1 Corinthians 12:19

If everyone in the church were equal, there would be no body, because a body is governed according to the difference in the functions of its members.

"And if they were all one member, where were the body?" "But now are they many members, but one body." Thus having silenced them sufficiently by God's own arrangement, again he states reasons. And he neither doth this always nor that, but alternates and varies his discourse. Since on the one hand, he who merely silences, confounds the hearer, and he, on the contrary, who accustoms him to demand reasons for all things, injures him in the matter of faith; for this cause then Paul is continually practising both the one and the other, that they may both believe and may not be confounded; and after silencing them, he again gives a reason likewise. And mark his earnestness in the combat and the completeness of his victory. For from what things they supposed themselves unequal in honor because in them there was great diversity, even from these things he shows that for this very reason they are equal in honor. How, I will tell you. "If all were one member," saith he, "where were the body?" Now what he means is, If there were not among you great variety, ye could not be a body; and not being a body, ye could not be one; and not being one, ye could not be equal in honor. Whence it follows again that if ye were all equal in honor, ye were not a body; and not being a body, ye were not one; and not being one, how could ye be equal in honor? As it is, however, because ye are not all endowed with some one gift, therefore are ye a body; and being a body, ye are all one, and differ nothing from one another in this that ye are a body. So that this very difference is that which chiefly causeth your equality in honor. And accordingly he adds, "But now they are many members, yet one body."

Then when he says, If all were a single organ, he comes to another awkward conclusion, which is a lack of bodily completeness. Hence, he first posits this awkwardness, saying: if all were a single organ, where would the body be? i.e., where would the …

Note the wisdom: he shuts their mouths by the very thing that seemed to produce faintheartedness, that is, by the fact that the gifts are diverse and unequal in honor. For if there were not diverse members, there would not be one body; and if …

He tells us that the church is the body of Christ, and the members are variously gifted for the benefit of the whole body, and each particular member,