1 Corinthians 12
12
Spiritual Gifts
1-3What I want to talk about now is the various ways God’s Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often misunderstood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable. Remember how you were when you didn’t know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It’s different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can. For instance, by using your heads, you know perfectly well that the Spirit of God would never prompt anyone to say “Jesus be damned!” Nor would anyone be inclined to say “Jesus is Master!” without the insight of the Holy Spirit.
4-11God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful:
wise counsel
clear understanding
simple trust
healing the sick
miraculous acts
proclamation
distinguishing between spirits
tongues
interpretation of tongues.
All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when.
12-13You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.
14-18I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, transparent and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.
19-24But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?
25-26The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.
27-31You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your “part” mean anything. You’re familiar with some of the parts that God has formed in his church, which is his “body”:
apostles
prophets
teachers
miracle workers
healers
helpers
organizers
those who pray in tongues.
But it’s obvious by now, isn’t it, that Christ’s church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, unidimensional Part? It’s not all Apostle, not all Prophet, not all Miracle Worker, not all Healer, not all Prayer in Tongues, not all Interpreter of Tongues. And yet some of you keep competing for so-called “important” parts.
But now I want to lay out a far better way for you.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
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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