Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

A college professor of debate thought it would be well for him to select some outstanding speaker and learn everything he could about his life, his speeches, and his writings.

He chose Patrick Henry as his ideal.

It was not long before the subject of Patrick Henry was becoming obnoxious to those around him.

He became a man with a one track mind.

All he talked about to friends and relatives, and in class, was Patrick Henry.

One night the debating society decided to play a joke on their obsessed professor.

They decided to trap him in a situation where his favorite topic would be irrelevant.

At the meeting the chairman called the group to order and said, "We would like our professor to give us a demonstration of extemporaneous speech tonight.

We are going to ask him to speak for 3 minutes on horse colic."

They thought they had him on the spot, but the professor stood; faced the group, and began: "What is horse colic?

Why, tis nothing but a ball of wind, roaming hither and thither within the abdominal confines of the horse crying out 'give me liberty or give me death.'"

And with that the professor was off again on Patrick Henry.

Almost everything can be interesting at some point, but almost nothing is interesting all the time.

People with one tracked minds bore us.

We are not made for enjoying a rut where life is limited to one theme, or one routine.

We are made for variety.

It was William Cowper, the great hymn writer, who gave us There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood, and God Moves In A Mysterious Way, who coined the phrase, "Variety if the spice of life."

He didn't just make that up, he got it from the facts of nature and Scripture.

God is in infinite Spirit with a love for infinite variety in all that He does.

Every leaf, every blade of grass, every star and galaxy are all different.

God did not crank out this universe like a machine stamping out pieces of metal.

He made it more like a master artist makes his painting.

Mrs. Dwight Morrow had a chain made by a well-known Mexican chain maker.

She liked it so much that she ordered six more just like it.

He agreed only if she would pay a higher price for each chain he made because making them all alike would be monotonous.

Artists demand variety.

They liked to put a personal touch of difference into all that they make.

How much more the Author of all art?

An anonymous poet put it-

What skill, O God, could equal Thine!

No two alike, in size or line,

In dome above, in sea or land,

Mid flaming worlds, or grains of sand,

And man hast made more wondrous far,

More varied than flower, bird, or star,

His very finger-tips design,

Reveals a loving skill divine.

Every once in a while we refer to some unique character and say, "When God made him He broke the mold."

The fact is, God never used the same mold twice for anybody.

Every one is unique, and there is no one else anywhere just like us.

God is a God of infinite variety, and He always will be.

C. S. Lewis said, "Heaven will display far more variety than hell."

No one will ever be bored in heaven.

One of the curses of hell will be the curse of never ending sameness, but heaven will be never ending variety.

We do not have to wait for heaven, however, for God has given us much variety on earth, and great variety within the church.

This is what Paul begins to express in verse 4.

He emphasizes three times the variety of gifts, and of service, and the variety of working.

All of this variety comes from the same Lord.

God is the one source of all this variety in the body of Christ.

This truth has so many profound implications for our lives that even a partial grasp of it can change your attitudes and actions in many areas of life.

One of the first things we need to look at is the problem of the Corinthian church because of their failure to live the Christian life in the light of God's love for variety.

The same problem develops today in churches where some unique experience, such as speaking in tongues, is emphasized.

Just because this experience is so unique it appeals to many people as it did to the Corinthians.

They began to blow it all out of proportion and make it the key to spirituality.

Since not all of the members received this gift, those who did not were made to feel like inferior Christians, and they had the feeling of not belonging.

In verse 15 Paul describes them as a foot saying, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body."

Or in verse 16 like an ear saying, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body."

Paul says this is nonsense.

A body does not consist of one member, but of many.

It is folly to take any one gift, or even two or three, and say that those who have these are the only members of the body.

The tongue speakers were guilty of a one tracked mind.

They were in a rut and blind to the infinite variety in the body.

They said, "We are the tongue of the body, and only those who speak in tongues like us are part of the body."

They set up a man made standard by which to judge who is in the body of Christ and who is not.

What Paul is doing here in stressing variety is shattering this kind of narrow thinking.

Any man made system that seeks to put God in a box and under the control of men is not consistent with the revelation God has given us through Paul.

Let me now apply this emphasis of Paul to one of the major controversies that surrounded the whole issue of the gifts.

One of the most debated question is, how many gifts of the Spirit are there?

Bill Gothard, whose gifted ministry has touched the lives of many thousands through his Basis Youth Conflicts Seminar, insists that there are only 7 authentic gifts, and the rest are ministries and manifestations.

Some others see the 9 gifts listed here as a parallel to the 9 fruits of the Spirit, and they insist that 9 is the magic number.

Dr. John Walvoord, President of Dallas Theological Seminary finds 15 gifts in the New Testament.

One of the finest books on the gifts is Leslie Flynn's book with the title Nineteen Gifts Of The Spirit.

Dr. Kurt Koch in his book Charismatic Gifts deals with 24 gifts.

All of these men are gifted and godly scholars, and yet they all come up with different numbers.

What do we do when authorities disagree?

The best thing to do is to recognize that the reason they vary so much is because the Bible does not give any listing of all the gifts.

There is no hint that there is any limited number of gifts.

Therefore, I conclude with the majority of those who have studied the gifts in depth that there is no specific limited number, but that there are, as Paul says, a variety of gifts, and that variety is like all the variety of God-it is without limit.

This conclusion is very important if we are to avoid many of the problems that result from trying to limit the Holy Spirit.

In the Intervarsity publication Spiritual Gifts And The Church, the author states one of the problems: "For a church or group of churches to concentrate on a limited number of gifts, forgetting the great variety presented by the New Testament, will inevitably result in a partial and incomplete ministry on their part with consequent loss of blessing both inside and outside the fellowship."

There is just no point in trying to limit the Holy Spirit, for in doing so you risk missing something good.

The reason Paul is putting such a heavy stress on variety here is because the Corinthians were trying to limit the Holy Spirit.

They were falling into a rut where they limited the Spirit to their experience.

They were content with their showy gift of tongues for example, and they began to make others who did not have this gift feel inferior and left out.

The same thing happens today where Christians get a narrow and limited view of the work of the Spirit.

They narrow down to the few gifts they have and make all who do not possess them feel like they are not a part of the body.

Those with the gift of tongues are constantly struggling with this problem, and many in churches where this gift is stressed feel just like many of the Corinthians felt.

They feel inferior and rejected, and not a part of the body.

In verse 15 Paul refers to the foot who says, "Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body."

Or in verse 16 where the ear says, "I am not an eye, so I do not belong to the body."

Paul says this is nonsense, and that no part of the body is any less a part of the body just because it does not have the gifts of another part of the body.

Every member of the body has a function, but there is a great variety, and when this is not stressed you do damage to the body.

When you put a limit on the gifts, and those who do not see that they have one that is on that list, you create problems in the body.

Many a Christians are made to feel just like those in Corinth felt.

Those with showy external gifts made those who did not have the gift feel cut off from the body.

Many today wonder today wonder if they have been passed by because they do not have the gift of tongues.

Many feel so inferior that they go through great agony trying to possess the gift, and they are as frustrated as an ear that struggles to get the gift of sight.

All of this needless mental suffering in the body of Christ can be avoided by heeding the words of Paul on the variety of gifts, the variety of service, and the variety of worship of the Holy Spirit.

Variety is the spice of life for the church because it gives everyone a role to play.