1 Corinthians 12:21-31 The Body of Christ - part 2
1 Corinthians 12:21-31 · Randy Peterman · Sep 11, 2016
1 Corinthians, No. 35
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492653839421

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right, before we got started, Jack McBride came up and he said, I found out you went to seminary, which is a true statement. I didn't actually graduate from seminary, but that's a long story. I won't go into it for the recording. But before I went to seminary, back in junior high and high school, I was a charismatic.

Chapter 12 and Chapter 13 and Chapter 14 are verses that I read but did not understand for much of my junior high and high school year. At the end of high school, my family left the church we were at, where there was a split. I remember my dad sharing with me that he wasn't sure that the spiritual gifts operated the way that I had been led to believe for a time period, and I thought maybe my dad had lost his salvation, because I was like, man, this is seriously walking away from the scripture. I've since changed my opinion of that, right?

But I want to say, coming into this, that that's kind of my background for 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. But after reading it and not understanding it, I think if we read it slowly, carefully, and actually let the Greek language, and the English translations are pretty good for the Greek language here, and if we let the writing of Paul speak for itself, and we interpret the words the way that the Greeks would have interpreted the words, this is very clear, and easy to follow, and easy to understand.

But if you've heard varying teachings on this, if you've heard various things about spiritual gifts over time, I'm hoping that this morning as we kind of close up this chapter, we can answer some of the questions and have clarity into what it is Paul was talking about with spiritual gifts in the body. Chapter 12, as Roger started us, was was coming into this passage with the idea that the Holy Spirit was moving in the body with these spiritual gifts. We talked about those some as we opened up. Then Bob took over and Paul transitions into talking about the body. And so this third that we're looking at now, roughly third of chapter 12, actually takes those two ideas and synthesizes them and brings them together so we can see how the spiritual gifts and the body interact. at this time in Corinth.

So the reason why I say at this time in Corinth is that I think there's some specific text here that leads us to believe that this was for the church in Corinth and we'll talk a bit more about why that may not be for us today. I want to call out a few observations, just for the sake of clarity and context.

The first thing is that Paul writes in Corinthians about the body, but the Old Testament saints didn't have What did the Old Testament saints have after Abraham? The law. But what mattered for most of the Old Testament saints after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? The resurrection? No. They were really fascinated by the fact that they were descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so they were the Jews. They were Israel. And their people group was their fixation. When we come to the New Testament, we have the Jews and the Gentiles being merged together.

Paul can't use the same language. That would be confusing for some. Because we have this new entity, the Church, he introduces us to the term body. It actually starts in chapter 10. But the body is a principle that's a New Testament principle and it's a new doctrine and you can bet that some of the Greeks and some of the Jews were confused by it. And so when we talk about the body here, I just want to kind of highlight that that's an element that was coming into it.

Another thing that I want to reemphasize, and we've talked about this a little bit, in the past is that culturally the Corinthians had a high level of spiritual openness. The Romans were okay with you believing in any sorts of spiritual things as long as you also believed Caesar was God. That was important. That way Rome doesn't have you revolting. So we have the spiritual openness.

The Romans had a lot of what were called mystery religions. They were mystery cults or mystery religions. And it was not uncommon for there to be a small sect, either based on your career choice, like, oh, here's a mystery religion for the soldiers, and a mystery religion for the potters, and so forth. And you'd have a guru for your mystery religion. As far as we can tell, they were mystery religions. They try to keep things pretty secretive. But we have some records and some information. And when I was in my history class in college, one of the things that really surprised me was my teacher said that the mystery religions would often have a guru.

And it was not uncommon for you to go into the room with the guru. empty your mind of thoughts. Tell me if that's not familiar and new age thinking today. Empty your mind of thoughts and wait until the deity of your mystery cult entered you and you'd start speaking gibberish and then the guru would translate that for you. So this is not uncommon as far as we can tell in the culture at the time.

So when we start seeing some of the spiritual gifts and how people misinterpret them today, I want us to recognize that at this very time that Paul was writing, it was also not uncommon for there to be culturally this idea of tongues that was not of God. That would make what happened here in the New Testament, where there was a known language in translation, pretty remarkable. It would make it miraculous. It would make it validate that God was doing something.

Alright, the last thing I want to say here observationally is that I just want to remind us that at this historical time God came and he sent his son when there was the Roman Empire that had taken over a massive amount of the populated world and had roads that went to most of the populated world and had a language. So Koine Greek is not the Greek that was spoken several hundred years earlier in the Roman culture. Koine Greek was born out of the necessity of being able to come in, conquer a people group, and teach them a subset of Greek that they could speak approximately quickly. But it was technically pretty accurate and precise so that the language would come in and it would take over and when Jesus comes and is crucified and buried and resurrected, the gospel can be shared precisely, relatively quickly, and can be carried along. But God has to validate that this is his move. Because if it was just men doing things of the flesh, then that would be a problem, right? God can't have that. That's not how you establish this new doctrine of the Church.

