1 Corinthians 12:12

Different Members in One Body

12:12 For just as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body – though many – are one body, so too is Christ.

Exodus 16:8

16:8 Moses said, “You will know this¹ when the Lord gives you² meat to eat in the evening and bread in the morning to satisfy you, because the Lord has heard your murmurings that you are murmuring against him. As for us, what are we?³ Your murmurings are not against us,⁴ but against the Lord.”

Matthew 12:49-50

12:49 And pointing⁵ toward his disciples he said, “Here⁶ are my mother and my brothers! 12:50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is⁷ my brother and sister and mother.”

Matthew 18:10-11

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

18:10 “See that you do not disdain one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. 18:11 [[EMPTY]]⁸

Matthew 25:40

25:40 And the king will answer them,⁹ ‘I tell you the truth,¹⁰ just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters¹¹ of mine, you did it for me.’

Matthew 25:45

25:45 Then he will answer them,¹² ‘I tell you the truth,¹³ just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.’

Acts 9:4-5

9:4 He¹⁴ fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul,¹⁵ why are you persecuting me?”¹⁶ 9:5 So he said, “Who are you, Lord?” He replied, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting!

¹tn “You will know this” has been added to make the line smooth. Because of the abruptness of the lines in the verse, and the repetition with v. 7, B. S. Childs (Exodus [OTL], 273) thinks that v. 8 is merely a repetition by scribal error – even though the versions render it as the MT has it. But B. Jacob (Exodus, 447) suggests that the contrast with vv. 6 and 7 is important for another reason – there Moses and Aaron speak, and it is smooth and effective, but here only Moses speaks, and it is labored and clumsy. “We should realize that Moses had properly claimed to be no public speaker.”

²tn Here again is an infinitive construct with the preposition forming a temporal clause.

³tn The words “as for us” attempt to convey the force of the Hebrew word order, which puts emphasis on the pronoun: “and we – what?” The implied answer to the question is that Moses and Aaron are nothing, merely the messengers.

⁴tn The word order is “not against us [are] your murmurings.”

⁵tn Grk “extending his hand.”

⁶tn Grk “Behold my mother and my brothers.”

⁷tn The pleonastic pronoun αὐτός (autos, “he”) which precedes this verb has not been translated.

⁸tc The most important mss (א B L* Θ* Ë^1,13 33 892* pc e ff¹ sy^s sa) do not include 18:11 “For the Son of Man came to save the lost.” The verse is included in D L^mg W Θ^c 078^vid Ï lat sy^c,p,h, but is almost certainly not original, being borrowed, as it were, from the parallel in Luke 19:10. The present translation follows NA²⁷ in omitting the verse number as well, a procedure also followed by a number of other modern translations.

⁹tn Grk “answering, the king will say to them.” This is somewhat redundant and has been simplified in the translation.

¹⁰tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

¹¹tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited). In this context Jesus is ultimately speaking of his “followers” (whether men or women, adults or children), but the familial connotation of “brothers and sisters” is also important to retain here.

¹²tn Grk “answer them, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

¹³tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

¹⁴tn Grk “and he.” Because of the length of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun.

¹⁵tn The double vocative suggests emotion.

¹⁶sn Persecuting me. To persecute the church is to persecute Jesus.