1 Corinthians Episode 16: Variety of Gifts, One Spirit

Paul teaches about spiritual gifts given to the church for building it up, but they all flow from the same Holy Spirit.

- Podcast Transcript - 

Wes

Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study Podcast. This podcast is just one of the many resources available to you for free from Two Journeys Ministry. If you're interested in learning more, just head over to twojourneys.org. Now, onto today's episode.

This is episode 16 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study podcast. This episode is entitled Variety of Gifts, One Spirit, where we'll discuss 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. I'm Wes Treadway and I'm here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we're looking at today?

Andy

Well, today we begin in a new section in the epistle 1 Corinthians. They're broken into sections, as Paul addresses various issues with this talented, this gifted, but dysfunctional church, Corinth. In so doing, the Holy Spirit has given us a gift, all local churches a gift, as we see their dysfunctionality and the sins that they're dealing with and the wisdom of the apostle Paul and the Holy Spirit in the apostle Paul and addressing them.

Here, the topic is and will be for three chapters, 12-14, spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts are special abilities given by the triune God to every individual member of the body of Christ for the purpose of doing spiritual ministry, building up the body of Christ to full maturity.

Every Christian has a spiritual gift package, and this addresses that topic of spiritual gifts, but also the dysfunctionality of the Corinthian church in using their gifts. They were prideful in using them, they lacked love, and they were disorderly. So, we're going to walk through each of those issues, although not today. Today, we're going to begin just by talking about spiritual gifts in general.

"Spiritual gifts are special abilities given by the triune God to every individual member of the body of Christ for the purpose of doing spiritual ministry, building up the body of Christ to full maturity."

Wes

Well, let me go ahead and read verses 1-11 in chapter 12 as we get started.

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.

Andy, according to verse 1, what is Paul's reason for writing this chapter?

Andy

He wants to instruct them about the topic of spiritual gifts. Now, this is the pattern of Christian ministry, the pattern, indeed, of the Christian life. God's word precedes God's reality; God's word precedes what he wants to see in his people. So it is with justification, his word precedes the forgiveness of sins. And then it is with sanctification, his word precedes our growth in Christ-likeness and holiness.

Now, here's the topic of spiritual gifts, and he says he doesn't want them to be ignorant or uninformed, so he wants to teach them. If we're going to do spiritual gifts properly, we must have good teaching about spiritual gifts. And we can see it in the 21st century church, there's a lot of confusion about spiritual gifts. There's a lot of confusion about the gifts of the Spirit, about charismatic issues, different things like that. So, as we walk through these three chapters, 1 Corinthians 12-14, we're going to be instructed. So, he writes, in verse 1, say, "I don't want you to be uninformed or ignorant about spiritual gifts."

Wes

Now, how does verse two fit into Paul's train of thought, then? Specifically, what's the connection between verses 2 and 3?

Andy

We live in a spiritual world. We tend to be materialists, we Westerners tend to be scientific, and we tend to be, it seems, unaware, uninformed about the spiritual dimensions around us of angels and demons and of the sovereignty of God over all of those things. There are spiritual realms, and we know that there are demons that are god and goddess impersonators, hence the pagan religions. And there are supernatural influences of those demons on priests and priestesses and on the manifestation of pagan worship.

And he says, "You Corinthians were immersed in all of that. When you were pagans and you were doing that Corinthian worship before the gospel came to Corinth, you were influenced or led astray by demons that were using the mute idols to influence you."

And then he says, "The Spirit of God has come, and he is a genuine Spirit. He is there, and he has worked in you sovereignly so that you are able to say Jesus is Lord only by the Spirit of God. In the same way, you could never say Jesus is cursed by the Spirit of God. That could never happen." He's talking about the influence of the Holy Spirit as over against the influence of evil spirits in the manifestation of their religion.

Now, spiritual gifts are going to be very powerfully influential on the Christian religion. There are going to be those that are teaching by the Spirit, those that are apostles by the Spirit, those that are doing various spiritual gift ministries by the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that works these. By contrast, the pagans are following demons, as he said earlier. They're being influenced by demons, so that's verse 2 and 3.

Wes

What more does verse 3 teach us about the power of the Holy Spirit, the inability of unconverted persons to come to Christ unaided? And how thankful we should be to the Holy Spirit for our conversion?

