Daily Devotions
The Strength of Diversity
Reading for June 11th: Job 35-37
Weekly reading for June 7-13: 1 Corinthians 12-16
The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you."
1 Corinthians 12:21
As a rule, human beings do not like diversity. We like for things to be the same, to be homogenous. There are several reasons for this, but perhaps the main reason for this is that diversity is hard.
Diversity is hard because it forces us to love the different. White people don't understand black people. Black people don't understand whites. The poor think differently than the rich, and the rich see things differently than the poor. The same is true of educated and uneducated, old and young, male and female...
But diversity is something God has built into the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12 speaks of the diversity of miraculous spiritual gifts God placed into the body, but there are certain natural gifts that are mentioned in other parallel texts about the body (Rom 12; Eph 4). These natural gifts are spread throughout the diversity (age, race, education, etc.) we have in the body of Christ.
It is for this reason that we must resist the temptation to gravitate to people just like us. It's easier to relate with people just like ourselves, but if we only go to churches that are homogeneous or if we only visit with people in church that are the same age, education, race, economic level as we are, then we are robbing ourselves of one of the great strengths God has blessed us with in the body.
Father, help us to love those who are different and to find the wisdom and strength and encouragement you want to bless us with in the variety you've given us in the body of Christ.
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