DAY #258: 1 Corinthains 12:1-26

The Corinthians had questions about spiritual gifts. These gifts are freely bestowed by God to enable His people to minister to the needs of the body of believers and to enable them to do extraordinary work for God. Paul did not want the believers to have misunderstandings about these gifts, but, rather, to understand and use them for God’s glory.

To contrast the work of the Holy Spirit, Paul reminded the believers of the influence of evil spirits. When they were pagans, they had been led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols. Evil spirits had done the “influencing.” Evil forces were and are at work in the world, and the Corinthians would need to understand that what they had experienced as “tongues” or “inspired speech” in their pagan religion was completely different from the “speaking in tongues” that the believers might experience through the Holy Spirit.

These gifts are just that—gifts. They are not earned. They are not given to believers asking for a specific one. They are not chosen by people. God alone administers the gifts among his people. God, not believers, controls the gifts. Each believer, then, is responsible to seek God’s guidance in discovering his or her particular gift(s) and then discovering how best to use them for God’s purposes.

Each believer has at least one spiritual gift to be used as a means of helping the entire church.
To illustrate that there are a wide variety of gifts from the Holy Spirit, Paul gave a list. This list was not meant to be exhaustive; it merely illustrates many of the different kinds of spiritual gifts. The Spirit gives many gifts; the Bible contains no definitive list of all the gifts.

All believers are given wisdom from the Spirit, but some are given the ability to give wise advice. That this particular gift does not occur on any of the other lists of gifts has led some scholars to think that this gift was especially important for the believers in the Greek city of Corinth, where the issue of “wisdom” was causing much discussion.

Another person is given the gift of special knowledge. People may think they have all kinds of wisdom and knowledge, which leads to pride, but true wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ alone. But to some people the Spirit gives extraordinary knowledge. This could mean a special knowledge of spiritual realities or knowledge given to teachers who are training others in Christian truth.

All Christians have faith because the faith that brings a person to salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit. Some people, however, have the spiritual gift of faith, which is an unusual measure of trust in the Holy Spirit’s power. This kind of faith is a supernatural trust in God’s miraculous power for specific situations.

The next two gifts (healing and miracles) are visual manifestations of the Spirit. The power to heal the sick had been manifested through Peter, Paul, and the other apostles. The gift of healing is given, not to the person healed, but to the person who does the healing. Some people want to say they have received the gift of healing for an illness they have, but the gifts are given to be used to benefit others.

As with the gift of healing, the Spirit will give to some an extraordinary power to perform miracles. While performing a healing would be considered a miracle, the inclusion of this gift separately from healings refers to other miraculous manifestations of the Spirit. These two specific gifts are not in use today. We call them "sign" gifts. Meaning for those who had these gifts, it was a sign that they had been with Jesus.

The rest of the gifts mentioned in this passage focus on verbal manifestations of the Spirit. To some people, the Spirit gives a special ability to prophesy. “Prophesy” does not refer to predicting the future; but to giving a message received from God to the community of believers. As with the gift of faith, the ability to share one’s faith with power is available to everyone, but to some the Spirit gives a special measure of this gift.


Opinions differ over exactly what Paul meant by unknown languages. Probably the time that the word “tongues” refers to other earthly languages is when describing Pentecost (Acts 2:4, 7-8).

The Holy Spirit distributes these gifts, and they are to be used for God’s divine purpose. Because the Holy Spirit alone decides which gift each person should have, there is no place for rivalry, jealousy, or pride among believers regarding their gifts. God, through his Spirit, gives to every person in the community of believers exactly the right gifts for him or her to provide the needed services for the church and for God’s Kingdom.




SO WHAT? (what will I do with what I have read today?)

The challenge for us today, especially at COV is to help people discover their gifts and use them to build up the body of Christ. It is my sense that a very low percentage of believers ever discover their spiritual gifts, and and even lower number that use them. This must change.

Lord, work in peoples hearts. Work in their hearts to understand this teaching and biblical truth about spiritual gifts. Put a desire in our peoples hearts to know their gifts and to use them.

Ephesians 2:10 says, "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." You were created in Christ Jesus to do good works. You were created for ministry. Most people don't know that.

1 Peter 2:5 says, "You will serve as holy priests". Every Christian, the moment you became a Christian, you were called into ministry. I am not who I think I am, I am not who you think I am, but I really am who God says I am! And God says that my primary identification is not that you're a man or a woman, not that you're a husband or a son, or a daughter or a mother, or a wife. God says that my primary identity is I am a minister of Jesus Christ.

Many people are in a church hopper and shopper mode that they think the church exists for them. The Bible says that the church exists for the world. We, the body of Christ, exist for the world. That's why on Sunday morning, we don't sing songs I'd like to sing. I'd like to sing hymns. But the unchurched, San Ramon Sam doesn't know them. So we sing songs that he/she can understand.

The body of Christ needs my ministry. Ministry always follows function in the context of the church family. It's meant to be through some local body because it's for the body of Christ.