1 Corinthians 12

[1 CORINTHIANS 12:1-11]

If you’ve been here over the past few weeks as we’ve examined 1 Corinthians, you know that a lot of what we encounter in this book are direct responses the Apostle Paul is offering to specific questions asked by the Christian church in Corinth.

And from our passage this morning it’s clear that the Corinthians have asked him about spiritual gifts.

I don’t know if it’s the same here in Scotland, but in the States this is a subject that causes a lot of confusion and frustration for a lot of churches. There are a lot of differences of opinion about what spiritual gifts exactly are, how they work, who receives what gifts, and what we’re supposed to do with them exactly.

Like I’ve said a few times during this sermon series…we have a lot in common with the Corinthians.

Of course, the Christians in Corinth also had very unique challenges—for example, may of them came to faith in Christ out of a pagan background, a background immersed in experiential and sometimes wildly emotional expressions of faith.

In the Greek mystery religions that were common in Corinth, you would often have people falling into these trance-like states that sometimes resulted in ecstatic utterances or behavior.

And when that happened…it was seen as a validation of someone’s spirituality.

It was an endorsement from the gods of that person’s faith, a “supernatural stamp of approval” if you will.

And it seems that similar things are happening in the Corinthian church.

They may have transferred their loyalty to Christ, but some of their attitudes and behaviors have carried over from their pagan past.

But I think even that…we can identify with in some ways.

When we come to faith in Jesus…there can be things carried over from our past that aren’t healthy.

And the journey of growing as a Christian, which lasts a lifetime, is a journey of continually offering everything, including our past, to the transforming work of Christ.

Because sometimes the things we’ve brought into our faith can be destructive.

That’s what’s happening here in Corinth, it seems.

In their quest to be super-spiritual, to claim superiority in the church, there is far too much value and importance being given to emotional and ecstatic spiritual experiences.

And the message being communicated to those who DIDN’T have those kinds of experiences was: “If this doesn’t happen to you, then you are some sort of second-class Christian.”

That’s the lie that Paul is addressing here in chapter 12.

I love how the Common English Bible translates what Paul says:

There are different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; and there are different ministries and the same Lord; and there are different activities but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good. A word of wisdom is given by the Spirit to one person, a word of knowledge to another according to the same Spirit, faith to still another by the same Spirit, gifts of healing to another in the one Spirit, performance of miracles to another, prophecy to another, the ability to tell spirits apart to another, different kinds of tongues to another, and the interpretation of the tongues to another. All these things are produced by the one and same Spirit who gives what he wants to each person.

A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person FOR THE COMMON GOOD.

This is a complete turn-around from the way pagans in Corinth understood gifting.

In the pagan religions, you brought gifts to the gods in the hopes they would be of use to them…you made sacrifices and dedications to the gods in their temple…

…you would concern yourself with what you could do for him or her.

But now, Paul paints a different picture.

It’s God who brings the gifts.

It’s God who equips the church.

Paul is reminding the Corinthians…and us…that we live in the days where the promise spoken by the prophet Joel has been fulfilled: God has poured out his Spirit.

And it’s the Spirit who empowers us…enables us…and gifts us…for God’s work.

Each of us.

In different ways.

All these things Paul lists in 7 through 10 of 1 Corinthians 12: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues and interpretation…

…Paul says these are the work of the Spirit.

That is so significant and so important for us to remember.

Because too often in the church we confuse spiritual gifts and natural talents.

Sometimes there’s a bit of an overlap, but not always.

In fact, natural talents and abilities, if we’re not careful, can become a bit of a trap for us.

If we define who we are as Christians…and who we are as a church…only by the things we know we’re able to do naturally…

…then how in the world are we going to accomplish supernatural things?

Because we as the church are called to supernatural work: the work of glorifying God, making disciples, seeking healing and transformation for lost and hurting people…

…the work of being God’s people and pursuing God’s priorities…it’s not something we can do on our own.

It requires supernatural gifting and power.

It is all rooted in the Spirit.

Paul says it:

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.”

Not that we’re passive in all this, not at all.

But everything we undertake, everything we do as a church needs to flow out of this understanding that God is the one at work.

God is the one who empowers…God is the one who directs and guides…God is the one who gives us all that we need for what he calls us to do.

And he does that by giving to each of us spiritual gifts, supernaturally empowered abilities that transcend our natural talents.

They might draw in our natural talents…but they are not reliant on them.

They are reliant only on the Spirit of God.

And the list here in chapter 12 is only a partial exploration of all the gifts God gives to his people.

There are actually 4 sections in the New Testament that you need to look to if you want a broader and fuller understanding of spiritual gifts.