Andy

Let me pick up on that last thing that you said. It is absolutely true that the work of salvation is a work of the triune God. The Father, it seems, made the plan before the foundation of the world. The Son acted out or lived out the atonement and the perfection of his mediatorial work in obedience to the plan the Father had made. The Son of Man came into the world, Jesus came into the world, to obey the will of the Father and do the finished work of the cross. So, he said, "It is finished" (John 19:30), he shed his blood and died, and then rose again and ascended to heaven.

Now the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is applying the blood to the lives, the souls, of the elect as the Passover lamb's blood was painted on the doorposts and the lintels, et cetera. The Holy Spirit is working in every generation all over the world to bring the elect to saving faith.

And the Spirit is very good-is perfect-at his job. As a matter of fact, the Spirit is every bit as good at his job as Jesus was at his or the Father at his. He never fails. And when the Spirit moves on an elect person and the time has come for them to be saved, they will be saved. "All that the Father gives me will come to me" (John 6:37), Jesus said, and they're going to come by the Spirit.

And when the Spirit works on you, he works on you to say, "Jesus is Lord," and to know what that means and to make that confession from the heart, so the Spirit moves out. However, if the Spirit does not move on an unsaved person, they will never truly say Jesus is Lord. They cannot come unless the Spirit draws them.

Wes

What more do we learn about the Trinity and spiritual gifts in verses 4-6?

Andy

Well, we're going to see in general here that the Holy Spirit is doing the will of the Father and the Son when it comes to spiritual gifts. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son to work on the body of Christ, to work on elect people, and to work on the church. So, the Father wills that spiritual gifts be given; Jesus paid for those gifts and sends his Spirit to give them. And then the Spirit distributes them. The Father gives the gifts, and the Son gives the gifts, and the Spirit gives the gifts, so the spiritual gifts are given as a work of the triune God.

We see that in the language of verses 4-6. It's Trinitarian in the way that Paul writes it. "There are different kinds of gifts, spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit," so there's a third person of the Trinity. "There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord," that's Jesus, the second person of the Trinity. "There are different kinds of working, but the same God," that's God the Father works in all people; so fundamentally, that's a triune presentation of spiritual gifts.

Wes

What's the significance of the statement "to each one" in verse 7?

Andy

Every single born again person has a spiritual gift package. Now, let me say something about what I mean by a spiritual gift package. First of all, let me finish the point you asked, "to each one." There are no Christians that do not have spiritual gifts. Every Christian has spiritual gifts, and they're given as a stewardship. They don't really finally belong to us. My gift package belongs, Wes, to you individually, and to the church here that I serve, and, indeed, to the universal church as the Lord wills for me to use my gifts. Even now, I think you and I are using our spiritual gifts, we hope, in ministry to whoever listens to these podcasts, so the universal church of Christ.

Fundamentally, then, our spiritual gift package belongs to God, and he gives them to each one as a stewardship. So, we should conceive of ourselves as Christians, as having received from the Lord as spiritual gift package, and connected with it, a particular spiritual gift ministry. And what we're going to see, we see in Ephesians and other places, in Romans 12, where spiritual gifts are mentioned, I think I've drawn out three basic commands that are connected to spiritual gifts. They all begin with D. We are to discover our spiritual gifts, we are to develop them, and we are to deploy them or use them.

That's what we do. We've got to find out what our spiritual gifts are, and we are to develop them. That's why we have specific gifts, because we get better and better at them the more we use them. It's a beautiful thing. I would hope that I'm a better preacher now than I was 25 years ago when I first started here at First Baptist Church. You also, with your gifts of leading worship, are better now than when you first started. We develop them, we get better.

And Paul talks about this in 1 Timothy. He wants Timothy to fan his gifts into flame and work on his gift of preaching and teaching so that everyone can see his progress. So we're going to develop those spiritual gifts, but we have to use them. That's Paul's point in Romans 12, if your gift is serving, you better serve. If it's teaching, you need to teach. You need to get out there.

Each person has a gift ministry, every member of the church should have a ministry, and that ministry should mostly be along lines of your spiritual gifts. There are some things we do that are not part of our gifts, like if somebody's needy and the Lord brings that person across, you can't say, "That's not my gift." God wants you to serve right now and do it. But in general, I would say, I don't want to put a number, like 80% of our ministry time should be along the lines of our spiritual gifts.

"Each person has a gift ministry, every member of the church should have a ministry, and that ministry should mostly be along lines of your spiritual gifts."

