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. (1 Corinthians 12:14-20)

God’s design is that there should be mutual dependence between believers; however, the Bible teaches this mainly in relation to public ministry and not the individual’s faith. It is often said in one way or another that a Christian who is disconnected from a community is doomed to failure, but this teaching is more autobiographical than it is biblical, and it is manipulative rather than supportive. It is propagated by people who are either weak in themselves or by leaders who prefer to threaten people than to improve their own ministries. As they stress corporate faith and worship, although their intention is purportedly to strengthen the church and its members, in reality their error has been a major factor in perpetuating the lack of power and commitment in believers.

The trouble is that their doctrine amounts to a denial of the fullness and sufficiency of Christ. Jesus Christ is sufficient to sustain and nurture each individual believer entirely apart from any other believer. There is only one Father, and one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. The church is not our mother and not our priest. Rather, each Christian is a priest, divinely ordained to his position, with full rights to approach the throne of heaven, and to receive and administer all that God has to offer through Jesus Christ. A Christian can receive all of Christ through faith, and that by direct contact with God, without the church’s assistance, and still less its permission. Any doctrine different from this is an attack on Christ’s sufficiency and mediation, and must be regarded as heresy.

The focus here is the principle, and not that an isolated faith is always preferable or that one should deliberately pursue it. And when the concern relates to the principle, we must insist that the popular doctrine that renders community a matter of necessity comes not from God’s revelation, but from unbelief and pessimistic assumptions about an individual’s potential in Christ. When it is taken for granted that community is necessary for the flourishing or even the survival of the individual’s faith, then to encourage corporate faith becomes the same as to encourage personal weakness. This is also a disservice to the community, because instead of coming together out of love, now a bunch of weaklings congregate out of need to leach upon one another.

Jeremiah was very much alone, and Paul at times had to face the greatest trials by himself, but Jesus Christ stood with them and was sufficient for them. You say, “But I am not Jeremiah or Paul.” Right, and when you continue to think like this, you will never be anything like them. You are not Jeremiah or Paul, but you trust in the same Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, so that there is no difference. Thus we must never sacrifice the sufficiency of Christ to maintain the importance of church fellowship. And if you cannot get through the day without depending on some other man to hold you up, at least do not infect someone else with your unbelief and weakness. Likewise, preachers who deny the sufficiency of Christ for the individual in order to preserve the importance of community ought to be resisted. The church is indeed God’s design, but not for the purpose of the individual’s spiritual survival. Jesus Christ is sufficient – more than sufficient – for each person apart from the community. This is nonnegotiable.

When it comes to the public setting, as in a church gathering or the community’s daily affairs, God’s design is indeed mutual dependence, and no one person can represent the entire body or perform all its functions. Rather, each person is set in his own place according to God’s will. As Paul writes, “But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” We are not all meant to do the same things, or focus equally on the same things. Sometimes an evangelist would pound so hard on the primacy of evangelism that it makes everybody else feel guilty for not doing as much as he does. But he is not feeding any orphans. Then the one who does nothing but feed orphans comes along and makes the evangelist look like a coldhearted hypocrite. God has set us in our own positions, and we must not define the entire body by any one function that we obsess about: “If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.”

Here is where the distinction between the individual’s faith and public ministry becomes essential. As an individual, I can perform almost any function in the body of Christ on a small scale, even though that is not my main ministry. That is, I may not be called to lead a nationwide project to feed the hungry, but I would be remiss if a beggar starves to death at my doorstep. But just because I must feed the beggar at my doorstep does not mean that I should lead a nationwide effort to combat hunger. Perhaps God has called me to combat this ridiculous confusion about personal and corporate faith instead. In other words, each person should be a complete believer, but no one person needs to be an entire church.

You may not think about your little toe very often, but if you have ever sprained it, you suddenly discovered that you depend on it all the time. Now it hurts when you stand, when you turn, when you walk. What happens if you get a tiny paper cut on your finger? It hurts when you do almost anything – it hurts when you write, when you drive, when you cook, when you throw a ball – so that “if one part suffers, every part suffers with it.” Likewise, the person who processes paperwork at church, or perhaps who does the accounting, receives little attention, but imagine the chaos if he is suddenly removed, or if he is incompetent or dishonest.

To press the previous point once more, if you preach at church and somebody else cleans the floor, it does not mean that he also cleans your floor when you get home. And if you clean your own floor at home, it does not mean that you have to clean it at church, unless that happens to be your job. Again, Christ is sufficient for each believer, so that each believer should be complete, but each believer does not perform all the functions at church, so that at church there is mutual dependence. A theology of the church that in any degree compromises the total sufficiency of Christ or the potential and responsibility of the individual is false doctrine.

Now a person may increase in proficiency and a gift may increase in power through prayer, study, and regular use, but the ability will seem native to him, and not artificial or forced. A person who cannot perform, say, administrative duties may very well receive the ability after conversion, but it will become natural to him from then on. An eye is an eye because God has made it an eye. Thus for an eye to be an eye, it only has to be itself. It does not have to become something that it is not, nor should it be jealous of or pretend to be some other member in the body. This is how it will function according to its true purpose and potential.