So that's our context coming in here when we talk about spiritual gifts. This is a really key element, is that we have this development of this brand new Church. So I wanted to cover that. I'm going to read the passage, and then we're going to come back into the handout and look at one last observation. It's more of a doctrinal point. So let's take a look, 21 through 31.

And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. Or again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it.

But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked. so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are Christ's body and individually members of it.

And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues. All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they? All do not have gifts of healing, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they? But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way.

The last thing I wanted to bring out, which is on the top of page two, cessationism, which is one of those awesome theology words. So the last two weeks, if you noticed, various people have interjected that the spiritual gifts stopped operating the way that they did at the time of the apostles, the apostolic era, and behaved differently. Several people have interjected that. I know Tom mentioned it last week. The theological $5 word is cessationism.

Cessationism is basically the idea that while God was establishing the Church at the New Testament time, He used His Holy Spirit and miraculous gifts to establish the Church to show that this was His movement. But once the Scriptures were completed, so that we would have a base of knowledge that the Church could grow in for the rest of the Church age, those gifts that were miraculous of the more supernatural variety ceased needing to operate. And so that's the technical term for it.

And just in case that sounds like it's just a theory that somebody came up with, I have a few bullet points here and we'll just kind of run through these. If you have questions, feel free to ask. This is something I had to wrestle through, which is why when I say I used to be charismatic, I had to look at this doctrine real close and real careful and say, can I justify this in the scriptures? And I believe we can, but here are some places to look.

So the first part here is, in the book of Acts, the church is established with a powerful introduction of the Holy Spirit, and the gospel is shared in many known tongues. many known languages, and Jewish people from around the world who were in Jerusalem responded to that clear presentation of the gospel. We find out in Acts chapter 2 that about 3,000 were added to their number that day.

The apostles, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, perform miraculous works, but when the Holy Spirit is asked for by Simon the sorcerer, they rebuke him, because the Holy Spirit was not a thing to be bought or sold. So we have the Holy Spirit doing something, but as men, as women, as believers in the Church today, we don't control the Spirit. We don't dispense it of our own accord. Him, of our own accord.

Every time tongues appears in Acts, Jews are present. And God uses the language gifts to validate His move there to the Jews. If we look at Acts chapter 2, we see that Peter quotes Micah and says that these tongues will come. And the Jews were there. This was a sign to them.

And when the Gentiles speak in tongues in Acts 10.46, it inaugurates the church outside of Israel, outside of the Jewish group, and Peter cites that to the other elders in Acts 11.15.

Lastly, and we're going to go over this in two weeks, Bob gets this passage. When Paul writes to the Corinthians in chapter 13 verses 8 and 10, he refers to the gifts being a partial reflection of doctrinal truth, but says that when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with. This is a key passage in describing the idea that in the future time, when the New Testament was complete, the need for the Spirit's patchwork revelation would be done away with. When I say patchwork revelation, we're talking about the the prophets and the other things that we'll look at a little later on in this passage, giving revelation in small bits. Any questions on that? I know we're moving through it relatively quickly, but I don't mean to just assume that this is true and you shouldn't have any questions. Let's take a look at this and let's do some exposition.

Starting in 21, Paul writes, and the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. Or again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Why is it that the eye, or the hand, or any other body part for that matter, would behave biologically, let's just say biologically, in a way that says it doesn't need another organ? Is the organ self-aware? Generally speaking, I think the only self-aware organ we have is our brain.

Could be wrong. Bob's not here to correct me on that. Are you about to say something, Roger? No, no. That's good. I agree. There was this problem in Corinth, and we've seen it now for eleven chapters, there's this problem in Corinth of division. Bob went over that last week, that there's all these divisions and these members can't say to one another, I have no need of you.

But there is a cultural sense of betterness, of supremacy, that was common. We sometimes do this in our culture today. How many times when you go down the road do you see people that have possessions you don't have and think, I wish I had those possessions? That's common in our culture today. The marketers have worked really hard so that that would be common in our culture today. Most days when I drive to the light rail station to go to my office, I pass two car dealerships and they always have nice and bright, shiny Vehicles out on the front saying look at me look at me And I want one so bad Right because then I would be a better person right you guys would way more lots more respect for me If I had a Dodge Ram quad cab With a lift kit that was extra shiny, right? Yeah You can't see it on the recording, but there's lots of heads shaking They're not impressed by that at all Or maybe your thing is a Tesla or a Prius or whatever.

