<p>12:22 <i>No, on the contrary, those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary- </i>Many of those who ungraciously storm out of fellowship with the rest of the body, do so because they complain that other believers are weak, unloving, hypocrites, don't practice what they preach etc. And in many ways, their complaints are true (seeing that the Lord came to heal those who need a doctor rather than shake hands with the healthy). But those parts of our bodies &quot;that seem to be weaker...that we think are less honourable... the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty... with special honour&quot; (NIV). The private parts of our bodies are the parts we are most sensitive to, although on the outside they seem weak and hidden. And so Paul reasons that the weaker parts of the ecclesial body should be treated the same. The Greek for &quot;feeble&quot; (1 Cor. 12:21) is used (notably in Corinthians) to describe spiritual weakness: Mk. 14:38; Rom. 5:6; 1 Cor. 8:7,10; 9:22; 11:30; 1 Thess. 5:14. And in some ways, we are all &quot;weak&quot; (1 Cor. 1:27; 4:10). <b>&nbsp;</b>So those we perceive (&quot;that seem to be... that we think&quot;) to be spiritually weak in their external appearance, we should be especially sensitive towards. Significantly, the &ldquo;sick&quot; (s.w. &quot;feeble&quot;) in the parable of Mt. 25:44 are the &quot;least&quot; of Christ's brethren, the spiritually weakest; and at the day of judgment, the rejected are condemned because of their attitude towards these spiritually weakest of Christ's brethren.</p><p>Our attitude to the spiritually weak is a vital part of our salvation. Christian disillusion with Christianity&nbsp; ignores this at its peril. Thus &quot;those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are <i>indispensable</i>&quot; (1 Cor. 12:22 NIV); indispensable for our spiritual development and salvation. So we shouldn't be surprised if we don't like our brethren, if there are things which unbearably bug us about the community. This irritation, this clear vision of the weakness of our fellow believers, is a God-designed feature of our spiritual experience. If the day of disillusion and disappointment with the brotherhood hasn't come for you, it surely will do. But remember how <i>indispensable</i> this all is. Consider all the miserable complaints believers make about us: they gossip about me, they actually fabricate things as well as exaggerate, she stole from me, he disregards me, her son <i>swore</i> at me, would you believe it (I would); they don't ask me to speak, he's such a hypocrite, and do you know what she did... Let's say every word is true. These weak brethren and sisters who are doing all this are &quot;indispensable&quot; to the salvation of the one who suffers all this, <i>if</i> he responds properly. Just walking away from them is to effectively put ourselves outside the body. We <i>need</i> them, the Spirit says, we need all the mud, the comments and the undermining and the upstaging and the betrayal, all at the most sensitive and hurtful points.</p>