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Essential to the Plan: Find Our Place in the Body

In 1 Corinthians 12, St. Paul reminds us that the Spirit distributes gifts “to each one individually as He wills.” This variety is intentional; if we all possessed the exact same talents, we could not serve Christ effectively. God grants us different strengths specifically to bind us together as a true community.

As Romans 12:5 affirms, “we, being many, are one body in Christ.” Just as a physical body needs every part to function, our spiritual community requires each of our specific contributions in order to be complete. No one in the Church is superfluous to God’s plan.

Our task is clear: to identify, nurture, and apply the unique gifts God has entrusted to us. We cannot let these talents lie dormant; they were given to us for the benefit of all. When we use these gifts to serve others, we fully step into the role we were created to fill.

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The Chief of All Sinners

The Holy Apostle Paul established churches, performed miracles, and suffered immensely for the Gospel. Yet, his honest assessment of himself in 1 Timothy 1:15 is that he is “the chief among sinners”. How can a saint feel like a sinner?

Think of a dark room. In the shadows, the room might look perfectly clean. But if you open the blinds and let the bright noon sun stream in, suddenly you see every speck of dust dancing in the air and every smudge on the window. The dust was always there; the light just made it visible.

It’s the same with our spiritual life. The closer we draw to the Light of Christ, the more clearly we see the true condition of our souls. This isn’t a cause for despair; it is a sign of spiritual health. It means we are finally seeing reality.

We need to always remember the first part of the verse: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. If we recognize ourselves as the chief of sinners today, we can take heart. We are exactly who He came to heal and save.

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A Living Gateway to Christ

The Old Testament is a living gateway to God’s love. Its books speak to the heart of God’s people, telling the story of creation and the fall, promise and covenant, exile and return—all leading to the saving work of Christ.

The burning bush, the Passover lamb, the Exodus, and the voices of the prophets all lead us to the Crucified and Risen Lord, who “opened the Scriptures” for His disciples and set their hearts ablaze with the fire of the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:27).

Abraham’s trust, Moses’ obedience, David’s repentance, the prophets’ courage, and Israel’s hope anchor us in faithfulness. These stories are signposts pointing to Christ and to the healing of our souls.

So when we pick up the Old Testament, our prayer becomes the cry of the Psalms: “Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Reveal Thy face, that we may be saved” (Psalms 26:8; 79:4).

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The Word Creates

The opening of Genesis and John shows that the world is made by God’s Word. Genesis 1 depicts God speaking the universe into existence: God does not build or struggle with raw materials; he simply speaks, and the Cosmos comes into being. Creation itself is a kind of liturgy, ordered and sustained by the living Word of God.

This shapes how we understand both the world and Jesus Christ. When Scripture says that God creates by speaking, it teaches that his Word is not just information but life‑giving power. God’s speech is supremely effective; it accomplishes what it declares. Every creature exists because it has been personally addressed by God.

The Gospel of John then makes this personal Word explicit: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Before anything was made, the Word already is, in perfect communion with the Father and truly God. “All things were made through him” means that the same divine Word who speaks in Genesis is the eternal Son, the one through whom all things came to be.

Creation is therefore Trinitarian: the Father creates through the Son in the Holy Spirit. The order and beauty of the world reflect the wisdom of the Word, the signature of Christ on everything that exists. The One who will later walk the roads of Galilee is the same One through whom galaxies, oceans, and atoms were brought into being.

The Holy Evangelist John then makes a staggering claim: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The eternal Word who called light out of darkness enters the very world he made, taking on our nature without ceasing to be who he is eternally. The hands that shaped the stars become the hands of a carpenter and are later stretched out on the Cross. The voice that said “Let there be light” will cry, “It is finished,” bringing about a new creation.

To say that Jesus Christ is the Word of God is to say that the Savior of the world is also its Maker. In him, the first creation and the new creation meet. He still speaks, calling each of us out of darkness into his light, and when he speaks, things change: the Word who once created now re‑creates, restoring in us the image first spoken into being at the dawn of this age.

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From Wilderness to Paradise

Immediately before beginning his messianic ministry, Jesus is lead into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, where He fasts and faces temptation for forty days. This passage is deeply symbolic: it fulfills the Old Testament pattern of Israel journeying in the wilderness for forty years after being delivered through the Red Sea—a foreshadowing of Christian baptism, which delivers us from sin and death.
Jesus’s time in the wilderness also prefigures the spiritual journey of every Christian, showing that following Christ does not remove struggles or temptations, but instead marks the beginning of deeper spiritual warfare. (An example of what Fr. Thomas Hopko called, “The bad news of the Good News.”) This struggle is expected for those serious about their faith, as temptations often increase when we draw closer to Christ. The wilderness represents both a battleground against evil and a place where God’s peace and victory can be found. Facing these struggles is not a sign of failure, but a sign that one is authentically on the path toward God.
St. Ambrose of Milan offers further insight: just as Adam was sent into the wilderness from paradise, Christ—the Second Adam—returns from the wilderness to lead humanity back to God. Jesus deliberately enters the wilderness of the world’s brokenness to seek out the lost and guide them toward the kingdom of God, showing that His saving work involves joining us where we are and bringing us to where He is—at the right hand of the Father.
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Bible Study Sampler: Luke 1:1-4

Here’s a sampler of our Gospel of Luke Bible Study. Become a monthly member and join us every week on Zoom.

To accommodate participants in varying time zones throughout the world, I offer the same class at four different sessions:

• Mondays, 3:00 pm US ET (Monday 8:00 pm GMT)

• Tuesdays, 8:00 pm US ET (Wednesday 1:00 am GMT)

• Wednesday, 3:00 pm US ET (Monday 8:00 pm GMT)

• Thursdays, 8:00 pm US ET (Wednesday 1:00 am GMT)

More details on monthly support at this link.