I Corinthians 12

This week commences “birthday season” in our home.  Our youngest turns two today, his sister will celebrate her fourth birthday two weeks later, shortly thereafter we expect our fifth child to be born, and within the next two months we will also celebrate the birthdays of our oldest two children.  The talk at the breakfast table lately has centered on birthday cakes and the gifts that the older siblings plan to make for the younger ones.  My husband and I will also get a gift for each of our children.  They will not all receive the same gift, nor will each gift cost the same amount.  But each child will receive a gift that we have determined is fitting for him or for her.

                So it is with our God.  Paul begins 1 Corinthians 12 this way: “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant.”  He goes on to teach that, though there are different spiritual gifts, and different ways in which those gifts are employed by different people, it is the same God who gives to each one of His children their spiritual gifts:  “One and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills” (vs 11).

                What exactly is a spiritual gift?  It is a capacity for service given to every – yes, every – Christian as a result of his or her conversion.  Paul lists some spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12; others are listed in Romans 12 and 1 Peter 4.  The list of gifts in these passages is suggestive, not exhaustive.  Among the gifts listed are wisdom, knowledge, prophecy, ministering, teaching, exhorting, giving, leading, mercy, and hospitality.  A spiritual gift is not necessarily a natural talent.  When writing to the Corinthians Paul makes a distinction between “before” and “after”: “You were Gentiles,” he writes, but now that you have been converted and have been given the Spirit of God, you possess spiritual gifts.  Perhaps one in Corinth is a gifted public speaker.  That is a talent given him by God.  Once he is converted, that talent can be employed as a spiritual gift to encourage fellow believers or expound the Word of God. 

Are you Christian?  Then you, too, have a spiritual gift or gifts.  And you have been given that gift for the profit of all (vs 7) – that is, not for your own personal benefit, but for the good of fellow members of Christ’s church.  “As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God…that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:10-11).  God does not intend that you or I hoard our spiritual gifts any more than my husband and I will allow our children to be selfish with their birthday gifts.  Each of us is far too prone to sit on the sidelines and leave a few whom we think are more gifted to do the work in the congregation of which we are a member.  Shame on us!  We must be busy employing our gifts for the good of the body!

For we are members of a body, as Paul goes on to illustrate in the remainder of 1 Corinthians 12.  A glorious body, composed of men, woman, and children chosen by Christ to everlasting life, gathered from the beginning to the end of time out of the whole human race, and preserved by His Spirit and Word.  That is the Church of Jesus Christ.  As each part of your body is different, so are the members of Christ’s church.  And yet, just as each part of your body serves a specific purpose, so God has made each member of Christ’s church special yet necessary for the functioning of the Body.  The congregation of which you are a part is a manifestation of that glorious, innumerable Body.  Busy yourself there among your fellow believers, employing your spiritual gifts for their profit and God’s glory.