Read for This Week’s Study: 1 Corinthians 12, Eph. 4:11-13, 1 Corinthians 13, 1 Pet. 4:8-11, 1 Cor. 14:27, Amos 3:7.

Memory Text: “Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy” (1 Corinthians 14:1, ESV).

The Opening Question: What do you know about Spiritual gifts?

The lesson this week invites a careful consideration of 1 Corinthians 12 and 13, with a little foray into chapter 14, too. There is a lot of material in these chapters that can be talked about.

We might first talk of the matter of unity. There are repeated calls and intimations in these chapters that indicate there needs to be unity in the believing community. Unity is not the same thing as uniformity and it is important not to get the two things confused. Uniformity occurs when everyone thinks and does the same things. Uniformity does not allow for any difference for it sees differences as bad, indications that not everyone is on-board with the plan, whatever it might be. Uniformity almost always requires some entity to use coercion to make sure everyone is in compliance. Unity, on the other hand, is very different. It involves the willing compliance of those who are associating together. It springs from willing involvement in some common mission. It is an internal compulsion that allows people to overlook their differences that they might work together on their chosen mission. Here investment in mission causes them to minimize or even ignore differences.

At the same time, we need to talk about diversity. Diversity is a much-used word these days and it seems to be used mostly in connection with cultural and racial differences. But diversity is much broader than just those two categories. In particular in these chapters, diversity is focused on the various abilities the Holy Spirit gives to people in order to facilitate the mission of the church. The list given in 1 Cor. 12 is not thought to be exhaustive and it varies a little from the other New Testament lists in Ephesians and Romans. But the point is that, in order to facilitate the mission of the church, believers are given different “gifts” or abilities that enable them to participate in the proclamation of the gospel. One of the points made by Paul is that, while some gifts are more prominent than others, none should be despised or looked down upon. The analogy drawn between the human body and the church is well-known.

Paul points to one gift that should preside over all the others and that is love. The love he speaks about, particularly in 1 Corinthians 13, is also well-known. The love Paul has in mind is a robust, action-oriented love. It does not just feel things, but does, or does not do, certain things. This love is supposed to moderate or govern the use of the gifts thereby maintaining unity in the church.

Reading this section in 1 Corinthians makes it plain that there was one gift that was of particular concern to Paul. That was the gift of tongues. For some reason, the use of that gift was causing problems in the church in Corinth. Interestingly, this gift is still a matter of contention in the Christian church today. The basic issue has to do with whether the word “tongues” refers to actual known languages foreign to the speaker, or to some form of ecstatic utterances of some kind. There are some people who insist it has to mean foreign languages while others claim it has to do with ecstatic utterance. Unfortunately, the text is not clear enough to make a clear decision on this. But, the fact that Paul sets some boundaries to the use of this gift of tongues tends to favor the idea of actual languages though it is hard to know of what use the gift would be, why it would be used if there had to be someone to interpret what was said. Would not the person who had facility with that language just do the speaking? At the same time, it is hard to see the value of some ecstatic utterance if people could not understand it. Whatever the case, this issue remains difficult. What is not difficult is that however the gift is perceived, it should not be the cause of disruption or contention.

A final note to make here is that Paul makes the point very clearly that everyone is given some gift by the Spirit. Have you identified yours? And have you put it to good use?