What is important is not the mechanism of community but the principle articulated in the body metaphor used by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4. The latter passage makes it quite clear that full spiritual vitality cannot be present in the church until its macrocommunities and microcommunities consist of fully developed networks of Christians who are exercising their gifts and contributing to one another, so that “the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love” (Eph.
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