1 Corinthians 13
Spiritual Gifts, part 2. Main Text: 1 Corinthians 13.
We are continuing our study on the subject of spiritual gifts.
Last time we looked at 1 Corinthians 12 where we focused in on verse 7:
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
And from this verse we learned several very important theological principles about the nature of spiritual gifts:
Spiritual Gifts are given to each believer.
There’s no such thing as a believer without the Holy Spirit, and there’s no such thing as a believer without a spiritual gift.
Spiritual Gifts are gifts; we don’t learn them, we receive them.
Spiritual Gifts are manifestations of God working in us and through us.
We can’t separate the Giver from the gift.
When we use our gifts, we are allowing God to work in and through us to serve others. Which brings me to the last point:
Spiritual gifts are given for the common good; that is, for the building up of the body of Christ.
The goal of spiritual gifts is never to draw attention to the person using them; it is to serve others in the church and build them up in the faith.
Jesus was the ultimate servant, and when we use our gifts the way He intended, we become like Him in the way we serve others.
As this comes into focus, we can see that understanding and using our spiritual gifts in the church is vitally important. It helps each of us know our place in the body. It builds others up. It ultimately brings glory to God as the church functions the way it was designed to.
1 Peter 4:10–11 (ESV): 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
I also gave you a list of all the gifts listed in the New Testament (there are 18 or 19 of them, depending on whether you combine pastor and teacher or consider them separate gifts).
Mercy, exhortation, helping, teaching, discernment…
Some that seem more extraordinary: tongues, prophecy (which we’ll get into more next week in chapter 14.
Each of these gifts (and it’s likely that God could give others that are not listed in scripture) are designed to be used for the building up of the body of Christ.
The question naturally arises: How do I discover and use my gift(s)?
Interestingly, there is no direct command in scripture to discover your gift, or a step-by-step process for doing so. Instead, there is simply the assumption that every believer has a gift, and there is the repeated command to use it.
For example:
Romans 12:4–8 (ESV): 4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
1 Peter 4:10–11 (NLT): 10 God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.
2 Timothy 1:6 (ESV): 6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands,
1 Timothy 4:14 (ESV): 14 Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.
There are some practical things you can do to discern what your gift is, and these are mainly based on anecdotal evidence:
Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the ways He’s gifted you.
James 1:5 encourages believers to ask God for wisdom, and promises to give it when we ask in faith.
You can search your own heart on the areas of loving and serving others that bring you the most fulfillment and that make you come alive.
You can listen to what others affirm in you. By definition, spiritual gifts are going to build others up in their faith. So the real litmus test for whether you have a gift or not is ultimately whether it is effective at building others up.
All of these practical steps are valid, but again, no clear process is laid out in scripture for discovering our gifts, and there’s no direct command to do so… only the assumption that everyone has a gift and the command to use it.
However: Over and over the use of spiritual gifts in the church is paired with the command to love others. The themes are inseparable.
In Romans 12, right after Paul gives the list of gifts and encourages them to use them, he says in verse 9, “let love be genuine… 10 love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor”.
In 1 Peter 4, Peter says, “use your gifts to serve one another”.
And perhaps most significantly, in 1 Corinthians, right in the middle of the longest treatment of spiritual gifts in the whole Bible (chapters 12 and 14), Paul interjects an entire chapter (1 Corinthians 13) on the importance and centrality of love in the church.
And so… If God saw it fit to put love at the center of the Bible’s treatment of spiritual gifts, we should keep it at the center of our conversation on spiritual gifts as well.
What’s more: It seems that love is actually the key to unlocking the way our gifts are discovered, and the way our gifts find their right expression in our church.
As we seek to honestly love one another by using whatever abilities the Lord has given us to build them up… we inevitably end up discovering those gifts in us that are strongest, and we automatically fall into our right place within the church.
1 Corinthians 12:27–13:13 (ESV):
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?
These are rhetorical questions, of course. The implied answer is, “no”. Not everyone has the same gift; not everyone has the same function in the body (the church).
31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts.
In the context, “higher” means ‘more useful for building others up’. And in chapter 14 he will distinguish between the gift of tongues and prophecy and how prophecy is more useful for building others up, and therefore, more desirable.
But then he says…
And I will show you a still more excellent way.
13:1…
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Paul is employing the literary device of hyperbole; he’s exaggerating.
He’s listing some of the spiritual gifts, but he’s elevating them to the highest imaginable level…
Not just the gift of tongues… tongues of men and of angels!
Not just prophecy… prophetic powers to understand ALL mysteries and ALL knowledge…
Not just the gift of faith… extraordinary faith to move mountains (obviously borrowing from Jesus’ own example).
Not just the gift of generosity… the giving up of his very life!
BUT, he says… “even if I could practice all these gifts to the nth degree, without love it would all be meaningless.”
Love is the key to unlocking the meaning of spiritual gifts. Why? Because the whole purpose of spiritual gifts is love.
Love for the church, as our gifts are used to build others up.
Love for Christ as He is glorified through the use of our gifts.
Love for the lost as our gifts propel the mission of Christ forward.
As we are motivated by showing love for others, our gifts naturally come to the surface.
If you come with an honest desire to be of the most help to others in order to build up the church and further the mission, you will naturally gravitate towards the areas of service in which you can have the biggest impact… and when this happens, you inevitably end up discovering your God-given gifts.