But the point is, our culture, just like the Corinthian culture, was very concerned about being better. But Paul, as we've already seen and as we're going to look at some more, introduces us or continues to remind us of this principle of weaker and stronger. So, what value do the weak have to the strong in the body? Let's ask this before we get into it. We have the need of them. But what value do they present to us? Why would Paul say that they're needed?

Let's take his illustration or analogy of the body into mind. Does the body have all super strong muscles like the heart that can pump forever? No. It also has, at least for me as a software developer, I sit behind a computer all day, so I'm really physically fit, right? We have all of these muscles and small tendons and ligaments and things inside of our body that nobody sees.

You know, this main service here that's going to happen this morning. I'm going to play the guitar. And what you don't know about most acoustic guitars, unless you've studied them, maybe some of you have, is that on the inside of the guitar there's a lot of structure that's actually holding it together and carrying the sound and allowing the energy to transfer on the guitar so that the top of the guitar will vibrate and make noise.

But you don't see it. And you know what? They're not very pretty either. But they're strong. The weak part is actually the top of the guitar that's pretty. So sometimes in the body we think weak, ugly, strong, beautiful. Those are not necessarily the equation, right?

So Paul, when he's talking about these, we need them for support. We need them for structure. We need them for integrity. We need them for carrying the pulse and the energy and exposing us to the love of Christ. If we were to look at Ephesians chapter 3, where he talks about the height and the breadth and the width and the depth of the love of Christ, those are all things that we're going to discover and explore in one another and carry those things out. And we need each other for that. So the weak actually make the strong supported, so they have a base to operate from.

If you've ever tried to do various exercises, and I can tell you guys look to me for physical fitness advice, so I'm going to do this physically in front of you. If you've ever tried to do a curl and you have your arms by your sides and you do this, being able to pivot off your midsection means you have support and you can do a curl. And you'll focus where the muscle exercises.

But then they have, I think they call it a preacher curl. This is how much I know about exercise. Where your arms are actually out in front of you. I guess that's when you're leaning on the pulpit like a preacher or something. And you do a curl like that. And that changes the angle and it changes the parts of the muscle that are being stretched and exercised, as I understand it.

Not from experience, mind you. I'm just kidding. I did actually, in high school, work out quite a bit. And then Jessica said my arms were getting veiny and she didn't like it, so I stopped. She's proud of that now. She says, I wish I never said anything. So, I say all that to say that we have this principle of not being able to say, I have no need of you. So last question.

Inside the church body today, Not Holly Hills, because everybody likes everybody at Holly Hills, and everybody's always friendly to everybody at Holly Hills. But let's just say inside the church at large, there's somebody that really rubs you the wrong way. Not here, again. That doesn't happen here.

But... Why do you keep looking at me when you say that? Oh, I'm not. I keep turning and I happen to be looking your direction unintentionally. I know. I'm super self-conscious about that. But do we get to say that person rubs me the wrong way? It's Brian. I'm looking at Brian. Do we get to say, okay, that person rubs me the wrong way. Now I look at Gary. and then discriminate against them?

Or what does Paul suggest in this should be our question? Instead of saying, I have no need of you, what should be the question we're asking? Okay? But we might ask the question, why does God have that person in my life? Because I have need of them. Right? That's an important thing.

If I don't know you very well, I apologize, but if I don't know you very well, and I assume something of you that isn't that God has put you in my life for a reason, that's a mistake. So we can look at this and we can say that the end result of looking at just this first verse is that we don't get to say, I have no need of you, but instead we get to say the opposite. The mere opposite is, I have need of you. And I will look at you when I say that. I have a need of all of you. And I don't get to choose.

Now, I'm going to pick on Roger for just a second, but I think he'll be OK with it, because it's theological. As an elder, imagine an elder, your job is to sometimes go amongst the sheep and clean up the messes. Roger has never had to do that because Holly Hills is perfect, right? But you've got to clean up the messes. Well, if the elder was to discriminate like that and say, I have no need of you, or I don't like you, or any of those things, that doesn't work very well, right? So the elders have this extra dose of humility they've got to take on in those things. And Roger puts up with me, and that's saying a lot for his character.

You laugh, but it's true. Alright, so any questions on that note that we cannot say I have no need? I think it's a pretty cool, simple verse, but we get to walk away with that and say the opposite, and it's empowering inside the church. On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary, and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it.

Now Paul is talking in analogy again, right? He's speaking with the analogy of the body. Using this analogy of honor and dishonor of the bodies, what does it mean for us when we say that we bestow more abundant honor on those that have less honor? What does it mean for us? And then we're going to talk about Corinth.

