“The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.” (1 Corinthians 12:12)

As we reflect on this passage, we need to ask ourselves how we are enabling every church member to play their part in growing the church, the body of Christ?

Questions, questions! – 12:1

As you probably know, through Lent we have been experimenting with our study groups looking at the Bible passage we preach on in advance and submitting questions about the passage to me as the preacher. I’ve then tried to answer the questions as part of the sermon each week. This is now the fourth week doing this and there is one week to go.

In a way the letter we have been studying has been appropriate for this process, not only because this part of 1 Corinthians is talking about church life at a time when we are having a year of discernment, but because some of 1 Corinthians is probably Paul answering some questions from the Corinthians.

What about Spiritual gifts?

We see that at the start of our passage, where Paul introduces the topic of ‘Spiritual gifts’ probably in a response to a question about them. The response probably continues all the way through to the end of chapter 14 and includes the chapter on love that we looked at last week.

We are not sure what the question, Paul was answering was, but in these chapters, although he talks about a variety of gifts that different people have, in chapter 12 he emphasises the equal value of all believers and in chapter 14 he emphasises the importance of using the gifts to build the church up. The chapter on love helps to underpin both these points, for love both values the other and wants to build them up.

These ideas remind us of Paul’s point in chapter 8:

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

It seems that some in the church were being made to seem ‘spiritual’ because of their ‘spiritual gifts’ and so given greater value than others in the church. Perhaps people were saying things like:

• “Maximus is so spiritual, he speaks in tongues all the time”
• “Julius is so spiritual, he prayed for his slave who had a fever and she was healed!”
• “Agrippina is so spiritual, she spoke words in church that really spoke to me last week.”

The problem here is that some in the church were becoming puffed up by their spiritual prowess, whilst others were feeling unimportant or unspiritual in comparison – that they did not matter to the life of the church. The church was becoming divided between the so called spiritual and unspiritual.

Equality of all believers

Paul’s response is to emphasise that all Christians are spiritual. He does that in four ways in our reading.

1. Same Spiritual Confession – vs. 2-3

First, Paul emphasises that conversion itself, is a sign that someone has the Holy Spirit powerfully at work in them.

No-one he says, can say, “Jesus is Lord!” unless the Holy Spirit makes that possible. That by itself shows that you are spiritual in the most important and fundamental way.

It is only by the Spirit at work in someone that people can change their heart attitude from rejecting Christ to submitting to Christ. To be a Christian at all is a powerful act of the Spirit. So all Christians are equally spiritual and so valuable members of the church.

1. Same Spiritual Source: vs. 4-11

Secondly in verse 4 to 11, the constant stress is on the source of the Spiritual gifts: the Spirit, Christ and God. Whatever your gift, Paul is saying, no matter how impressive or unimpressive it seems, no matter how natural or supernatural it appears, it’s source is the same: the Spirit.

Some people may seem more ‘spiritual’ than others. But their abilities, the things they do are a gift of the spirit to them. Not a reward or payment, not because they are any more special or valuable than anyone else, but simply because the Holy Spirit chose to give them that gift.

Again, Paul’s emphasis on the source of the gifts underlines the equal value of all Christian followers.

1. Same Spiritual Goal: vs. 5,7, chapter 14

Thirdly, all gifts are meant to have the same spiritual goal – and it is not to make one person look more impressive than another.

Rather they are to be used to serve others, as verse 5 says and for the common good as verse 7 says. Chapter 14, emphasises as well that the point of the gifts is to build up the church.

The building up of the church as a community of Christians is not the work of just apostles and prophets, or vicars and preachers, it is the responsibility of the whole church using their various gifts.

We are all gifted, in order that we can all be gifts to the wider community.

1. Same Spiritual Body: – vs. 12-26

The fourth, argument Paul makes is that as Christians we are all part of the same spiritual body. This argument starts in verse 12 and goes on for most of the rest of the chapter.

Paul compares the community of Christians, the church with a human body. Just as a human body has many different parts, hands, feet, eyes, ears, nose, liver and heart, each distinct and with their own role, so the same is true of the church with its members having distinct parts and roles to play.

Your role may be important, but you still need others in the body to play their roles. They matter just as much. As Paul jokingly says,

“The eye cannot say to the hand, I don’t need you!”

The seemingly more spiritual cannot look down on the seemingly unspiritual and say I do not need you. Everyone is an important and valued part of the body of Christ.

So Paul’s response to the Corinthians question about Spiritual gifts, emphasises the equal spiritual value of every Christian, but he also talks about the variety of gifts. It is this variety that tends to raise questions for us. Indeed, the questions submitted this week, were mainly about the variety of gifts.

