God Stories (from Corinth) - part 2

Image… puzzle.

Who has a piece of the puzzle.

Who has one but I we don’t recognize that they “can” have one?

Who doesn’t think theirs is worth sharing?

What happens if not everyone contributes?

New words have been added to my vocabulary in the last few weeks.

Mom’s stroke

Brendan’s dental surgery

Gordon’s cardiac ablation

Ischemic stroke

Hemorraghic conversion/transformation

Proprioception

Proprioception - your body's ability to sense movement, action, and location

Last week… Acts 18 - Paul goes to Corinth and 1 Corinthians 1 and a bit of chapter 3.

Today, we’re going to turn a few pages over to 1 Corinthians 12 and 13

From the reading:

Different/same

Different spiritual gifts, different ministries, different activities

Same Spirit, same Lord, same God

Spirit who dwells in us and in our midst demonstrates divine presence in each person… why? Not for personal fulfillment or to prove anything, but FOR THE COMMON GOOD.

Metaphor: Body

one body, many parts

vs 27 “You are the body of Christ and parts of each other.”

An even better way (than the desirable gifts)

LOVE

v 4-7 this is what love looks like, and therefore this is what any of those gifts previously mentioned will look like when exercised in love

And in case, this all feels too good to be true, Paul says in v 8 LOVE NEVER FAILS.

Even when all the things that won’t last have gone, faith, hope and love will remain. And the greatest of these … LOVE.

Don’t use your gifts for your own advantage…for the common good.

If we don’t recognize that each of us has gifts to offer… has a part to play… the body suffers. (The picture is incomplete)

OR, if you hold back/withold your gift, the body suffers. False humility isn’t helpful. One body. We belong to one another even in all our diversity.

If there are gifts we have and do not offer the community. Is it pushed if there are gifts that people have that we are somehow unwilling to receive as a community we are also what might be the gifts that we tend to elevate in the modern church and maybe in particular at Southwest Gifts of learning this gifts of teaching and leadership and what do we end up missing out possess other gifts less than how can we receive the gifts that God has given to the people who God has placed here where we have eyes to see and possibly something that may surprise us