Even at church I catch myself competing: who serves more, who prays better, who seems closer to God. Why does it follow me in here?

“And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?”

The women's song credits Saul with thousands and David with ten thousands, and Saul's reaction to that arithmetic poisons the remainder of his reign. He was still king, still anointed, and still lost everything to a comparison he could not put down. The story shows how quickly envy takes root in a religious setting, where the thing being measured is God's own favour.

“And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.”

Paul writes to a church busy ranking each other by which gifts looked most impressive, particularly the public ones. His picture of a body cuts in both directions: the showy parts cannot dismiss the rest, and the hidden parts cannot resign. Comparison assumes you and the person beside you are competing for the same role, and Paul's image makes that incoherent, because a body does not compete with itself.