Spirit As Generous Giver - Novmeber 3, 2019

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1 Corinthians 12:7-11 I’m assuming this passage is fairly familiar to a lot of people in the church, but I also know it’s fairly unwise to assume. So, we’re going to take a look—because even if we know it well, it never hurts to revisit a scripture and if we’re unfamiliar there are definite riches to be found here.
Let’s start with our purpose. We are specifically studying scripture about the Holy Spirit to learn about the Spirit as part of the Trinity and as part of our life of faith. The Spirit is a big deal in this passage. It’s mentioned 6 different times in just 5 verses. Let there be no doubt who is at work among the church and who

gives the gifts—it’s the Spirit. Paul is both highlighting what the Spirit does and confronting bad theology in the church. You see, the church in Corinth had witnessed the gift of glossolalia—speaking in tongues and they’ve become a little obsessed. They want to use the gift of speaking in tongues as proof that people have been baptized by the Spirit. And it’s becoming a bit of a litmus test. Are you Christian? Well, can you speak in tongues?
But Paul writes here to challenge that. He says, basically, yes, glossolalia is a gift of the Spirit but it’s not THE gift of the Spirit. It’s only one. It’s one of the many gifts. The Spirit also gives other gifts—equal gifts. Important gifs. Gifts like wisdom and knowledge, healing and miracles. In other passages, he highlights teaching, preaching, evangelism, and apostleship. Throughout the new testament, you’ll find various lists of gifts. I’m familiar with 31 different gifts of the Spirit including craftsmanship, hospitality, helping, administration, and generosity. And each gift is given by the same Spirit of God.
I’ve heard and studied these passages a lot but I was struck this time just how generous the Spirit is. Everyone gets gifts—not all the same gift—for there are many, but everyone gets gifts. It’s like the Holy Spirit was the original Oprah:
“You get a gift! And you get a gift! And you get a gift! Everyone gets gifts!!!”
I think that’s awesome! The Spirit is wildly and crazy generous—everyone—men and women, Jews and Gentiles, young and old, slave and free—everyone gets something special from God. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’ve had to point it out a time or two—the passages don’t distinguish between the genders. It’s not that some men get the gift of preaching and some women get the gift of hospitality and some men get the gift of craftsmanship and some women get the gift of intercession. God doesn’t discriminate based on gender. Women can preach and men can bake cookies! It’s all a part of the plan. =)
But it’s not random. The end of our passage today says the Spirit gives “just as it determines”. The Spirit is thoughtful and thorough. You don’t have what you have because the Spirit is haphazard. No, the gift you get is because the Spirit knows what you’re good at and what you’ll enjoy. That’ part of how you know it’s a gift and not just an ability—it gives you joy, it revives you, it fills you, and sometimes it even comes more naturally than other things.
A few years ago, one of my Superintendents told me administration was one of my gifts. I was quick to correct him…”NO!!!! I’m good at it—but it is not my gift. It does not bring me joy.” But preaching and teaching or hospitality—those fill me up. I know you’ll be shocked, but pastors have bad days too; and sometimes I don’t’ want to get up and do the things. I don’t want to come to work. But if I get to come and do what I’m gifted to do, God uses it to fuel me. After I teach or preach, I could go another round. It’s life-giving for me. Now, some days it’s hard. We can certainly struggle even with our gifting, but on the whole your gift will bring you joy. And it won’t just be good for you, the scripture says the gifts are meant to build up the whole body of Christ—the whole church. We aren’t given the gifts to be uniquely proud of ourselves or contented with what we’re doing. We’re given the gifts to benefit the community—that’s the purpose. And if we’re failing to do that then we aren’t using the gift for its full purpose.
Now, let’s take a look at some of the specific gifts! Today’s passage mentions 8: wisdom, knowledge, healing, miracles, prophesy, discernment, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues. Sometimes, especially when we edge into some of the more ecstatic or “charismatic” gifts we think they’re a bunch of hullabaloo…or that they only existed for the people of the 1st century church. One example is that people would say that “speaking in tongues” is really about people who are good with foreign languages, but has nothing to do with “tongues of angels” or “prayer languages”. Ease with foreign languages may be a reflection of this gift, but I don’t think it’s limited to that. I know people who pray in “tongues of angels”—for many of them it’s a private prayer language, but I have heard it in public worship in ways that are not imagined or forced. And with that specific gift, Paul is clear, as with all gifts, that it be used in ways that are good for the whole church. If someone can speak in tongues but there is no interpreter of tongues, it becomes a disruption rather than a help in worship. Similarly, if someone who prays in tongues walked into a mainline church that wasn’t accustomed to tongues and started praying out loud, most folks would wonder what was up. Praying in tongues is one of the gifts, and it should be used only to edify the body. The scriptures don’t put any timelines on the gifts. There’s nothing, other than our skepticism, that limits the types of gifts discussed here in our own church or faith experience. That means gifts like healing, miracles, and prophesy are still gifts God needs and uses today. Our receptivity to them or awareness of them might be different based on the kind of church we grew up in or the types of Christians we hang around with, but they are still gifts the Spirit gives. As well as the gifts we generally feel more comfortable with: wisdom, knowledge, and discernment.
Each gift is important and necessary to the work of the church. There are no useless gifts. God gives us something to be better in ourselves and help us be better and stronger together. Each of us has something to offer.
And we can grow in our gifting, we can practice and learn from others and develop the use of our gift.
And we can be given more than one gift. Some folks are very clear about having multiple gifts, to varying degrees or levels.
And there are some gifts we simply do not and will not have. While the scripture says some will have evangelism, and some teaching, and some preaching, and some encouragement, it never says, and some will have all gifts. We aren’t the body of Christ—interdependent on one another if any of us can do it all. Some folks are very talented, very gifted, but no one has all the gifts. The purpose is to draw us together to rely on one another, not to be self-sufficient and on our own.