Football season is upon us, which means it’s time for gridiron analogies. Every position on the football field is important, and few are interchangeable. Some positions, like quarterback, have a much higher profile than other positions, and that often brings more fame and fortune. Does that mean every player should aspire to that position? Of course not. A team with 53 Pro Bowl quarterbacks will lose every game to a team with one quarterback and competent players at the other positions.
In his first letter to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul did not compare Christians to a football team, but to a body — specifically, the body of Christ:
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
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.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
1 Corinthians 12:12-27 ESV
Note the seeming contradiction in this passage: We are all equal together in Christ, yet we are not all the same. God gave us different roles, different vocations, different purposes. The body is not served by us all trying to do the same job, just as a football team cannot succeed if everyone wants to be the quarterback.
The best football players understood their roles. Tom Brady, perhaps the greatest quarterback in NFL history, could have commanded unprecedented salaries on the free market, but he instead chose to sign for less than he was worth to allow his team the flexibility to pay for talent at other positions. The result was seven six Super Bowl championships with the New England Patriots (and one more with Tampa Bay).
Imagine if Harrison Butker spent his time trying to be a quarterback or a running back rather than making himself the best placekicker he can be. Both he and his team would be less because of it.
When Seattle running back Shaun Alexander won the MVP award in 2005, he spent lavishly on gifts for his offensive line, since they were just as integral —perhaps more so —than his own talent. (The left side of the line that year, with Steve Hutchinson and Walter Jones, might have been the best ever.) Alexander got the glory, but it took a team to achieve it.
What is your role in the great project of life? Maybe it’s to be a front man, such as a pastor, an elected official, or a CEO. Maybe it’s to be part of the team that makes those front men successful, such as a volunteer, a faithful employee, or a supportive spouse. Whatever your position, you can take comfort in knowing that you are helping the whole team succeed.
Whatever team you are a part of — your family, your workplace, your political movement, or the body of Christ —find your niche and then do it to the best of your ability. All of us together make all of us better.
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
1 Corinthians 3:5-7 ESV
