Unity Through Diversity
1 Corinthians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
Kenny Salamea and Maria Villagran engagement
Welcome - continuing in 1 Corinthians
Today we will continue what Paul began last week, namely, spiritual gifts - or what he called simply “spiritual things.” We already saw that there are a great variety of gifts the Spirit gives for the building up of the church. Today, we will see that each and every one of these gifts is important.
Paul moves from talking about quantity of gifts to talking about quality of gifts.
And last week, I began by asking the question: are you using your gifts to serve the church?
I hope we have all thought about that this week.
Today I want to begin with another question: do you realize how important you and your gifting are to this church?
If you have been coming here for any amount of time - whether you’re a member or not - I think you have noticed that there is something different about Montclair Community Church.
I have told my story how I visited here and never left. And that is because of how welcoming this church is. This feels like a family.
And I have heard much the same from many of you.
There is a sense at our church that we believe we are all in this together. And that’s the way it should be.
And I don’t say that to toot my horn as the pastor - I have no right to. I was blessed enough to be able to take over pastoring a church that already was that. I was given the opportunity to be in this with all of you.
So I ask, are you in this with us? Do you realize how important it is that you are?
That’s what I want to talk about this week.
But before we move on, let’s back up a bit. We saw last week how Paul starts this section off talking about spiritual things - in particular spiritual gifts - especially the gift of tongues that the Corinthians were so preoccupied with.
And he tells them that there are a whole host of gifts - and he lists a few of them - and he makes it clear that not everyone has the same gifts.
But his focus is on the fact that these gifts are given for the common good, and that they come from God, by grace.
And he ended that section by saying this about these gifts:
All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
And this is bad place for a paragraph break, because it goes with the next verse:
All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
All gifted by the Spirit are gifted according to His will with their differing gifts, for - or because - just as the body is one even though it has many members - so it is with Christ.
I love how Paul has this way of making “Christ” and “the Church” overlap so much in this age. Sometimes, when he refers to the church, he speaks of Christ. And sometimes, when He refers to Christ - especially His role in redemption in this age - he speaks of the church.
This is what Paul is doing here. When he says “so it is with Christ,” he is talking about how it is with the church.
Because to Paul, we - the church - are Christ’s means of salvation on the earth. We are how He continues to work between His two physical comings.
And to make this comparison between Christ and the Church, Paul uses his famous metaphor for the church. He likens the church to a physical body. Our bodies have many parts, and every part makes up the body, which is one body. A diversity of parts, but unity of body.
And both the unity and diversity are important in this metaphor.
And while Paul does use this metaphor elsewhere, this is the first time he uses it. This letter is the earliest of his letters to contain the metaphor of the body of Christ.
Why?
Because this was a philosophical and political idea in Greece. The function of society was likened to a body - everyone needed to fulfill their individual function for the society to be healthy and prosperous.
And the Corinthians would have been familiar with this idea. But Paul takes this worldly wisdom, and applies spiritual wisdom to it.
Because the world used the metaphor to speak of obedience to the head, who was the emperor. His will was to be carried out.
But Paul redeems the metaphor by speaking of obedience to our head, Who is Christ. It is His will we carry out.
So Paul uses this well known idea, applies it to spiritual gifts, and says “this is how it is with Christ.” Meaning, the church. The Spirit empowers us all with our gifts because Christ’s church is like a body.
This harkens back to earlier in the letter where Paul spoke about our unity with Christ. We are each in union with Christ, so we are all in union with Christ, so we are all in union with each other by virtue of our union with Christ.
Just like any part of a human body is unified with the body, and also with all the other parts of the body.
And in Paul’s metaphor, he always speaks of Christ as the head of the body.
Because like with a human body, all of the members function differently, but it is the head that wills. It is the head that determines action, and causes the voluntary movements of the rest of the body. The head is in charge of the body.
So with the church, Christ is the head. It is His will that is to be our will. It is His decisions and commands that we are to follow.
He is in charge of the body. He is the head.
Again, Christ is Lord.
