepretation–which I have sent off to CBE for consideration as resource material. If I may say so, I think it a good little piece of work, and I think people would find helpful and useful. But the Lord’s will be done as far as its being published and distributed.
Having studied 1 Cor 12 myself, and in no way disagreeing with Cheryl, the only observation I would make on the current topic being discussed is this: We know from the context that Paul’s emphasis is not only on the unity and diversity of the members of the Body of Christ; but also on the parts being rightly related to Christ and one another, so that the Body works together in love and harmoniously accomplishes what the Head desires to accomplish through His Body. Now it seems to me that a clear implication of 12:21 is that the relatioship between the head, eye and hand is that while both eye and hand respond to the Head’s desire to carry out some action, though each has a separate function, yet the relationship between the eye and hand is one of cooperation and interdependency. The eye guides and aids the hand in doing the work the Head desires, but only the Head has the right to tell the hand to begin or to stop. The place of the eye is never to usurp the rule of the Head, but only to guide and aid the hand. And an eye that cannot or will not properly relate to the Head and hand is a diseased eye. Something to think about.