Variety of gifts

So, let’s look at the four questions about the Spiritual gifts.

• Is this an exhaustive list of all spiritual gifts?

The simple answer is ‘No’.

Even chapter 12 contains another list at the end.

The list in verse 7-10 has 9 gifts, but at the end of the chapter in verses 28-30, there is another list of 8 items, four of which are repeated from this list: prophecy, miracles, healing and tongues and four are new: apostleship, teachers, helps and administrators.

One of the groups were concerned that the list in verses 7-11 is a bit limited, because of its focus on gifts to do with speech and the miraculous – what about the need for people to carry out the necessary practical and administrative tasks of church life. Well the ‘helpers’ and ‘administrators’ of the later list show that the gap is plugged! Not all gifts look ‘supernatural’ or ‘spiritual’, seemingly practical gifts are just a much of the Spirit as the others.

There are also other different lists that Paul gives in Romans 12, Ephesians 4 and in 1 Peter 4, there is a very simple lists two broad gifts: those who speak for God and those who serve.

Since they are all different, the lists seem to be illustrative only, giving examples of the variety of gifts that Christians might have. We don’t need to try and fit with one of the gifts on any list or feel upset that gifts we might feel we have aren’t on any of these lists!

Nonetheless, it is helpful to consider what gift you might have, so that you can more effectively play your part in building up the church. This leads us to our second question:

• How do we discern who has what gift?

This is a harder question to answer, because it is not one that is addressed directly in this passage or any other.

The lack of detailed answer to the question may suggest that in some ways the discernment process is obvious. We just need to get on with the Christian life and it will become clear.

If we are all people of the Spirit and seek to serve one another as part of the community of believers, then as you try different roles out, pray for people, share thoughts and ideas in groups and Bible studies and help out in practical ways, you will begin to discern the roles and gifts that God has given you in particular.

Having said that, I think this is also something that needs to be done with the help of the Christian community. In Acts when the apostles needed some more leaders, they asked the church community to suggest names.

We need to get better at spotting where others seem to be particularly gifted and encouraging them to make more of that gift.

So, you may notice that in a Bible study, someone is particularly good at understanding scripture and explaining it to others. That may be a sign that they have the gift of teaching. Perhaps if you spot that in someone you should tell them and maybe also tell the church leadership.

You may spot that someone has a growing passion for prayer, and notice some amazing answers to their prayers. Again, it would be good to tell them and encourage them to pray more for others.

You may spot that someone is particularly good at organising an event and you might want to encourage or suggest them to help with one of the church committees.

Let’s be more pro-active and deliberate at spotting gifts in others and encouraging them to make greater use of them.

But, if just giving things a go and being helped by the wider community to discern gifts is important, this leads on to the next question:

• How can we give room for the gifts to be expressed to build up the body?

I think the best answer is to see the importance of both big church and small church.

In big church, we can be encouraged by being part of something big, with the more established preachers, music leaders and so on.

Small church, however, can be much more about one another. Everyone can pray for everyone else. We can all share what we think God is saying to us through the Bible or by the Spirit, we can organise small scale events, and help each other out in practical ways.

In both contexts as one of the groups suggested we need to value everyone equally and encourage people especially when they are trying things out for the first time.

As part of our Year of Discernment, maybe we need to think radically how we can do small church better and encourage more to be involved in small church.

• How do all matter equally (vs. 25), while some gifts are greater (vs. 31)?

Our last question takes us back to the thrust of Paul’s message. Paul seems to be emphasising that all Christians are equally spiritually valuable in the church.

But at the end of chapter 12 his list suggests that some gifts are greater than others. How can we hold these together?

Paul does want to say that all are equally spiritually valuable, but that there is also a good ambition to want to become more effective as a Christian. Not to become more puffed up, but to be better at building the church up.

Throughout these chapters, Paul lists a number of gifts, but the two that appear consistently are tongues and prophecy. Interestingly, tongues do not appear in any of the lists outside 1 Corinthians. Probably this shows that this was an issue in the church in Corinth and if you read through chapter 14, the suggestion is that some seemed to want to use the gift of tongues in church services. This may be because they felt it made them look more ‘spiritual’, because it came across as more ‘supernatural.’

But back in 12:2, Paul reminds them, that although they used to follow the example of dumb idols, where perhaps ecstatic spiritual experiences were highly valued, we now follow the God who speaks clearly to us. So, in chapter 14, Paul emphasises that the church is built up primarily through the sharing of intelligible words. Tongues may encourage the individual spiritually, but they are no good at building the rest of the church up, whereas prophecy – speaking the words of God – will build up the church powerfully. So, prophecy is near the top of Paul’s list of spiritual gifts and tongues is at the bottom, because what matters is not looking spiritual, but building up the body of Christ with the word of God.