That means we are, collectively, the body of Christ. We are the hands and feet of Christ. We carry out His will here on earth. We are His mouthpiece. We communicate the good news of Who He is and what He has done.
That is why Paul says it is with Christ, like it is with a body. All unified as one, though made of diverse members - and we are under our head to Whom we are each united.
And we are all:
empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
We are empowered by the Spirit to use our gifting, because it is with Christ like it is with a body - unified in diversity - and it is that way because in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.
Baptism into the body, in the one Spirit.
Paul focused earlier on the idea of there being one Spirit Who gifts each of us in the church. He is still focusing on the one Spirit, because it is in the one Spirit that we are baptized into the one body of Christ.
It is this baptism in the Spirit that makes us part of the body.
It is what gives us our essential unity as one.
And he says we were all baptized into one body, Jews and Greeks. Here, a Jew, writing to Greeks, says they are all the same, once baptized in the Spirit.
Because the people of God are not a national people of God. We are a Spiritual people of God.
We saw that Paul already talked about the Old Testament fathers as the spiritual ancestors of the Corinthians. God’s people are and always have been a spiritual people, which is why those physical Israelites who fell into idolatry were destroyed - they were not spiritually part of God’s people.
All who believe God are.
And don’t miss the significance of this baptism in the Spirit. It is part of why Christ came. We focus on the death and resurrection of Christ, but His work is so much more robust than that - He did so much more.
Because without His incarnation - His becoming human - He couldn’t die. And He couldn’t live under the Law and obey to perfectly.
And without living a perfect life, He would not have been an acceptable sacrifice for the sin of all who believe.
And because of both of these - His incarnation and His perfect life - He died the perfect death for sin. And then He overcame death by His resurrection.
But His work wasn’t done. He had to ascend to the Father to inherit His kingdom and become Lord of all. And He is. Jesus reigns.
Jesus is Lord.
And as He promised, He went, so He could send the Spirit, so that His full-orbed salvation could and would be applied to His own.
The baptism in the Spirit is what makes all the other things Christ did effectual for us.
And it was this - the baptism in the Spirit - that concluded His work at His first advent and gave us salvation.
That’s why the first thing John the Baptist talked about concerning Jesus was the completion of His work:
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
That’s why Jesus told His disciples to wait until His work was done before they began their work. He had risen. And:
He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
And He kept this promise when the end times were inaugurated by the coming of the Spirit, as Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, because Christ finished what He came to do that day:
When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
This was the end of Christ’s work, it was the dawn of the new age, and it was the birth of the church - of the Body of Christ.
It is how He continues to work between His two physical comings. This is why the book of Acts is described by Luke as the follow up to what Jesus began to do. His work isn’t done. He is still building His church. It’s why He sent His Spirit.
And we saw last week, as new people groups were added to the church, they were baptized in the Spirit. They became part of the body.
And we receive this same baptism when we repent and believe. We are baptized in, or with, or by the Holy Spirit. It is the same preposition in Greek no matter how our English Bibles translate it at different points.
And it is what Paul says here:
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
In one Spirit we were all baptized. Aside from the command to physically baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - this is the only baptism associated with the Holy Spirit.
Why is that important?
Well, as we saw last week, there were in Corinth and there are today people who have a misguided focus on speaking on tongues. And since the 19th century, that gift is generally associated with what they call the “baptism of the Holy Spirit.”
In their circles, this is a second giving of the Spirit in greater measure and tongues is the sign that you have received this second baptism.
The Bible knows nothing of any baptism of the Holy Spirit like that. When we believe, we are baptized in the Holy Spirit and added to the body of Christ. That is Spirit baptism.
And through this baptism, we are also given gifts. All of us.
And Paul’s entire point in this chapter is that we all have gifts, but not all have the same gifts - not even tongues - and each and every one is important for the church to function as the church.
Every gift is to be used not to prop ourselves up, but to build up the church in love.
Every gift is for the sake of the common good, not the good of the individual.
Because in the one Spirit we were all baptized into the body.
