Romans 12:4

f. καθάπερ γὰρ : For language and figure cf. 1 Corinthians 12:12. Also Ephesians 4:15 f., Colossians 1:18. The comparison of the community to a body the social organism is very common in classical writers: see Wetstein and Jowett here. πρᾶξιν : Romans 8:13. It is that at which the member works in modern language, its function. Every member has its gift, but it is limited by the fact that it is no more than a member: it is not the whole body. 1 Corinthians 12:17. οἱ πολλοὶ ἓν σῶμά ἐσμεν ἐν Χριστῷ : many as we are, we are one body in Christ; it is the common relation to Him which unites us. In the later passages in which Paul uses this figure (Eph., Col.), Christ is spoken of as the Head of the body; but both here and in 1 Corinthians 12 it would agree better with our instinctive use of the figure to speak of Him as its soul. His own figure of the vine and the branches combines the advantages of both. τὸ δὲ καθʼ εἷς ἀλλήλων μέλη : this qualifies the unity asserted in ἓν σῶμά ἐσμεν. It if not a unity in which individuality is lost; on the contrary, the individuals retain their value, only not as independent wholes, but as members one of another. Each and all exist only in each other. 1 Corinthians 12:27. For τὸ καθʼ εἷς see Winer, 312.