God Arranges and Appoints
This is the message I preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church and St. Mark Lutheran Church this past Sunday, 1/24. The text is 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a . Paul writes that we are all "baptized into one body" v. 13.There is tremendous diversity within the groups Paul mentions--some of which are expected, such as Jews and those who are free. But God and Paul also include Greeks, who are Gentiles and slaves who are complete nobodies. And yet, in the waters of baptism, they are made new and become part of the body of Christ. Even from the beginning of the church, God included outsiders in his body. Baptism is the great equalizer that destroys the walls that divide people. Everything in today's epistle is based upon and grounded in baptism. As Lutheran Christians, we emphasize that all we do in life flows out from our baptism. Martin Luther wrote:1 C "Therefore every Christian has enough in Baptism to learn and to practise all [their] life; for ...