Kristen

Exactly, Craig. Paul is using a body metaphor here for the church. Elsewhere he uses a head-body metaphor for Christ’s relationship with the church. I think it’s a mistake to conflate the two metaphors or to try to make them apply interchangeably. It’s also a mistake to see some kind of mystical, literal actuality where Paul intended a metaphor. In other words, Christ is not in some real, mystical sense an actual head, and we are not in some real, mystical sense an actual body. Nor is a church leader an actual mouth, or a prophet an actual eye, or a missionary an actual pair of legs. . .