Wes

Andy, as you've talked about spiritual gift package, maybe unpack that a little more for us. Help us understand that image.

Andy

All right. An analogy I used when I was preaching through this was of a skillful Dutch master painter like Rembrandt having a palette of colors on his palette, he would have different hues, and he was very skillful at mixing or mingling two or three or four of these hues into a specific color. If he wanted to have a young woman's ruddy cheeks, he would use a certain mixture of colors; if he wanted to get the shiny steel sword, he would use different colors; if he wanted sunlight streaming in from a window, he'd mix different colors.

So, I think it is for us to see a mixture of gifts. I'm called to an office to be senior pastor at First Baptist Church. I have a spiritual gift package, an array of special abilities given me by the triune God, to enable me to function in that role. Of course, a part of that is the public teaching of the word, but not all teaching ministries are the same. Some people are very good at counseling, let's say, that are not really good preachers, but they do have a teaching gift.

For me as a senior pastor, I have gifts of preaching, gifts of teaching in a lecture style or a Sunday school style, gifts of counseling, but also gifts of administration, gifts of leadership, visionary leadership, to differing degrees. Some of my gifts are more pronounced than others, and my gifts don't exactly line up with other senior pastor's gifts. Some of them are better at some things and worse than me at other things.

And all of it is given as the Lord wills. Ephesians 4:7 says, "According to the measure of Christ," the metron, the measure of Christ. He measures out these gifts. I tend to think of it as a little more complex than "my gift is teaching" or "my gift is giving" or "my gift is serving;" we tend to have an array of gifts and we are to use them in a specific pattern of ministry.

Wes

What does Paul call spiritual gifts in verse 7? And what's the significance of the fact that every spiritual gift is given for the common good?

Andy

He has different names, as we saw in the triune passage, 4-6. He's got gifts, service, working. Now here in verse 7, manifestation of the Spirit. I think it's just evidence of the Spirit's activity. Now, we're going to get to the whole issue of showy or upfront gifts, such as prophecy and speaking in tongues. We're going to get to that in due time, but that was a clear manifestation of the presence of the Spirit. When people like Cornelius come to faith in Christ, they would speak in tongues, and that was a manifestation or a display of the presence of the invisible Spirit.

But if you know what to look for, if you see love going on, you see service going on, you see people generously giving, people selling lands and houses and giving generously, and you see that, that's a manifestation of the Spirit, too. It's evidence that the Holy Spirit is active in that local church, manifestation of the Spirit. And it says in verse 7, "Given for the common good." Our gifts belong to each other.

I tend to think of it in terms of the physical nature between a husband and wife that Paul argues earlier in this book in 1 Corinthians 7, says, "A husband's body does not belong to himself alone, but to his wife; and a wife's body does not belong to herself alone, but to her husband" (1 Corinthians 7:4). There's a covenant between the two where they're going to share their body and be one flesh together. That's a precious union, but it's saying, "My body isn't my own."

I think we should see our spiritual gifts that way. My spiritual gifts are not my own to do as I see fit; they belong to everyone else. They're given for the common good, so I am not to use my gift for selfish reasons, I'm to use it for the benefit of the entire church.

Wes

Now in verse 8, we start to get some more particular examples. What's the utterance of wisdom, and the utterance of knowledge, and how do you think they might function in the body of Christ?

Andy

So here, we're going to get into some areas where I'm going to have less certainty, I'm going to say. I don't really know. I don't know how this is different than that. What is the gift of knowledge and how is it different than the gift of teaching? How do we understand these things? All I can do is just look at the words, understand them in the Greek as best I can, and give some sense of it.

But I would say before we get into clear definitions, I would say it doesn't much matter. Generally, primarily, the Spirit is delivering the word of God to the people of God in effective ways, shaping and molding their lives, conforming them to Christ in holiness in the various roles they have, such as marriage, parenting, as citizens, as workers, et cetera. That's what's going on. That's generally how I see the spiritual gifts.

But if you ask the message of wisdom, a message of wisdom, Paul called the gospel itself, "We do however speak a message of wisdom among those who are wise" (1 Corinthians 2:6a), and that is the gospel. So those that proclaim the word of God are proclaiming the message of wisdom. That might be preaching or teaching something like that, but it could just be more informally, where you could get a woman or a man that's able to just understand things from the gospel and speak that wise word to one another to another, a message of knowledge.

