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To: William Terrell
The Church is not like a Hefty bag full of blenderized skin cells, muscle cells, etc. each one alive but independent. Rather, the Church is an organized body with its own specialized and coordinated tissues, organs, and systems.

Read how comprehensively St. Paul develops the truth that the Church is the Body of Christ:

1 Corinth. 12"There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit....

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 1For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body...

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.

If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?

But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

This shows that the Church is an organized body. We don't all have identical roles.

Rev. 2:7, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

The Spirit teaches the chuches.

Acts 20:28, "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood."

The Spirit has appointed overseers, shepherds for the flock.

1 Tim 3:15T The Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth

The truth is entrusted to the church, not to each sheep going its own way.

Eph. 4:4-6, "There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all."

The Church is not a disorganized swarm of single-celled organisms, like a billion plankton drifting about in the sea. The Church is one body: the Body of Christ, organized into structures, each structure (hand, foot, eye) having a different function inthe one one body. A Christian must "think with the Church," the "one body" spoken of with such dramatic effectiveness by St. Paul.

There's no support here for the view of "every man for himself."

321 posted on 05/11/2006 10:53:46 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Read your Bible.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
Do you disagree with the notion that God gave His gifts of the spirit to the individual, to come to Him by choice, to discern good and evil?

322 posted on 05/11/2006 1:44:55 PM PDT by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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