Paul uses the human body to describe how Christians should interact with each other. The human body has so many different specialized parts, but they can all work together to accomplish amazing things. Think how different our hair is from the taste buds on our tongue. The cells that enable us to hear are so different from the muscles that move food to our mouth. All of these parts are so different, but they all depend on each other to thrive.
The outer parts of the ear are designed to funnel sounds into the ear canal. I assume because of genetics, I have been blessed with sufficient outer ears. My outer ears seem large enough to do a very good job of funneling.
Some 30 years ago, my eyes needed some help so my outer ears needed to hold my glasses on my head. At rst, my ears felt irritated, but they eventually got used to the weight of the glasses being on them.
Then COVID came along. The easiest thing to hang a mask on seems to be my outer ear. As the pandemic wore on, I began to fear that my outer ear would permanently be warped to sticking out. My ears did not like the mask hanging on them, but they adjusted.
Now my inner ear is failing to hear to the point I need hearing devices. You guessed it: they hang on my outer ear.
Because of my recent bout of COVID, I had to wear a mask for 5 days after I had no fever, so I would not infect anyone else. My outer ears are pretty talent- ed, but this overloaded my ears. I found I cannot wear glasses, wear a mask and wear my hearing devices at the same time. I was trying to force my outer ear to do things it was not designed to do.
The same is true of the church. For the body of Christ to thrive, each person must do their part. We each can do things we did not know we could do. We also must do our part so we do not overload others by forcing them to do what we should be doing.