Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Corinthians 12-14.

In today’s passage Paul speaks of Gifts of the Spirit and our worship services.  He begins by pointing out that no one will be inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak against Jesus.  On the other hand, anyone who is inspired by a spirit to say that Jesus is Lord the spirit they are inspired by is the Holy Spirit.  Knowing this goes a long way towards identifying if the spirit which is bringing us revelation comes from God or the Adversary.  Then Paul begins writing about spiritual gifts by talking about three things.  I believe he does so because the things which the Holy Spirit brings us fall into different categories depending on the context.  Here Paul writes that there are different kinds of gifts, and different kinds of service, and different kinds of working, but all of them come from God.  The gifts are all distributed by the same Holy Spirit, the different kinds of service are all in service to the same Lord, and the different kinds of working are the work of the same God.  I could make this whole study about the implications of what Paul is writing there, but there are other points which I would rather write about today.

Paul then uses a metaphor to help us understand how these gifts work in the Church.  He writes that just as the different parts of the body have different functions, so to do the different members of the Church have different gifts from the Holy Spirit.  And the Church, which is the Body of Christ, needs each of those gifts as much as our own bodies need the different parts.  Just as the eye needs the hand to be part of the body, so to do those who have the more “glorious” gifts need the parts which seem less glorious.  The man with the gift to move hearts with his oratory and speech needs the usher and the janitor.  I love the way in which Paul, on one hand, calls on those who might see the gifts they have been given as making them more important to the Church than others as no better than anyone else. And, on the other hand, tells those who might think that their gift makes them unimportant that they are just as crucial to the Church as anyone else.  Paul points out that our bodies need both eyes and ears, and hands and feet.  He even points out that we take special care of the parts of the body which do things we do not talk about in polite society.  In the same way, we in the Church need to make sure we take special care of the members whose gifts lead them to the jobs we kind of wish weren’t necessary (like janitor).

I’ve already gone longer than I prefer, but I cannot conclude without mentioning how love interacts with the other gifts of the Spirit.  First, we often associate the thirteenth chapter with marriage (something I think would surprise Paul), but here Paul points out that love is a gift of the Spirit.  In fact, he tells us that it is the most important gift of the Spirit, one of the three most important gifts which the Spirit gives to each of us (or does if we are willing to accept them).  Those three gifts are faith, hope, and love.  They are more important than any other gifts of the Spirit.  Without them, especially without love, the other gifts of the Spirit have no value whatsoever.  In fact, no skill or ability we possess has any value if we do not exercise it with the love which comes from God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

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Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Corinthians 12-14.

A lot of times the way in which my Bible Reading schedule splits up the passages causes me to miss the context of certain passages.  Today’s passage is one where that is not true, by putting chapters twelve, thirteen, and fourteen together we get a much clearer understanding of the point Paul is making in chapter thirteen.  And probably a better understanding of twelve and fourteen as well.  In chapter twelve Paul tells us that we cannot point to a spiritual gift and say that “If you don’t have this gift, you don’t have the Spirit.”  He also tells us that we cannot say that we are better than someone else because we have a particular special gift or another, nor should we allow ourselves to think ourselves less than others because we do not have some particular spiritual gift or another.  Actually, he even addresses those who think that because they don’t have some gift which they think is more valuable that they are not saved.  Even when he lists certain gifts in order, he is referring to the order in which they appear in the Church, not their importance.

I wasn’t going to go there, but now that I have written the above I feel that I should.  I mean think about it.  If God did not send apostles, there would be no Church in a particular area.  Next, the local Church is going to need some prophets to understand what its mission is.  Once it knows what its mission is, it is going to need teachers to teach God’s word to the people to whom it has been called to minister.  Once people begin to be taught God sends those through whom He performs miracles to draw them to Him.  But none of these are more important than another.  We even see an example of this in Paul’s life.  Paul was an apostle, but he did not begin his ministry until a prophet revealed that God desired to send Barnabas and Paul (at that point known as Saul) on a missionary journey.  I am not going to go into much depth on the rest of the passage, but I want to point out that Paul tells us that NONE of these gifts have any value if we do not use them in love.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Corinthians 12-14.

In today’s passage Paul writes about gifts of the Spirit.  He starts by telling us that no one speaking in the Spirit will curse or condemn Jesus, and no one will praise Jesus except by the Spirit.  Or to put that another way, only through the power of the Holy Spirit will anyone bring honor to Jesus and no one who brings disgrace to the name of Jesus has the Spirit working through them.  Paul writes that while there are different gifts, thee is only one Spirit.  He follows this up with something interesting.  He goes on to say that there are also different kinds of service and different kinds of working, both of which come from the same, singular Spirit.   Then he writes that each of us will receive a manifestation of the Spirit for the purpose of promoting the common good of the Body of Christ.  I draw two conclusions from what Paul writes here.  First, the Spirit will manifest in each and every follower of Christ in a way which will build up others in the Body of Christ.  Second, some of those manifestations will be in the performing of miracles and signs.  Others will have a manifestation of the Spirit which appears more mundane to those around them.

Paul writes that not everyone has the same gifts, not everyone has the same manifestation of the Spirit.  And that we should not think that we are better than others because we have a more glamorous gift of the Spirit, nor that we are inferior to others because we have a more mundane manifestation of the Spirit.   Paul applies the metaphor of the human body to the Church, the Body of Christ in order to make this point.  Paul writes that we should desire and seek the greater gifts (the way he writes this suggests that our desire for certain gifts may make it more likely that we get those gifts).  He then makes the point that the greatest gift of the Spirit is love for others.  Every thing else Paul writes about the gifts of the Spirit follow from what he writes about love.  If we utilize whatever gifts the Spirit gives us out of love for others, we will use them to build others up, not to gain honor and recognition for ourselves.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.