So, let’s value all Christians as equally spiritually valuable, but also pray for, discern and encourage gifts in ourselves and  others that will enable the effective building of Christ’s community here in Ramsgate.

“And now these three remain, faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)

To become a father takes only a few minutes. To become a mother takes nine months of pregnancy – and that is only just the start of it!

Mothers and Love

To become a father takes only a few minutes. To become a mother takes nine months of pregnancy – and that is only just the start of it!

Most of us have experienced a mothers love. No mother is perfect and some fail big time, but most show a high and counter-cultural degree of love for their children. They are willing to endure pregnancy, nights with broken sleep, endless changes of nappies, tantrums, school runs, cooking, cleaning, teaching and counselling, not for their own sakes, but for the good of their children.

Most mothers, spend a lot of their lives centred on the other, that is their children and paying the emotional and financial cost for that.

Do you know how much the estimated cost of bringing up a child from 0 to 18 is? Over £200,000!

Yet, we live in a world, where the culture is increasingly individualistic and attitudes more and more self-centred. Do what makes you feel good. Your special. Don’t be constrained by others. Follow your dreams. None of this fits well with the sacrificial love entailed in being a mother.

No wonder that the birth rate is dropping in the West. To maintain the same size of population women need to have on average 2.1 children. In the UK women are now having on average 1.58 children. That means for every 100 adults in the present parental generation, there will be only 62 grandchildren.

In South Korea, things are even worse. The average woman has 0.78 children, which means a 100 adults will have only 15 grandchildren.

Our Western society talks a lot about ‘love’, but is the reality that we are more focussed on self-centred individualism, than the kind of natural love shown by mothers to children or indeed the kind of Christian love that Paul is encouraging in 1 Corinthians 13?

Love is Other-Centred, vs. 4-7

Paul gives a list of 15 things, that love is. He starts with 2 things it is, follows that up with 7 things it is not, what love does not and does rejoice in and four things where love is never-ending.

Patient. The old word is long-suffering. In other words, it keeps going for the sake of the other, even when it is draining for us. Most Mothers do this with children, enduring years of crying, tantrums and dirty nappies, followed later by teenage sulks.

This is what God does with us in our feeble and often half-hearted efforts to live for him, he is patient with us.

Linked with this are two of the negatives:

• It is not easily angered or irritable. Patient people don’t burst into rage when others upset them.
• It keeps no record of wrongs or remain resentful. Like God forgives us, true love forgives others the wrong they do.

Also, linked with this are the last four areas, that stress that love persists:

• always protects, it never gives up finding ways to help us, just as most mothers never give up on wanting to support their children and God never gives up on supporting us.
• always trusts and hopes. It wants to think the best of others and believe that they will come good in the end.
• always endures or perseveres. Love never gives up. Just as God never gives up on us and a mother never gives up on her child.

Kind. Kindness, is about wanting to make the other person welcomed, comfortable and happy. Not wanting to upset the other, unless it is necessary for their good. Mothers want to do these things for their children and God welcomes us into his family, offering us joy and peace.

Two of the negatives are the opposite of kindness:

• It is not rude. Rudeness does not care how your behaviour makes others feel. In a way it is the opposite of kindness.
• It is not self-seeking. Self-seeking is about doing things for yourself.  Love is not about that. It is about looking out for others.

Not Proud

The other three negatives are focussed on wanting to make yourself good or to feel important.

• Love is not proud or arrogant. In other words it doesn’t think of yourself as better than others or more important than others.
• Love is not boastful. It is not about trying to get everyone to think how great you are.
• Love is not envious. It is not upset when others seem to do better than you or have better things than you.

When you are envious you may be happy when others are caught out for doing wrong. That is probably what is meant by:

• It does not delight in evil or rejoice in wrongdoing. It is not happy when others prove to be wicked people, because it makes you look better.
• Instead it rejoices with the truth. Because love is not concerned with making yourself look good, it can embrace the truth and honesty about yourself even if it makes you look bad, because it may encourage and help others. It is also happy with the truth that others may be better or more successful than you, because you are concerned for others.

In all these ways, love is the opposite of self-centred, it is other-centred.

Like a good mum that is focussed on doing everything for the good growth of the child, not because the child is deserving, but because they are her child.