As Paul says in Ephesians:
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
And Paul says this as a lead up to talking about what? Using our Spiritual gifts.
There is one baptism in the Spirit, and we were all baptized into the one body - we were all baptized into the church - by that one baptism in the Spirit when we first believed.
That’s why Paul says:
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
And the reason Paul talks about baptism in the one Spirit and then this drinking of the one Spirit is because he is drawing a contrast.
Let’s go back to his discussion of idolatry for moment. He corrected the Corinthians on their so-called knowledge about eating food offered to idols. He then tells them how he himself surrenders his rights for the sake of the common good.
He says that he does this - sacrificial service for the common good - for the sake of the church, and then he says:
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
As we saw when we considered this, Paul was talking about the fact that many of physical Israel had the same experiences as all of Israel - they saw the provision of God like the rest of Israel, and they even saw God like the rest of Israel.
And even still - because, as Paul says in Romans, not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel - even still they were really idolaters and were destroyed.
They experienced the baptism into Moses in the physical cloud and the physical sea.
They drank the same spiritual drink - the physical water miraculously provided by God.
And yet they were not part of the people of God.
Here, those who are part of the body have been baptized in the Spirit. And we have drunk true spiritual drink.
This is an essential difference between the saved and the unsaved - between the church and the world - we have the Spirit.
Paul showed the difference between us and the world with his focus on the Spirit back in chapter 2. We have the Spirit, so can and do know Christ. The world does not have the Spirit, so they do not know Christ because they cannot. without the Spirit.
This is why both our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and why our body - the church - is the Temple of the Holy Spirit.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
And because of that, we are irrevocably part of the Body of Christ.
And Paul clarifies why he uses the metaphor of a body:
For the body does not consist of one member but of many.
But we need to follow Paul’s argument, so we need to look at this all together. He uses these “fors” or “becauses” to string together a logical flow:
[all these = gifts]
All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many.
Unity through diversity.
The Spirit gives us differing gifts, because we are all individual members of the one body.
Paul said that all the members make up one body. Because it is a unified whole by the Spirit.
Here, he turns the focus to the diversity of parts that make up the unified body.
And we are diverse in gifts because God the Holy Spirit has made it so.
Do you see?
The church has everything it needs to fulfill its calling. Because God calls everyone we need.
So this is not uniformity in gifting, as the Corinthians thought, but unity through the diversity of gifts.
And yes, there is diversity in the church, as in, people from every nation, people, and language make up the church.
There is diversity in that we all have different backgrounds, and different worldly social standings, and we live in different places, have differing political views, and even differing theological beliefs on some of the non-essentials.
But Paul is focused on the gifts of the Spirit, here. That variety of gifts for the variety of ministries in which we serve in the power of God.
It is the diversity of gifts - apportioned by the Spirit - that make the body function.
And since we are all one body even in our diversity, we are all as necessary as anyone else to be the body. Every member of the body is as important as every other for us to be a whole body.
If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.
Remember what Paul is addressing in particular. This is about an unhealthy preoccupation with tongues. And the focus on tongues - or any gift - is a mistake.
Having any particular gift does not make you more part of the body than those that have different gifts.
And here is where I have seen evangelical churches fail. On one side, you have those that still prop up their idol of tongues over other gifts.
But on the other extreme, you have the fundamentalists who take the Spirit almost entirely out of the equation.
And they can do that, because they essentially don’t need Him. Because the pastor is set up as this supreme leader who makes all the decisions and is a dictator over the church. He is the head of the church, and it functions according to his will.
But those are mistake on both extremes. Because the Holy Spirit empowers the church. And the Holy Spirit empowers the whole church.
A pastor is not more a part of a church than anyone else. Those that speak in tongues are not more a part of the church.
No gift makes anyone more a part of the church than anyone else. I am not more a part of this church than any of its members. I just have a different gift than most of you.
And most of you have gifts that I don’t have.
And thank God for that, because your gifts are just as necessary for the body to function as a unified whole.
Because:
If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
Unity through diversity.
We have all been arranged by God as He chose.
