Spiritual Gifts

Paul's concern in addressing this topic with the Corinthian church, was that they were actively seeking the gift of tongues at the expense of other, more necessary, gifts. Perhaps the ability to speak in tongues carried more prestige and rendered a person more "spirit filled" than others. I am not certain to what degree, but know that this is true of the modern-day Pentecostal church. They seek the gift of tongues as they deem it evidence of the baptism of the Spirit. It seems that in the church at Corinth, members were so eager to display their gift of tongues that worship became disorderly. Perhaps a show of one-upsmanship ensued. Paul reasoned that since God was a God of order and not of chaos, the cacophany of sounds was not pleasing to Him nor beneficial to the church. Paul's additional point was that there are many spiritual gifts and that all are necessary within the body of believers. God apportions them out in accordance with each person's talents and aptitude. Paul suggested that if one were to seek a gift, one should look to a gift that would be more helpful to the church, since speaking in tongues (unless an interpreter is present) is unintelligible to all involved. By definition, speaking in tongues means that the language used is unknown to the speaker, whether that be a foreign language or a non-existent one. An utterance of tongues therefore, would edify only the speaker. But the gift of prophecy, he offered, would be of benefit to the entire church.

Because It was revealed on a spiritual gifts test that JD has the gift of prophecy, I know what Paul is referring to. I have certainly never known JD to predict a future event, which is what I formerly associated with prophecy, (and rightly so according to the Old Testament). But the New Tsetament meaning has more to do with the ability to give "words of wisdom" or "words of knowledge". It is debatable whether or not this gift is the result of specific revelation from the Lord or the general accumulation of wisdom in ordinary life. I can tell you that in JD's case, it is definitely the latter...

And speaking of JD, Paul began his comments on spiritual gifts with a passage sung at our wedding, and probably at more than half of yours as well... 1 Cor. 13. The summation is that regardless of the spiritual gift one possesses, it is meaningless without love as it's undercurrent. Once again, the emphasis of the New Testament is on the content of our hearts and not our actions.

Tomorrow's reading: 1 Cor. 16:1-24; Acts 19:21-41, 20:1-6; Romans 1:1-32