1 Corinthians 12
12
Chapter 12
Gifts from God's Spirit
1My Christian friends, I want you to understand clearly about spiritual gifts. 2You know how you lived before you came to know God. You let idols lead you in many wrong ways. And those idols cannot even speak! 3This is what I want you to understand now. God's Spirit will never lead anyone to say, ‘God has cursed Jesus.’ And it is only God's Spirit that will lead someone to say, ‘Jesus is Lord.’
4The Holy Spirit helps us with different kinds of gifts. But it is the same Spirit who gives them. 5We serve the Lord in different ways, but all of us serve the same Lord. 6We do different kinds of work. But it is the same God who helps us all to work in different ways.
7God helps each of us with a gift from his Spirit. He does that so that we can help others.
8The Spirit helps some people to speak wise messages. Other people can speak messages that help people to know what is true. It is the same Spirit that helps them to do that. 9The same Spirit causes other people to trust God strongly. He gives to other people gifts to make sick people well. 10The same Spirit gives other people power to do miracles. Other people can speak messages from God. Some people can recognize whether spirits are good or bad. Some people can speak in different kinds of languages. And other people can explain what those languages mean. 11There is only one Holy Spirit. The same Spirit helps people to do all these different things. He decides which gifts he will give to each person.
One body with many parts
12Each person has only one body, but that body has many parts. All those different parts make only one body. It is like that with Christ too. 13When they baptized us, we all became parts of one body. It was the one Spirit who brought us together. It made no difference whether we were Jews or Gentiles. It made no difference whether we were slaves or free people. God poured his one Spirit into all of us.
14A person's body does not have only one part. It has many parts. 15If the foot could speak, it might say, ‘I am not a hand, so I do not belong to this body.’ But what it says makes no difference. It is still a part of the body. 16If the ear could speak, it might say, ‘I am not an eye, so I do not belong to this body.’ But what it says makes no difference. It still belongs to the body. 17If the whole body was an eye, the body would not hear anything. If the whole body was an ear, it would not recognize different smells. 18But God has decided where each different part of our body should be.
19If our body was all the same part, it would not be a proper body. 20But as it is, a body has many parts. It is still only one whole body. 21For that reason, the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I do not need you.’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I do not need you.’ 22No. Even the parts of a body that seem to be weaker are very necessary. 23Think about the parts of our body that are not very special. We dress them carefully! And we take special care of those parts that we do not want people to see. 24But we do not need to do this with the beautiful parts of our body.
God has put all these parts together in one body. Some parts seem to be not very special. But God has shown that those parts are very valuable. 25He has done that to bring all the parts together as one body. All the parts work together to help each other. 26Then if one part of the body hurts, every other part also hurts. If people praise one part, every part of the body is also happy.
27All of you together are Christ's body. And each of you is a part of that body. 28Like the parts of a body, God has put people in different places in his church. First, there are apostles. Second, there are people who speak messages from God. Third, there are teachers. After that, there are people who do miracles. There are people who have gifts to make sick people well. There are people who help others in special ways. There are people who can lead others. And there are people who can speak different kinds of languages.
29Not everyone in the church is an apostle. Not everyone speaks messages from God. Not everyone is a teacher. Not everyone can do miracles. 30Not everyone has the gifts to make sick people well. Not everyone can speak in different kinds of languages. Nor can everyone explain what messages in those languages mean. You know that. 31But it is good if you really want the more valuable gifts from God.
Now I will show you a way that is better than anything else.
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1 Corinthians 12
12
The Question About Gifts of the Holy Spirit
1Brothers and sisters, I want you to know how the Holy Spirit works. 2You know that before you were believers, you were somehow drawn away to worship idols that couldn’t even speak. 3So I want you to know that anyone who’s speaking with the help of God’s Spirit never says, “May Jesus be cursed.” And without the help of the Holy Spirit, no one can say, “Jesus is Lord.”
4There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5There are different ways to serve, but they all come from the same Lord. 6There are different ways the Spirit works, but the same God is working in all these ways and in every person.
7The Holy Spirit is given to each of us in a special way for the good of all. 8To one person, the Spirit gives a message of wisdom. To another, the same Spirit gives a message of knowledge. 9To another the same Spirit gives faith, and to another gifts of healing. 10To another he gives the power to do miracles, or to prophesy, or to tell spirits apart, or to speak in different kinds of languages they hadn’t known before. And to still others he gives the ability to explain what was said in those languages. 11All these gifts are produced by one and the same Spirit. He gives gifts to each person, just as he decides.
One Body but Many Parts
12The body has many parts, but all of its many parts make up that one body. It’s the same with Christ. 13We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body. It didn’t matter whether we were Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free people. We were all given the same Spirit to drink. 14So the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts.
15If the foot said, “I’m not a hand, so I don’t belong to the body,” that wouldn’t make it not part of the body anymore. 16And if the ear said, “I’m not an eye, so I don’t belong to the body,” that wouldn’t make it not part of the body anymore. 17If the whole body were an eye, how could it hear? If the whole body were an ear, how could it smell? 18God has placed each part in the body just as he wanted it to be. 19If all the parts were the same, how could there be a body? 20As it is, there are many parts, but there’s only one body.
21The eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22It’s just the opposite! The parts of the body that seem to be weaker are the ones we can’t do without. 23Any parts that we think are less attractive, we take special care to dress up. Some parts are private, and we treat them with modesty, 24which the other parts don’t need. When God put the body together, he gave more honor to the parts that didn’t have any. 25He did that so the parts of the body wouldn’t divide into opposing groups. Instead, they would all take care of one another. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part shares in its joy.
27You are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28God has placed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, guiding, and speaking in different kinds of languages. 29Is everyone an apostle? Is everyone a prophet? Is everyone a teacher? Do all work miracles? 30Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in languages they hadn’t known before? Do all explain what is said in those languages? 31Above all, you should want the greater gifts, but now let me show you the best way of all.
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