If you are a member here...God arranged that. The gifting you have? God arranged that.
God has given our church everything we need to function as His church. God has. He has brought us all here for a reason, and has gifted us all, so that we would be a unified whole carrying out our calling as a church.
This is why I really wanted us all to reflect and think and pray about using our God-given gifts for the sake of the church last week.
Because we need each other.
Each of you need all of us, and all of us need each of you.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,
Paul here talks about the weaker parts of the body. And like he talked about the “weaker” brothers earlier concerning the food offered to idols - he is parroting the Corinthians. He is not saying that anyone in the body is weaker than anyone else because of their gifts.
He is saying that some of the Corinthians thought so. They were looking down upon some gifts because they felt the miraculous gift of tongues was so great.
But Paul is telling them that every gift God has arranged in the church is important.
The body needs every member working to function as a body.
I once broke my pinky toe. I wasn’t looking where I was going, and I was walking briskly in bare feet and I caught it on the corner of one of the dining room chairs, which was occupied.
My wife, in her usual fashion, couldn’t help but laugh, probably because of the unBiblical things I yelled on impact.
Anyway, has anyone else here ever broken their pinky toe? Man, that little guy is important, and you don’t even know it until he’s not working. Walking - even balancing just standing - was hard. It does a job we never even think of, until it can’t do it!
So too, in the church, everything any of us do is indispensable. Even the seemingly smallest, most insignificant acts.
Paul’s point is, we shouldn’t think of them as small or insignificant.
Think of our worship service. Obviously, someone preaches every Sunday. But there is a whole team of people using their God-given gifts as God arranged them, for us to worship together every week.
singers and musicians (you want me and my guitar, and me singing four songs? We’d lose members pretty quickly!)
welcome desk
ushers
sound (any guitarist worth their salt knows he’s never loud enough!), slides (keep up with what I’m saying), livestream
The faithful group of men who pray with the preacher every Sunday
someone who prays for the message right before the preacher starts
Children’s church and nursery workers
how disappointed would you be if the hospitality team didn’t set up the coffee or have bagels for us? Or if someone didn’t buy the cream and sugar during the week?
what if people didn’t keep an eye on the building and we never changed lightbulbs or fixed what was broken?
What if the people who do announcements didn’t tell us what was going on, or the ministry leaders that work so hard to plan the events we announce didn’t put any effort in to do them.
What if so many of you weren’t so encouraging and those weeks that I think my sermon was just awful, what if you didn’t tell me how it impacted you?
And I’m sure I didn’t think of everyone!
The “smallest” acts, all together, add up to this wonderful time of worship we get to share every week.
And that’s just one part of what we do at this church. So many of you do so much, and that allows us as a body to have such an impact on each other.
Because there is no insignificant gift.
On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require.
We have here another metaphor that compares the physical body to the spiritual body of Christ.
Like we saw with the hair coverings Paul talked about, we are all to dress modestly in the church. There are certain parts of our body that are not presentable. And we consider them “less honorable” but bestow honor on them by treating them differently than our presentable parts.
I don’t think I need to spell out which parts of the body Paul is talking about.
So too, the “weaker” parts of the body of the church are the same. Remember, the Corinthians thought speaking in tongues was the greatest gift. They had an unhealthy focus on the one gift. So they considered all the other gifts as lesser - this is the point of Paul’s metaphor.
But Paul says that these so-called “lesser” gifts and those who use them deserve to be honored. Because they are necessary for the church to be a complete body.
And the view of some in Corinth that these other gifts were lesser - and those that served using those gifts as weaker - that meant they were ignoring why all of the gifts have been given:
But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
The care we have for each other does not depend on the gift. You do not care for me more than you care for anyone else who is part of this church body. No matter who suffers, we suffer along with them.
No matter who is honored, we rejoice along with them. And all who use their gifts are to be honored. Paul just said that.
Whether their gift is preaching, hospitality, serving in the background, singing praises to God, or whatever.
