We're not all the same, but we are one!

You' can't argue with the logic. A hand looks different from a heart; a foot from an ear; a stomach from a lung - all different, but all come together to make up one body.

And that's the logic Paul uses when he teaches about the body of Christ.

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free —and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

1 Corinthians 12:12-14

We are diverse, but we are one. We are all different, and we all come together to make up the church.

Often, when I think on this passage, my mind turns to gifts - how we all need each other, as a body needs each of its parts to function well. Yet that is not the point made here. Here, our attention is drawn to our different backgrounds. Jews, Gentiles, slave and free - it doesn't matter, all are one.

That's why I think this is a global picture. We may apply it locally, indeed we need to live it out locally. But we must not miss the big picture. There is one church, one body - which covers the whole world, and all of history. We are united by one Spirit. We rejoice together, we mourn together. We are one.

How do you need to live our unity out? How can you better remember the global church? Who do you need to work through your unity with in the local church?