Bible Reading Challenge 38
1 Corinthians 12:27-31
27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 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. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts.
And I will show you a still more excellent way.
Stop! Before you go any farther, I need to remind you what comes before these verses. Paul has spent the entirety of chapter 12 talking about one thing, UNITY! He has taught how the body of Christ (His Church) is one body made up of many members, and that each part of the body (every individual Christian, every includes you!) has different gifts given by God that are meant to be used in the church to carry out our mission to glorify God by sharing the gospel with the lost and helping each other grow in relationship and obedience to God. Paul is absolutely clear that EVERY single gift and EVERY single person is needed for this task, and we must fight hard against our natural temptation to elevate certain gifts above others (for us, this is normally the flashy gifts that put some in front of others like teaching/preaching, being more extroverted in personality, etc, while we tend to undervalue gifts that are used more in private or in the background).
So, I want you to have these ideas of unity and of all gifts being of necessary and equal value to the church before we discuss this passage and what it means for us.
In these verses Paul does something he hasn’t yet done, he describes the lists very clearly in a list and almost seems to be ranking them. But that can’t be right, we just talked about how all gifts are needed and should be valued equally. We also can’t assume that Paul was just being thoughtless with his language, this is the inspired Word of God, even the order of the words in it matters (it is also very clearly in the Greek first, second, and third). So what does it mean?
Paul here is establishing that though gifts are equal in value, there is an authority in church life given to those with certain gifts if/once they have the character to match. This authority is specifically concerning the first three gifts Paul lists, and is specifically for the interpretation and application of God’s Word for church life.
The highest authority is to the apostles, this is a very limited group including those who saw Jesus Christ in the flesh and were appointed by Him for this task. There are no more apostles today.
After the apostles come the prophets, those bringing a specific message from God to His people. It is not for me to decide for you whether there are prophets among us today, but if there is one claiming to be so, let us hold them to God’s standard for true prophets. That standard is 100% accuracy, in every single word (Deuteronomy 18:15-22).
Then teachers, this is the most common authoritative gift left to us today. This includes those in church leadership, specifically what the new testament calls shepherds or elders, what we nowadays most often call pastors. The gift of teaching alone does not qualify someone for this role, they must also demonstrate other applicable gifts and most importantly have the character to handle these gifts and their role. However, if one does not possess the gift of teaching to authoritatively (not perfectly) handle the Word of God for church life, this would disqualify from the role of pastor.
Paul then gives a non-exhaustive list of some other spiritual gifts, and these are not ranked in any kind of order (this is why Paul switches from first, second, third to then, then language). However, Paul does put tongues at the absolute last place because he knows the Corinthians overvalue that particular gift.
BIBLE READING TIP: Notice I’m not discussing healing, miracles, other such spiritual gifts that we don’t seem to see at all or as often now. This is not out of fear or avoidance, rather they are not the main point of this passage. There are two camps throughout church history and we don’t need to fight over this. Some say these miraculous gifts were needed to establish the church and are no longer necessary, others say they continue today. While an interesting discussion, that is not the main point of this passage (always try to focus on the main point of a passage!!).
Sorry I know that was a long bit of teaching, but it is important for us to know. So what do these verses actually mean for us?
You have at least one spiritual gift, and you must use it for God’s glory, most often this is not only in church life but you can use it in your personal life as well! We need you to use your gifts or we are failing at part of our mission as a church!!
Be very careful of what gifts you tend to over or under value, specifically seek to honor those with gifts you undervalue (this will greatly help you in this struggle)
Genuinely desire spiritual gifts from God so that you can use them for His glory! Do not be afraid to want or even ask for gifts from God!! Just be careful you don’t try to force something that isn’t you.
PS: Come back next week to learn about the even better and more important thing than these spiritual gifts.