What's the difference between wisdom and knowledge? I don't really know, but I would just say perhaps one of them is more doctrinal, a little more abstract. The other one a little more practical. "Hey, this is what you should do." Like James says, "If anyone lacks wisdom, he should ask God" (James 1:5). So, it's a more practical, "Should I marry this person? Should we take this job opportunity?" Et cetera.

And then with the church, as a body of elders makes decisions about how we should marshal our time, energy, and money in specific ministries in our community, you need knowledge for that and wisdom. You need guidance from the Lord. The Holy Spirit works through individuals to give guidance for that.

Wes

And what does the gift of faith that's mentioned at the beginning of verse 9? And how would this as a spiritual gift differ from the faith in Christ that every Christian must possess?

Andy

Right. Well, this is something we're going to see with spiritual gifts. There's some basic aspects of all of this that are just part of the Christian life, but it doesn't mean you have that spiritual gift. Faith would be a clear example of that. Every Christian has faith or they're not Christians. We're all justified by faith in Christ. If you have no faith, you're not a Christian, but that's different than the gift of faith.

Same thing with everyone has knowledge. Paul said that earlier, "We all possess knowledge" (1 Corinthians 8:1), so every single Christian has doctrinal knowledge. But that doesn't mean they're specifically theologians, skillful in theology for the church, they have that gift of knowledge that benefits the church. So it is with the gift of faith. I would see this as a specialized display of trusting God based on his word to do amazing things.

Maybe one example would be faith-based ministries that really flourished in the 19th century, George Mueller was a leader in this but also Hudson Taylor, where they would just trust God for the provision- in Mueller's case for 10,000 orphans in his lifetime, in Hudson Taylor's case for the inland regions of China and the missionaries needed to reach it.

Both of them had the same kind of approach. They were going to rely on God, trust God to move the people of God to marshal the resources, the money, and the effort, and all that was needed to get the mission done. Just stepping out in faith, not foolishly throwing themselves from the pinnacle of the temple, but trusting God to feed orphans, trusting God to provide missionaries, trusting God to support them financially.

The gift of faith then, I think, is the ability in an extraordinary way to see what doesn't exist yet, but what God wants to call into existence, and to have that kind of visionary trust to move out boldly to do something which no one had ever done before, similar to William Carey. There weren't Protestant missions movements, and William Carey saw the need for that and moved out boldly to India to see it happen. That might be a display of the gift of faith.

Wes

How about the gift of healing? How is the gift of healing different from people in a church gathering around a sick person's bed, praying for that person, and the person being healed? Do you think the gift of healing is different than that? And is it still functioning today?

Andy

Well, that last question is very challenging, and I have my doubts. I think there are specific gifts, miraculous gifts, that were tied to the apostolic era that have generally ended. And I don't get that from scripture, I'm not a cessationist, that's what it means- "that spiritual gifts, the sign gifts, have ended with the era of the apostle, and we can prove it from scripture." No, you can't. The 27 books in the New Testament are not that long. I've read them. There are not clear cessationist verses in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 13 says, "Gifts will cease," but he's talking about heaven. We won't need spiritual gifts in heaven, so that's not cessationist teaching there. What else do you have? You don't have it clearly taught, I believe, in the New Testament.

But what you do have it is in the pages of providential history. You look at great men like Luther and Calvin and Zwingli and all that, and they're not talking about people with the apostolic gifts of healing. It just wasn't going on. They don't even discuss the topic much. When Calvin does, when he exegetes this and says basically those things ended.

I think it's valid, also, because Paul in 1 Corinthians 14, he says, "As in all the churches of Christ, this is our pattern, none of the churches have any other such practice" (1 Corinthians 11:16). He talks about head coverings this way or the pattern. If anyone wants to be contentious of this, basically all the churches are doing this. What Paul's giving us permission to do is look around, look at the churches, look what's going on among the Christian people and learn from it. Well, if you do that over the 19 plus centuries since the end of the apostolic era, we're not seeing these kinds of sign gifts, specifically miracles and healing.

So, what is the gift of healing? I would say the apostolic gift of healing is miracles: the ability to come to an organic illness, a terminal illness or paralysis, blindness, things that Jesus did that no one had ever done before, and do them like Jesus did in a way that brings awe and wonder. And that that travels with the individual, they go from place to place doing that kind of thing.

