“. . . the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” Ephesians 4:16
When each part of the Body of Christ works as it should, the different gifted members grow in proportion to one another. The growth of one part should be matched by the appropriate growth of the parts surrounding it. When that growth is uneven, however, a lack of balance is created which has consequences for the body’s performance in meeting various challenges. Sports and sports medicine have taught us many things in the past few decades that greatly enhance our understanding of our own bodies, how they grow, and how they respond to different stresses and injuries. We can also apply these insights to the Church and how the Body of Christ responds in similar circumstances.
We know that the human body grows best when all its parts grow and gain strength in proportion to one another. Athletes who lift weights to gain in strength and size will sometimes focus on some muscles more than others. These parts will grow larger and stronger than the parts around them up to a point. After a certain level of disproportion is reached the stronger parts will cease to grow, even when they receive continued training and focused attention. The only way for growth to resume is to find the lagging body part and bring it back into balance with the parts around it. Gifted members of Christ’s body can hold back the growth of other members in the same way. Until the weaker person is brought back into balance, stronger members will find growth much more difficult.
Another result of imbalance in an athlete’s body is injury. When the body is placed under intense stress, such as during competition, a discrepancy in strength may lead to serious injury. This is seen when a football player, while sprinting full speed, injures the hamstring muscle that runs down the back of his leg. He has built the strength of his thigh muscle in the front of his leg to such a degree that it exerts more stress during running than the hamstring can handle and this results in a serious tear to the hamstring. While only the hamstring is injured, the effect on the thigh muscle in front is such that it might as well be injured because the athlete can barely walk off the field. A comparable imbalance when the Body of Christ is placed under stress will leave a weaker member injured, but the effect on those with closely related gifts can be devastating as well.
To continue the analogy the football player’s entire body is not affected equally by this injury. His arms still work well and his ability to catch the ball seems unimpeded. This is only true, however, with a ball thrown directly to him. If the ball were thrown just 20 feet away, he would be unable to move his body in position to catch it. His arms only work fine in the limited sphere in which his injured legs can move. Applied to the church, this analogy is seen in evangelists who might be functioning well in their local area, but cannot serve in the foreign country to which they feel called without the assistance of teachers, administrators, givers, and other gifted members to get them into the sphere of operation that God has ordained.
A different form of injury that can occur in an athlete is nerve damage. If a leg fails to receive the signals from the brain to move in coordination with the rest of the body, then that leg must be dragged along as dead weight. In the human body the brain sends the nerve signals to the rest of the body. Christ is the head of the church (Eph. 4:15, 5:23) and all of the members receive their signals from Him. All of the gifts operate in harmony with each other until one gift stops listening to Christ. Then this gift essentially has nerve damage and stops operating smoothly with the other parts of His body. This gifted member not only stops contributing, but actually becomes a burden to the rest of the church. Even worse is when one part is listening to the wrong signal and works in opposition to the body. Then the church must expend valuable energy fighting against the wayward member.
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