Spiritual Gifts – 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Apostolic.edu has provided a sectarian, yet nonetheless helpful, history of speaking in tongues in the church.  They mention in particular the experience among the Quakers and Shakers:

Some who attended confessed their sins aloud, crying for mercy; some went into a trance-like state in which they saw visions and received prophecies of Christ’s imminent second coming. Others shouted and danced for joy because they believed that the day was at hand for wars to cease and God’s kingdom on earth to begin.

Though this has, by no means, been the experience and attitude of most tongues speakers, it is somewhat descriptive of the Corinthian experience.  They saw the gift of tongues as evidence they had already begun to experience and rule in the kingdom of God on earth.  Paul responds to their questions about gifts, and particularly about tongues speaking.

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.  (1 Corinthians 12:1-11 ESV)

The next questions the Corinthians have addressed to Paul concern pneumatikon, that is, spiritual gifts or abilities.  The Corinthians have been quite focused on these and, as we will see, quite proud of their giftings.  But Paul first wants them to understand that even as pagans they experienced spiritual powers that moved them to embrace idols and even at times to make ecstatic utterances that seemed to come from their gods.  But no one can deny Jesus under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and no one can consistently proclaim the truth about Jesus except by the Holy Spirit.  The experience of spiritual power doesn’t guarantee the source of that power being God and must be discerned by the content of the doctrine that springs from it.  A focus on spiritual gifts apart from sound teaching and practices can result in bizarre claims, a problem the Corinthians have been experiencing.

Paul then lays out the fact that the Spirit has given a variety of gifts with a guiding purpose.  Jesus has given a variety of service activities using those gifts with, of course, one guiding purpose.  And the Father has determined a variety of outcomes for these services using various gifts in unity of purpose.  And so a person with the gift of prophecy, for example, receives that gift as a manifestation of the Spirit’s ability to speak God’s words, Jesus puts that gift to service perhaps in leadership in a congregation, and the Father determines how extensively that gift and service will be used.  Paul lists the various gifts, not exhaustively (other lists are found in Romans 12, 1 Peter 4 and Ephesians 4) to help the Corinthians see that tongues speaking, their favorite, is not the only gift to appreciate.

Paul doesn’t define the gifts, so we are left to surmise what they meant in the experience of the church. 

• Some utter wisdom, perhaps meaning gifted to speak messages that direct people in right living. 
• Others speak knowledge, perhaps meaning things they could not have known other than through the Spirit’s revealing them, such as aspects of a person’s life (Peter knew that Ananias and Sapphira had lied about how much they sold their property for, Acts 5). 
• The gift of faith might be the ability to believe God for great things and inspire faith in others. 
• Gifts of healings (both words are plural) could be various instances of empowerment by God to do miracles of healing, whereas workings of miracles might include instances of other kinds of miracles (Paul made a sorcerer blind, Peter raised a woman from the dead, Paul shook a poisonous snake off with no affect, etc.). 
• Prophecy is the ability to hear from and speak what God wants the church to know (messages as well as various predictions), whereas the distinguishing of spirits means being able to tell what is from God and what isn’t in terms of prophecy and other manifestations of power. 
• Tongues is the ability to speak a prophetic message in a language you did not know, and interpretation is the ability to translate that message.

Paul’s main point is that the Holy Spirit gives these gifts to benefit the common good of the church and He gives them as He chooses.  There is no cause to boast about the gift or gifts one has, nor is there any reason to use them except to build up the church.