Frankly, even the apostles didn't do it like Jesus did. No one did it like Jesus did. Rivers of healings from Jesus, huge populations going out to Jesus, and He healed them all. No apostles did that. They did more individual signs, like handkerchiefs were laid on people and they were healed, or Eutychus fell out of the window and died, and Paul raised him from the dead. He's not going around raising all dead people. That was amazing. That was a sign. Same thing with Dorcas that Peter raised from the dead.

These are individual signs, and I think they ended with the establishment of the New Testament church and with the writing of the New Testament. That's the way I look at it. The gift of healing in this place, I think, is similar to that. Paul talks about the signs that marked an apostle, healings, so clearly they were not universally done. They were very unique even back then.

I would say gift of healing is the ability to go from place to place and heal people of significant organic illnesses as a supernatural sign of the power of the Spirit of God. I believe that history has shown that that ended with the apostolic era.

Wes

Is this similar then to in verse 10 where he's talking about the working of miracles? We would say that those are particular signs that were given to really testify to the truth of the gospel, the power of the Spirit at work in that age.

Andy

I think so. Now, let me circle back on the gift of healing. It is possible that there's a different kind of gift of healing which fits into the pattern that we see in James 5:14-15, "If anyone is sick, let him call the elders of the church to anoint him with oil and pray over him, and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise him up."

We've had remarkable healings in answer to prayer in our church. We don't believe that anyone who prayed there has the apostolic gift of healing, but it could be that a man or a woman has a heart for sick people and a track record of praying for them and God answering those prayers from time to time as he saw fit. It could be that that type of healing gift is still around a brother or sister in Christ, so I don't want to be dogmatic about it.

In general, I'm not a dogmatic cessationist. I'm just saying I tend to be more skeptical. And those that you hear, like on TV, I think are almost certainly many of them fraudulent. I think they're just orchestrated frauds. However, I do believe there's possibility of a gift of healing. I think the working of signs and wonders was an apostolic display.

Wes

We've talked about healing, and we've talked a little bit about miracles. What is the gift of prophecy? How does it differ from teaching? And is this functioning in the church today?

Andy

Again, I think it's the same kind of question. We know Sovereign Grace churches and charismatic churches have the gift of prophecy, and they'll give an open mic on a Sunday morning and people can come and utter prophecies, and they try to follow the pattern. I think good churches try to follow the pattern of 1 Corinthians 14, where they have some elders who evaluate the prophecies, et cetera.

And I understand there's some really excellent teachers in the church today whose doctrines I follow in all other respects, but I do question their teaching of the gift of prophecy here. They make a distinction between this kind of prophecy and that type of prophecy. They think that you can actually utter something and have a track record of success, but that's not 100%, not batting 1000, and I find that problematic.

Beyond that, I think it is valid in the pattern in the Book of Deuteronomy. How can we know if somebody is a prophet? "The Lord's going to raise up a prophet like me" (Deuteronomy 18:15), Moses said, so how do we know that an individual is a prophet? And he said, "If what they have said comes true, if it takes place, then you'll know."

I think the ability to predict the future is specifically a mark of a prophet. We know that not all prophecy was prediction of the future. It's "Thus says the Lord." That's what prophecy is. It's different than teaching. Teaching is, "It is my judgment that the scripture teaches X." That's teaching. Prophecy is an immediate "Thus says the Lord," and the word of the Lord comes.

Now, I do believe you can do that without challenging the canon of scripture. Like, Agabus was a prophet, and he predicted things that would happen to Paul when he went to Jerusalem or predicted that a famine would come on the entire Roman world. These are the kinds of things, what I would call "independently verifiable predictions of the future" that I would require in order for somebody to be known as a prophet at our church: predict the future, have it come true, don't make any mistakes about the future, then I'll know you're a prophet or a prophetess.

Until that happens, I think I have every right to say, "I don't know that you're a prophet." If all you're going to do is get up at the open mic and say, "The Lord is saying to First Baptist Church, 'Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.'" That's not prophecy. I would look on that as preaching.

Fundamentally, I am skeptical about prophecy. I think it's reasonable for me to ask the possible prophet to prove it by a clear, independently verifiable prediction of the future. It has to happen soon because you're not going to be seen to be a prophet until it does.

Wes

What do you think is the ability to distinguish between spirits that Paul mentions next in this verse?

Andy

Well, again, we're looking at a supernatural era back then, but let's imagine that it's still happening today. John in his epistle says, "Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they're from the Lord" (1 John 4:1). He says, "No one speaking by the Spirit can say 'Jesus is cursed'" (1 Corinthians 12:3), et cetera. He said that earlier in this very chapter, so you're going to be able to evaluate them.