In contrast to the physical human body where there are less honorable parts, it is not so in the body of Christ. Gifts are different, but all are necessary. Even though Paul is about to give a ranking of gifts - mostly to correct the Corinthians - everyone is necessary to the church because everyone is gifted differently.
And since we are all necessary - since God has composed the body of Christ the way He has where we all need each other - there should be no divisions. Not over gifts, not over preferences, not over anything.
Remember, there were divisions in the church at Corinth. Paul has already reprimanded them for that.
But because the body is composed the way it is by God - with each person and each gift necessary for us to care for each other as the church - there can’t be divisions, or else you don’t have a properly functioning body. You can’t lose a pinky toe and function properly.
And there needs to be unity in our diversity, because - once again - this is about each other.
As I said last week, Paul’s description of a church is a unified whole that lives out the truth together. My sin is your business. My differences with another brother are your business. What I do as a Christian and member of this church outside the church? Your business.
Because we need to care for one another.
We are to suffer to together. Like the different parts of our body suffer together.
You hurt your toe, so you walk differently to accommodate, and your knee starts to hurt...your hip starts to hurt...your back starts to hurt...now you can’t sleep well and you’re cranky and can’t focus
If we suffered together, we would really stand out from the world.
If every person rejoices with each other over what we do for Christ - we would stand out from the world.
It is fallen human nature to resent those who are honored in any way when it’s not us. We need to kill that part of our old man. We should rejoice together when one of our members is honored.
This is a knock at the Corinthians and their desire for tongues. Just like in some denominations that teach a second baptism of the Spirit and that tongues is the sign of it - there is going to be resentment when someone else appears to have that baptism and that gift while I don’t.
That’s what was happening in Corinth. It is like any of us striving and striving for something that someone else gets really easily. How does that make us feel?
This applies to gifts. Don’t resent people that have gifts different from yours. Don’t look down on them. Rejoice in them.
And don’t resent those with greater gifts.
What are the greater gifts? Paul tells us. But first a reminder:
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Unity through diversity.
This is a plural “you.” The church in Corinth was the body of Christ, as a local church, all together. In their diversity - the individuals together made the one body.
We are a local body of Christ. We are so because God has arranged us with our diversity of gifts so that we can function as a complete body.
This is how it is with all local churches - true Biblical churches.
And there is no resentment. No division. No wishing you were a different part of the body.
Rather, there is unity.
And we rejoice as one. And we mourn as one. And we serve Christ as one.
Because we are one!
But that doesn’t mean there is not an order to the gifts. Paul gives the Corinthians an order, again to refute their idol of tongues.
And realize - this is an order of gifts, not of the gifted. Those who are given these gifts by God’s grace are not higher or more important than anyone else. It is the gifts that are greater, not the people.
And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.
Notice what Paul lists last.
But he starts with Apostles, prophets, and teachers as the first three. Why? Because Apostles were representatives of Christ, prophets give revelation of Christ, and teachers instruct what the Apostles and prophets revealed.
In other words, the Word of God is primary. It always is.
Apostles - no longer - those personally appointed by Christ
Prophets - as we saw last week, no longer in the sense of new revelation of God
But teaching is still an active gift in the church. What the Apostles and prophets said must be taught. It’s part of the Great Commission.
Like Paul would later write to the Ephesians.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
Apostles, prophets, those who spread the Gospel in evangelism, and those who pastor and teach according to the Word are all put together here. Because they teach and apply the Word of God.
And what is God’s desired result of these gifts?
That the saints - the entire church - would be equipped by those with these gifts for ministry, for building up the body of Christ.
This is why Paul lists teaching ahead of the other gifts:
And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.
Teachers of the Word teach in order to equip the rest of the church to use their gifts for ministry. The variety of gifts God has arranged for the variety of ministries God empowers the entire church to carry out, as we saw last week.
Teaching is logically prior to the use of other gifts. The teaching of the Word is where the church is trained to use their gifts.
Then Paul lists miracles - and these are proofs of the truth of God, as we saw last week. Confirmation of what is taught as the Gospel reaches new peoples.
