1 Corinthians 12:24-25

But, as to functions which of themselves honour those who fill them, there is nothing to add to this intrinsic honour. They resemble the beautiful parts of the body, which would be wronged were they covered. Transparent as the meaning of this parable is applied to the Church, the apostle does not go beyond the figure, as we still find in what follows.

Vers. 24b, 25. “But God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that which lacked: 25. that there should be no schism in the body; but that all the members should have the same care one for another.”

The δέ, but, seems to me to be well explained by Holsten: “But as to this contrast which meets the eyes of men God gives the solution of it by the end which He had in view in creating it.” God has intermingled feeble members with strong in the human body, comely parts with others not comely, that the latter might be the objects of particular care and attention on the part of the others, and that thus the body might not present the spectacle of two orders of members, the one glorious and the other despicable, which would destroy the harmony of the whole and would even impair the favourable effect produced by the first. God has thus succeeded in making every member have an interest in the comely and honourable appearance of all the others. Love on their part thus becomes a matter of rightly understood self-interest. The singular σχίσμα, schism, is certainly the true reading; the plural σχίσματα, schisms, has been substituted for it, because it was thought there was an allusion here to the divisions in the Church of Corinth. There must not be the contrast between parts beautiful and ugly, glorious and vile, in the masterpiece of creation. The τὸ αὐτὸ μεριμνᾶν signifies: to have a common care, to be all concerned about one result. This common end is the harmonious beauty of the whole.

By adding ὑπὲρ ἀλλήλων, one for another, the apostle means that all should be watchful for the honour of all in order to the dignity of the whole. Those members which are of themselves less honourable thus turn out to be the objects of the special interest of all, that there may be procured for them the nobility which they had not naturally. For this end it is that God has established between them all such a close solidarity. And indeed, as the following verse says, there is between them an instinctive sympathy of satisfaction or shame which impels each to provide for the honour of all.