The same thing happened back then when the canon wasn't established yet, and there are new teachings all the time. And you've got apostles that are coming and those trained by the apostles, the next generation coming along, you have to evaluate what's being taught. We don't have the canon of the scripture established yet. That wouldn't be established for a couple of centuries.

How can we know if a teaching is right? Well, in Romans 12 he says, if one's gift is prophesying, let them use it by the analogia, the analogy of faith, et cetera. It needs to fit into what has already been established, the growing, developing canon of New Testament teachings based on the sayings of Jesus, based on the apostolic teachings. There's a growing body of teachings. Let the new teachings line up with that.

Along with that would be the influences that come. I believe the Spirit is leading us to do this, like in Acts 16 where Paul and Silas were trying to discern where to go next. And they felt, based on a vision of a man of Macedonia and based on an inner sense, that the Lord was leading them to go westward toward Europe and toward Greece. Well, that would be a leading of the Spirit.

Test it. Somebody with the ability to discern spirits is able to say, "That's from the Lord. No, that's not. That's an influence of demons, perhaps." Again, I'm doing my best at defining what these different gifts could be.

Wes

Now, there's been a great deal of controversy in the church on tongues. What are tongues and what is the interpretation of tongues?

Andy

Well, we're going to have a whole bunch of time on both tongues and prophecy in chapter 14. It also is mentioned in chapter 13. The Greek word is rightly translated "languages," so in any case, even if no one can understand it, even if it's a heavenly language, and that's where the controversy comes: is there a language that no human being speaks, like a tongue of angels kind of thing?

There are still certain linguistic patterns. If it's gibberish, that can be learned. It is clearly provable that people can learn patterns of gibberish. I would have to say it's a language with vocabulary and syntax and grammar. It's especially recognizable as on the day of Pentecost where people are hearing a message in their own mother tongue, and they're understanding it clearly. So that's what, to me, the gift of tongues is: it's a clearly understandable language.

If it's a heavenly language that no one can understand, we're going to learn in chapter 14, don't bring it to the corporate service. Is there such a thing as a private prayer language, a heavenly language? Therein lies the controversy. For me, I don't really think there's much harm in discerning it one way or the other. I know cessationists do. There are some teachers who I respect that are very strong against private prayer languages. Others are more open to it. For me, I'm more concerned what happens in corporate worship, and there's some pretty clear rules about it in chapter 14 that protect the church from private spirit, so to speak.

I would have to say tongues is a recognizable language that is instantly given you, not having studied. I would not say William Carey's ability to translate the Bible into seven different languages is the gift of tongues. You could argue it is a linguistic gift. Okay, fine. I get that. That would be similar to the gift of knowledge being theology, the gift of teaching, et cetera. But I think here it's a supernatural ability to speak a language you've never studied.

Wes

Is it different than the interpretation of tongues, as well, that that would be more on the receiving and helping others to understand?

Andy

You said it well: the one is the speaking, and the other is the hearing and understanding.

Wes

How does Paul celebrate the sovereignty of the Spirit in the giving of spiritual gifts in verse 11 of this passage we're looking at?

Andy

Well, the Holy Spirit gives these gifts as he determines. Now, the mystery of the Trinity is it's also as the Father determines and as the Son determines. They have one determination. We're going to get into the council of Nicaea and understanding the persons of the Trinity and how that works, and that's beyond our podcast here. But fundamentally, the Spirit has a will, the Spirit has a mind. He is a person. He's not impersonal like, "let the force be with you." He is a person. He has a will and a purpose, and He gives to each individual Christian a gift package as He wills.

Wes

Andy, what final thoughts do you have for us on these first 11 verses that we've looked at in chapter 12?

Andy

Well, I think the most important teaching on spiritual gifts is, if you are a Christian, you're listening to this podcast, you have a spiritual gift package. I'll go back to the three Ds we said earlier: discover what those spiritual gifts are, develop them, and deploy them. And by the way, in the last two, there's a loop between the two. You're going to develop them by deploying them, you're going to develop them by using them, so use them more and more, you'll get better and better at them. But the Lord has given you a spiritual gift package for the common good. It's given for the whole body, so use your gifts.

Wes

Well, this has been episode 16 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study Podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for episode 17 entitled One Body Composed of Many Parts, where we'll discuss 1 Corinthians 12:12-31. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.