Then we have the final group. And notice that tongues is grouped with things like helping and administration (which along with Apostleship Paul now adds to the list he gave above).
And this is still not an exhaustive list. We have already seen that Paul earlier in the letter says celibacy is a gift from God that is used for service to the church.
So if you are not gifted in any of these areas listed in this passage, that’s more than okay, because there are a whole variety of other gifts not listed.
Gifts of healing we covered last week, and these are also used for the propagation of the Gospel.
But now Paul adds helping. This is the only time this word is used in the Bible. It word is literally “antireceiving” - this is sacrificial service for the benefit of others without expecting anything in return.
Many of you have this gift. Many of you - without being part of an “official” ministry for this - you give of yourself. Some of you volunteer to help with just about everything.
Some of you go out of your way to serve visitors when they walk through the door.
Some of you go out of your way to make sure me and the elders have what we need to carry out our ministry.
You are natural givers. That’s a gift.
Then we have administrating. Once again, this is the only time this word is used in the Bible. It literally means to pilot or steer. This is talking about leadership. Those of you that lead a ministry - this is one of your gifts.
Leadership team - you are all gifted in this area.
Many of you who are not leading anything here, are naturally gifted leaders. Maybe you should consider leading something here.
And finally, again likely on purpose, Paul says various kinds of tongues. The word for “kinds” means “races” or “families” or even “nations” - it is the word the Greek Old Testament uses when it talks about God creating all creatures according to their kind.
It is the word Peter uses when he says we are a chosen race of God.
So again, tongues is speaking in known languages of the world.
And Paul lists this last among other gifts like giving and leading because the Corinthians should not be more zealous to speak in tongues than to give of themselves or to step up and lead, if they are so gifted.
And it is lumped in with these other gifts because, once again, Paul wants them to know not everyone has every gift.
Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?
And as you should be well aware by now, Greek has ways to ask questions that tell what the answer is. And here, the answer to every question is “no.”
All are not apostles, very clearly. All are not prophets, very clearly.
But not all can teach. And not all can work miracles. Not all can heal. Not all can lead. And not all can speak in tongues or interpret.
And what is Paul’s conclusion?
But earnestly desire the higher gifts.
And the word here for “desire?” It is not the word that means desire in the sense of wanting or willing something. It is actually the word for being zealous for something.
This talks about zeal for the gifts. Paul encourages them not to be zealous for tongues, but the gifts he lists before tongues.
To be excited or enthusiastic about those gifts.
In other words, be more excited to hear the Word of God, then to speak in tongues.
Be as excited to selflessly serve, as to speak in tongues.
Be as excited to lead others, as to speak in tongues.
That’s Paul’s point.
But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
This “more excellent” is where we get our word “hyperbole.” It means something beyond or something beyond measure. Paul has something still more extraordinary to teach the Corinthians.
And we will get to that next week.
But for today, I want us to realize how extraordinary it is what Paul says here.
Think about these things:
you have been chosen by God and arranged with the rest of us here in this body for a purpose
the unity of our church - like all churches - is based in the diversity of gifts God has apportioned among us - so we need to use those gifts
what you do matters - it matters very much for the kingdom, and for the rest of us here - and if you don’t use your gifts, we are not what God intends us to be
because fourth: if we are missing your gift, we are incomplete - we are not a fully functioning body
So I once again return to where I started: do you realize how important you and your gifting are to this church?
Do you realize how important it is that you are in this with us? How important it is that you contribute to fulfilling our calling?
Challenge: if you are not serving, make an appointment with me so we can find you a place to serve - and we will do it for the sake of everyone else - so we can function as a complete body.
And now to both celebrate and declare that unity we have in Christ, let us together partake in Communion.
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Communion:
Abraham Kuyper said that certain parts of the church’s liturgy reflect what the worship service as a whole is supposed to be: ‘an interaction between God and the congregation.’
He said that liturgy is action; and the actions are not just human actions and not just divine actions but, as he said: ‘an interaction between God and his people, in which the congregation self-consciously participates.’