We don’t have time to dive into them all this morning, although I highly recommend taking time to study them and understand the full breadth of the Bible’s teachings on spiritual gifts.

For now let me just share with you the passages and encourage you to check them out:

1 Corinthians 12

Romans 12

Ephesians 4

1 Peter 4

But here’s the thing.

Even if we wrap our heads around this truth that being the church, that doing the work of God…even if we grasp the importance of the Spirit and his gifts to that calling…

…we can still fall into dangerous thinking and divisive attitudes about those gifts.

And again…that’s what seems to be happening in Corinth.

The desire to be super-spiritual, and that very human tendency to pursue some sort of hierarchy in their congregation, gives the Corinthians a skewed picture of what it means to be the church.

And so Paul gives them a different picture, a picture that has become one of, if not THE, standard operating metaphor for the church throughout its history.

The picture of the church…as the body.

It’s a metaphor that Paul loves: it pops up in a lot of his writings.

But here in 1 Corinthians 12 he unpacks it in a particularly thorough…and convicting…way.

[1 CORINTHIANS 12: 12-31]

This is actually a difficult passage for me to preach from, not because it’s hard to understand, but because Paul does such a complete job of making his point.

He pretty much says it all, I’m not sure I can offer much beyond his words.

But I do want to point out the importance of what Paul’s saying here in the larger context of this letter and the situations he’s already been addressing, particular the subject of church unity.

Which, as you’ll remember, was a huge issue for the Corinthian church.

Paul takes it head-on here in this part of chapter 12.

And what he says here echoes his words in Ephesians chapter 4:

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

And in light of that truth, Paul then goes on to say that we have no right, there is NO place at all in the church for superiority…for discrimination…for hierarchy.

In this wonderful metaphor of the body Paul illustrates an absurd scene that is absurd for a reason.

Sometimes we need absurdity to illustrate absurdity.

And the kind of superior attitude at play in the Corinthian church is the height of absurdity.

It’s like an eye saying to the hand, “Back off! I’m more important…I don’t need you!”

It’s like the head saying to a foot, “Get over yourself! You’re nothing compared to me!”

And friends, we’re fooling ourselves if we say those attitudes don’t invade our churches from time to time.

When one person or one group looks at another person or another group and says, “They need to get their act together.”

“They’re focused entirely on the wrong thing. They need to get with the program and see that what we’re doing…the things that we’re up to…that’s where the action is. That’s where God wants us all to be.”

Paul’s absurd illustration calls us to name that as a dangerous attitude.

The church needs all of us…all of our gifts…and all of our passions…and all of our personalities…and all of our uniqueness.

What is mutual is our submission to the Spirit.

But what the Spirit does with that submission is going to be different for me than it is for you than it is for the person sitting next to you or behind you.

And our task is to celebrate that…not criticize it.

Paul says, “God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.”

Our task, our passion…should not be to figure out or dictate what part of the others should be, our task is to discover what part God is calling us to be.

But even there…we can succumb to an unhealthy way of thinking.

Because I actually think even more than our tendency to get down on someone’s calling and giftedness…is our tendency to get down on our own.

Paul addresses that:

“If the foot says, ‘I’m not a part of the body because I’m not a hand,’ that doesn’t make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body?”

Of course, the assumed answer, and the right one: is NO.

[APPENDIX: EARS HEAR, HANDS WORK]

What Paul is getting at here in chapter 12 is this: there are no appendixes in the body of Christ.

And yes I looked it up: appendixes is the right word.

There are no worthless gifts, there are no worthless people, in the church.

You might feel you have so little to offer, your finances may mean you can’t contribute a lot of money your health may mean you can’t contribute a lot of time and energy…

…there might be any number of factors that make you think you don’t have anything to offer, but the truth is that God is only asking for one thing.

Granted, it’s a big thing.

He’s asking you to give yourself.

And like we said earlier…he is the one who guides us into our giftedness…he is the one who empowers us for our service.

Paul says, “You are the body of Christ, and EVERY ONE of you is part of it.”

EVERY ONE.

Let that sink in.

Let it impact how you see yourself. Let it impact how you see others.

We are the body of Christ. Every one an important part.

[ST VIGEANS]

As I thought about this piece of land that had once held a monastery, I was struck by the theme of consecration.

The idea of a piece of land…or a building…or a group of people…being set apart for service to Christ.

But the reality is…that’s all of us.

You don’t have to be a monk…you don’t have to live in a special place or have a special job or wear special clothing or even have a special haircut…to be consecrated for service to the church.

What Paul says here in 1 Corinthians 12 is that everyone who follow Christ has been set apart for service…consecrated for his work.

What would the modern church of Christ look like if all of us truly understood, accepted, and embraced that important truth?

Let us pray.