God the Holy Spirit, Mentor's Guide, MG14

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G O D T H E H O L Y S P I R I T

fairly indirect way for a gift to contribute to the body. It is good and important but there are more direct ways to build the body up. So if I speak in tongues at church and a person interprets that message for the congregation, or if I prophesy or preach or teach so that the whole congregation can benefit at once that use of the gifts is more important than using gifts to benefit one person at a time. Paul is obviously not arguing that any gift is unimportant or unnecessary but he is saying that since the goal of all spiritual gifts is to benefit God’s Church and God’s mission in the world, we need to emphasize the things we do together to know God as primary and individual benefits as secondary. We might think about it like this. As a father who provides for his family, it might be important for me to go to the gym and work out because if I stay healthy then it helps me do my job for the family. But I could never choose to go to the gym when my family needed me to do something else for them. In other words, the individual benefit of going to the gym was simply so that I could serve my family better. If I started using the gym as an excuse to duck my family responsibilities there would be no point in going. That illustrates exactly what Paul is saying. Of course exercise every gift that God gives you to help you grow in him. But don’t lose track of the point. All of this is for the benefit of the whole. Gifts that serve the whole body directly are always most important in the corporate sense than gifts that build up the individual. (We should note that Paul is writing this entire section to correct a problem with the use of spiritual gifts. The Corinthians were seeking to gain spiritual status by showing they had certain gifts. This is not a neutral context but a context of correction. This clearly influences how Paul writes about the gifts to the people of Corinth). Paul would completely agree with Peter who says that the purpose of the spiritual gifts is “that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 4.11).

“Whatever thing, event, or individual serves as an instrument of the Spirit, or manifests the Spirit, or embodies the Spirit is a spiritual gift ( pneumatikon ) ( Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible , Vol. 2, p. 1993). 5 Page 121 Outline Point I-C-2