Like God who is focussed on doing everything for our good and our growth in Christian maturity, not because we are already good, but because he loves us and takes us in as his child

We as Christians are called to love others, to seek their good and to build them up, even when it is costly and difficult to do so. Not for our good, but there good.

This already answers the two questions from the group on our notice sheet:

• How do we continue to serve with love when provoked?

By mimicking the love of God in Jesus Christ. He died for us even when we were still sinners. He loved us not because we are lovable, not because of what we can do for him. He loved us even though it meant dying on the cross.

If we are struggling to serve others, because they are upsetting us, then we need to remind ourselves of God’s love for us and remember that true love is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs. Love is patient.

• What stops us from showing love to everyone regardless?

If love is not self-centred, then we do not love people only because they matter more to us, because they are our family or part of our friendship group or are inately loveable. We love them for their own good, even when we gain nothing in return. The secret to loving everyone regardless is to understand love as being divorced from our own personal gain.

Jesus said, “This is how you will know that you are my disciples – if you love one another.” Let’s work and pray for our churches to be marked by love above everything else.

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Paul’s description of love in verses 4-7 does not come, because he was preaching at a mothering Sunday service. His concern was not to give thanks for mothers or encourage good mothering. Neither was he writing particularly with married couples in mind, even though this is a popular passage to be used at weddings and it is important for married couples to learn to be other-focussed if their relationship is to flourish.

1 Corinthians 13, is not a standalone piece of beautiful literature, it is part of this letter to the Corinthians we have been looking at. It stands out from the rest of the letter as a beautiful rhetorical flourish, but it is also at the heart of Paul’s overall challenge to the Corinthian church.

Paul wants to say to the Corinthians, that this kind of love, he describes in the centre of the chapter is both essential and eternal. This is what should mark out our church life together. As he says in 8:1: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up!” and in 16:14 “Do everything in love.”

Love is Essential for Church Life, vs. 1-3

In the first three verses, Paul underlines how essential love is to church life.

Next week, we are going to go backwards to chapter 12. Both chapters 12 and 14 talk about the spiritual gifts that church members may have and how they should be used to build up others and in the context of church meetings.

Paul does not want to stop the use of spiritual gifts, but he wants to challenge the attitudes with which they are being used in the Corinthian church. Without an underlying attitude of love such gifts or indeed any church activity become pointless and useless. No matter how wonderful, amazing or spiritually spectacular the Christian ministry are gifts are, if they are not done in love, in order to build up others, then they are pointless.

So an important question to ask ourselves, in everything we do, is am I doing it for the good of others, with patience and kindness, celebrating what is good about them, wanting to help them in their needs and sharing the good news about Jesus with them so that they might be saved, or am I doing it for more self-centred reasons, to preserve the buildings or style of worship I value, to make myself look good or feel important because of the role I am taking on or the gift I am using.

If we want to be more than a clashing cymbal or nothing or gain nothing, then we need to make sure that an attitude of love is at the heart of it all. Love is essential for church life – the Corinthians had not fully grasped that and we need to keep asking ourselves, whether we have.

Love is Eternal, vs. 8-13

Finally, love is eternal. In verses 8-13, Paul wants us to look at our lives and activities from the time after Jesus returns and we are raised with resurrection bodies to live with God face to face for ever more. Then things will be transformed.

This is the point of the child – adult analogy. We speak, think and reason differently as adults than we did when we were children, because we have grown up, where as once we only had a small vocabulary to express ourselves, now we have a full one, where as once we could only just begin to count, now we are able to handle money effectively. As adults, our knowledge and understanding is on a different level to what it was as children.

It is also the point of the mirror analogy. Corinth was famous for bronze mirrors, that could give a reasonably decent reflection. Yet, even such reflections were not the same as looking at someone directly. Some of the details are obscured. We don’t see or understand as clearly as we can when we see face to face.

The Corinthians valued, knowledge and understanding great mysteries. They looked up to Christians who seemed to have more knowledge of these things and perhaps felt that such knowledge was the key to being closer to God.

They also valued spiritual gifts that seemed to help reveal this mysterious spiritual knowledge of God: prophecy, tongues and imparting special knowledge. But Paul says, in eternity, we will see God face to face, we will all have complete knowledge. When that happens, the spiritual gifts of prophecy, tongues and imparting special knowledge will become obsolete, no longer any use. What they may offer in part now, will be fully known by us all then.

What will remain important, however, is love. Because that concern and action for the other is at the heart of God’s eternal nature. When people ask what will heaven be like, the answer is it will be a community of perfect love.

As the church today, we want to reflect something of that eternal kingdom. The main way we do that is by living as people of love.

In our year of discernment let us remember that calling above all.