1 Corinthians 12:14-20 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For the body is not one member, but many All of which are necessary, that the various sorts of offices belonging to the body may be all performed: thus there must be different gifts and offices in the church of Christ, which all conduce to the advantage and perfection of the whole. If the foot One of inferior gifts and place; shall say, Because I am not the hand Do not appear in a more honourable place, and have not a more important office; I am not of the body I am separated from, or despised by it, in my low situation; is it therefore not of the body Is the inference good? Would it have reason on this account to represent or think itself an outcast? The foot here is elegantly introduced as speaking of the hand, the ear of the eye; each of a part that has some resemblance to it. So among men, each is apt to compare himself with those whose gifts some way resemble his own, rather than with those who are at a distance, either above or beneath him. Perhaps the foot may represent private Christians; the hand, active officers in the church; the eye, discerning teachers; and the ear, attentive hearers. If the whole body were an eye And a man could look, at will, through every pore; where were the hearing That important sense, which admits so much pleasing entertainment and improvement? And if the whole were hearing, where were the smelling A sense which, though less important than the former, is not destitute of its proper delight and its proper use. The sense is, If all the members of the church had the same gifts, though the most excellent, as seeing or hearing, what would become of the church? There must be different offices and gifts for different uses, and each ought to employ his gift, according to the nature of it, for the service of the whole. But now we see God The wise and great Creator; hath set the members in the body as it hath pleased him With the most exquisite wisdom and goodness. If they were all one member Or if the members were all of one form and use; where were the body How could it possibly subsist? But now they are many members Different from each other, possessed of different powers, and intended for different uses; yet but one harmonious, regular body Furnished for the various animal functions, and capable of a variety of sensations and actions. And it is a necessary consequence of this unity, that the several members need one another.