When you hear of a need that needs to be met in hosting a dinner group… something in you leaps up, and you end up discovering your gift of hospitality.
When you learn of someone in the church who is in dire financial need, the Holy Spirit pokes you and says, ‘you’ve got this’... and you end up discovering a gift of giving.
When you get wind of someone going through a tragedy or a crisis, something wells up inside you and you go to that person and show compassion on them and encourage them, and as a result you end up discovering that you have the gift of mercy.
When you overhear some people after church having a conversation about God’s Word, and wrestling through the meaning of the text, you can’t help yourself from chiming in, and the Holy Spirit gives you the ability to illuminate in a coherent way what the passage means, and apply it to their lives… and all of a sudden you uncover the gift of teaching in your life.
But the only way any of this happens is if we approach our gatherings with an aim to love others. Without love as the motive, not only are the gifts meaningless as Paul says, there’s also a good chance they won’t be discovered or used in the first place. Or worse, they’ll be used for our own self-aggrandizement instead of for their God-intended purpose.
So what IS love?
Should we get our working definition from Hollywood? Should we get our understanding of love from social media? Or from our own imagination?
No; Let’s get our understanding of love by going to the One who IS love… let’s hear from God…
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Notice, we’ve heard nothing so far about love as a ‘feeling’. These are action words, not emotion words.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
If you’ve been in Christian community for any length of time, you know that it can get messy. Hundreds of people gathered together from all different backgrounds, all different kinds of baggage that we are still in the process of casting off now that we are in Christ, all different kinds of perspectives…
Unity is the goal, but it is seldom ever reached on this side of heaven.
So in light of that, we need to bear with, believe in, hope in, and endure one another in the church.
“Love does not ask to have an easy life of it: self-love makes that her aim. Love denies herself, sacrifices herself, that she may win victories for God, and hers shall be no tinsel crown.” (Spurgeon)
How is all of this possible? Only by embracing the fact that Jesus has loved us exactly this way.
“We love because He first loved us.” (1 Jn. 4:19)
We are patient and kind with one another because that’s the way He treats us.
We are not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude because our Savior came down from His throne in Heaven washing feet, and acting like a servant.
We do not insist on our own way, because our Savior sat praying in the Garden of Gethsemane saying, “not my will but your will be done”.
We are not irritable or resentful because our Savior lived among the most irritating group of followers imaginable, and was betrayed by every one of them, and still died for those who would repent and trust in Him.
We do not rejoice at wrongdoing because our Lord was without sin, and always stood up for the oppressed.
We rejoice with the truth because our Lord declared that He IS the truth.
All of these behaviors are only possible as a natural outflowing of His love for us.
Something else we learn from this passage is that spiritual giftedness is not an accurate measure of spiritual maturity… But love is.
We can easily assess our level of spiritual maturity by inserting our name in place of ‘love’ in these verses.
When we are walking in love toward others, we don’t even need to worry about obeying the letter of the law because we will automatically be doing it. Love, as Jesus said, is the fulfillment of the law.
Romans 13:8–10 (ESV): 8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Galatians 5:14 (ESV): 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
When it speaks of the fruit of the Spirit in this same chapter, what’s the first fruit listed? Love.
Love is what led to our salvation in the first place… for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. (Jn. 3:16)
And perhaps the most encouraging thing about love is…
8 Love never ends.
This is certainly true in the sense of magnitude; God’s love has zero limits.
But it’s also true in the sense of chronology. There will never be a time in all of history into eternity when God’s love ends. It is eternal.
Interestingly, the same cannot be said of the spiritual gifts…
As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
Now, some have taken that to mean that these particular gifts (prophecy, tongues, word of knowledge… as well as perhaps other miraculous gifts like healing) have ceased.
They put those gifts in their own category since they appear to be more supernatural than the others… And they say that with the closing of the New Testament canon and the passing of the apostles, these gifts are no longer active in the Church… That they have “passed away”, now that we have the “perfect” revelation of God through His Word.
There are at least two problems with that view.
As much as we like to categorize spiritual gifts, and call some ‘miraculous’ and others ordinary… or say that some will expire and others will endure… the fact is, the Bible itself makes no such distinctions. The only categorization of gifts is in 1 Peter 4…
1 Peter 4:10–11 (ESV): 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
So Peter broadly categorizes the gifts as either speaking gifts or serving gifts. Beyond this, no distinctions are made anywhere else in scripture. Instead, what we find is that they all are supernatural… they ALL come as a supernatural gift from the Holy Spirit. No matter how mundane or how miraculous they each seem to us.
The second problem with taking Paul’s words in verses 8-11 as meaning certain gifts have ceased to exist is that in verse 12, he elaborates on what he means by ‘when the perfect comes’... and it is clearly talking not about the end of the apostolic age or the close of the NT canon, but rather about when we reach eternity with Christ.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
There’s no way that is referring to the close of the canon of scripture. That’s referring to our future glorified state with Christ.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Spiritual gifts are amazing. They are nothing less than a miraculous working of God through His people in order to build each other up.
But as awesome as gifts are, they are worthless without love.
Giftedness is not a sign of maturity; love is.
Gifts are discovered and rightly used when we aim to love those around us in Christ.
You want to discover what your gifts are?
You can pray; you can ask others who know you to affirm them; you can consider what makes you come alive, you can even take spiritual gift finder tests online…
But ultimately, the best way is to simply begin looking for ways to demonstrate love in actionable ways within the church. To meet practical and personal needs.