A series on 1 Corinthians 12 & 13
What glues us together?
How are we held together, bound together as church?
We might have different answers to this question:
- Is it what we believe, our confession of faith? How we interpret the bible?
- Is it being here at the same church at the time? This place, this community. It might be many years of this for you or just a few for others so far.
- Is it God’s word as the guiding principles for our lives, as an amazing resource for who God is and how to do the Christian life?
- Or is it Jesus – is Jesus the glue? Is it having a relationship with him through the work of the Holy Spirit?
All of the above!
Thinking about this theme of glue… Over the summer holidays I did a bit of arts and crafts/glue-stick work with our daughter Norah, some collaging and some scrap-booking. Usually my wife Evie’s the chief craftsperson at our place but I had a go, and I was reminded how glue holds it all together. The thing about glue is that if it’s doing it’s job right, you can’t see it…
Interesting how God can work like that as we know, he’s working even if we can’t see him – we believe in what we cannot see – this side of heaven that is.
So we kick off this little series, first one for the year, with 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. We’re going to move through chapter 12 and into chapter 13 as we go, just focusing on this first bit of chapter 12 today.
What are the touchpoints for this passage > 3 sections here.
- 1st bit: Paul wants the Corinthians to be informed, to be educated, to be aware. So they can understand what the gifts of the Spirit are, and also what they are not.
- 2nd bit is how through different kinds of gifts, different kinds of service, different kinds of working > it’s all the same Spirit at work.
- 3rd bit: what the gifts of the Spirit are, there are 9 different gifts listed here – and we won’t be able to dissect all of them in detail here, but this sort of stuff is definitely something we can dig into in conversation with each other, in bible study groups, spiritual gifts are always a great study theme, always more to learn. We don’t reach the answer and say ‘that’s it’ with this stuff!
Today we’re just going to touch on the gifts as we move through – this could be a whole sermon series in itself! But before we do that, let’s look at the parameters Paul’s working with here, the principles behind his teaching, what he’s saying. The values that apply to each and every spiritual gift, the glue that holds it all together.
We get this in the first two parts of our text today. The third part is what the gifts are, but we need the first two bits to know how this works – we have to know, to remember who our God is if we’re going to know how he works. We might be tempted to skip to the part where God tells us what to do, how to live, but we need to know who he is if we’re going to having any chance of growing in our relationship with him.
So what do we need to know, to remember as we dive into what the spiritual gifts are?
- Paul wants us to be informed, not blindly following what he says but listening carefully, comparing what we might hear in one verse with the whole message of Jesus. Don’t be led astray he says, being informed will help you protect you against influences that are not of God. He gives the example of how someone ‘who is speaking by the spirit of God’ will not curse Jesus, but call him Lord. That’s a test whether or not someone is speaking by the Spirit of God – does what they’re saying line up with what Jesus says? Or not? Important tool there for walking the Christian life. So we need to be informed, aware, conscious of how our God works. We’re not floating or blown around by the wind, we’re connected and anchored to him.
- Second he says there is one Spirit, but different gifts. There is heaps we could say about this, but the simple point is again the one Spirit of God at work, and the Spirit is revealed in different ways in different people > we’re not all the same, we’re not all carbon-copies or robots. We each have different God-given gifts and abilities, callings, vocations, roles and responsibilities etc. Which is what he goes into next with the different spiritual gifts. This is where spiritual GIFTS are different to spiritual FRUIT > all of us are called to share in the same spiritual FRUITS, kindness, gentleness, self-control etc. But we can have different GIFTS, different ways the Spirit is revealed in us.
So now that we’ve ‘read the instruction manual’ – as Evie wisely reminds me to do when we put furniture together at home or get a new appliance or something like that – now that we know what’s behind all this, who is at work in these spiritual gifts, now we can have some context to understanding them and how they work.
So we’ve got the first 3 > wisdom, knowledge, & faith.
They’re the ones we probably hear about most, the easier ones to get our heads around. A really brief summary of these:
Wisdom = knowing who God is. (Proverbs 9:10 – the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom)
Knowledge = the understanding that comes from knowing who God is
Faith = the means by which we can know – you guessed it – who God is!
That might be why Paul starts off with these three before he launches into the rest, the importance of knowing who God is the first and foremost priority for us.
Then we go onto the other 6 listed here: healing, miracles, discernment, prophecy & speaking/interpreting tongues.
How do we understand these ones? Metaphorical & literal interpretations, both can apply.
Healing: can be physical but also beyond that, these are ‘spiritual gifts’ after all not purely physical ones like jumping high or running fast! The forgiveness of sin (why Holy Communion is a healing gift), reconciliation – how do spiritual gifts play out in everyday life? In our relationships, they are relational, just as our God is relational > this is all for the ‘common good’ Paul says. Not individual but common, collective, to be shared and revealed in community.
Miracles: like healing done by Jesus and the Apostles by the power of the Spirit, also points to the mysteries of life, witnessing and sharing in the mystery and beauty of creation…
Prophecy: here we can think of vision, seeing what comes next. We think of the Old Testament prophets with this one, amazing how their prophecies are fulfilled in Jesus.
Discernment: ‘distinguishing between spirits,’ knowing what’s what. This is applying what we see and hear based on who God is.
Tongues: breaking down barriers… meeting people where they’re at. Less about a made up language that no one can understand, but more the opposite > the Spirit of God reaching people where they are, helping them for the purpose of understanding him.
Reflections of God in us… How do you test if something may or may not be a spiritual gift? Take Paul’s advice. Is it of God, is it something Jesus talks about. If it’s isolated and it’s not backed up in the bible, that’s where we can get into murky waters…
The final point Paul makes today is in the final verse: ‘All these [gifts] are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.’ Not as we determine, as he determines!
This brings us back to his first two points today: be informed, one Spirit at work in different ways.
These are not gifts that are handed over to us, they are worked within us by the Holy Spirit – you see the ongoing connection there, remaining connected to the source, sharing in God’s design for his people to be in community with each other.
Something that might be useful to better understand spiritual gifts is doing a spiritual gifts test – it’s like a personality test, but for spiritual gifts. Really interesting to spend some time on that, looking for the ways the Spirit is working in you, in each and every one of us.
And there are more spiritual gifts in the bible than the ones listed here, more we can seek and learn about as we dwell in the word. This is a big topic to get into, but really interesting to grow and learn in our understanding of spiritual gifts, of our own personal gifts, and testing that out and refining it in community.
So we are given spiritual gifts as signs of the Holy Spirit working in us, for our benefit and the benefit of others. We can think of the way the Holy Spirit works here as ‘spiritual GLUE,’ the glue that holds us and binds us together in relationship with each other, and in relationship with our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
I don’t know about you but I’m excited about the call to grow and to learn together in community, to deepen our understanding of our God and of each other. Let’s pray for God’s help on that journey together.
Lord we ask that you would make your presence to known to each and every one of us, through your Holy Spirit. Lead us to know you more, to grow in wisdom and knowledge and faith and to trust you as the one who heals, who makes miracles happen, who always holds each of us in your hands. Give us your comfort, your strength and your and peace, in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Tom Kitson 