This might be kind of a side thing. Sometimes when you see somebody and you think, you know, they're not like me, you know, I'm not going to get anything from them or whatever. Sometimes if you pay more attention to them, because everybody brings something different to the table. So it's like sometimes you need to pay more attention to them because it's just harder to see. Or they need someone to look at them, or whatever, to bring that out. But they've got something that is important to you, that will be useful to you, or whatever. And you just have to pay more attention to find out what that is, maybe.

Yeah, and I think that's a valuable thing. When Paul's saying, OK, this person seems less honorable, but we bestow honor on them, and then they become more honorable, by that very nature, inside the body when you get to know somebody, just as you were talking about, you suddenly find out who they are in Christ.

Not just perfect and complete and seated in the heavenlies, but conditionally. Where is the Lord growing them? Where is the Lord growing me that they know something? Where is it that the Lord has grown me that, okay, maybe let's say, and this is rare, but let's say I know something that somebody else doesn't know in the church. I mean that, it's rare. It's not a joke. I can come alongside and say, let me assist you in this. Let me help you. Let me grow with you here. It's a powerful thing that we can see that this honor exists. I did mention earlier that I went to a charismatic church in junior high and high school. One of my favorite guys that went to church with us there was a guy named Tony. Tony was a biker.

He was a balding biker, so he had the long hair, but a lot of the shiny on the front, and a big beard, and he would wear the leather, and of course he had the Bikers for Jesus logo emblazoned on the back in a really big patch. But he was also a garbage man. So that's like two strikes for a lot of people culturally, right? Like, oh, garbage man and a biker.

Jesus can't use that, right? come to church all the time with testimonies of how someone would throw away a perfectly good X. It didn't matter what X was. Sometimes it was a car part, sometimes it was some other valuable thing. It was just there, next to the dumpster.

And he'd take it, and he'd come home. And he was a biker, and he did a lot of low-income. He did a lot of his own repairs on his car. He was pretty savvy with the car parts. He said one time there on top of the dumpster was a brand new piece for a classic car that he knew his neighbor across the street who wasn't a Christian was restoring. So he took that car part and he went home. He didn't put it in the back of his dump truck.

He put it on the seat next to him and he went home and he said, Do you need one of these? And his neighbor just lit up, because whatever it was, was several hundred dollars in value. It was brand new, unused, and he was able to take it. And Tony said, God must have had a real plan here for you. And so here's God's sovereignty and God doing these things.

But if we just said, oh, this person is a biker, or this person is garbage man, and we discriminate, right? That's discrimination. We can call that what it is. We miss out so badly. But instead, inside of our church, the biker garbage man was highly honored. Because God kept doing things for him because he was humble, and the rest of us were a little bit cocky. So there's a lot of power and meat there. We bestow honor on them, and God shows us who they are. And they really are honored.

Now he says another thing on here that's important, and that is that the presentable members have no need of it. If you're shiny and bright and you look like your life is together, most people don't need to explore whether or not you're an okay person. They'll just assume it and keep going. Again, both of those are somewhat presumptuous in one direction or the other, but the presentable members don't need more honor poured on them.

They're the ones that are going to be passing on the honor. They're the ones that are going to be doing that. But in the church in Corinth, let's go back to the church in Corinth, what were they doing? They were still class-based. They were still lifting themselves up. Look at me. Look at me. I'm shiny. I'm spit-shined. Right? We're making ourselves better and more wealthy and more awesome.

But that's not what Paul was calling them out for. What was God's view of the church in Corinth? Which one of them did He not pay for on the cross? All of them. He paid for all of them. Which one does God want to honor? They're made in His image. They're resurrected in His Son's image. They're being conformed to His image. They're renewed in Him. They're seated with Him in the heavenlies. That's pretty honorable.

I don't think you can say anything negative about that. But the Corinthians didn't get that, right? So Paul has to call them out on it. Here's the thing. But just in case, they still feel justified in their discrimination. Let's take a look here at this next half of 24.

But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And there's a lot here, so I apologize for how much we will probably still have to move past for the sake of time.

God has composed. So just in case you thought from the previous verses that mankind was still somehow involved with the architecture, That's not the case. God is so composed. God put it together. God even composed things like putting believers together so that they could grow together, right? He didn't compose as individual units. He composes together. God is so composed.

So in God's sovereignty and God's care for individuals and us as an organism, He brought us together. And He is giving more honor, more abundant honor, to that member which lacked. And who's He going to do it through? Who's He going to give honor through? The others. That's right.

So if we're open vessels and we say, OK, Lord, I'm abiding. I'm submitting to your direction. If he calls you to go talk to somebody and you're like, I don't know, I've never met him before, and you have this weird personality disorder where you're like, I'm an introvert, so I don't talk to people, how about abide? When I say disorder, I'm joking, okay? Don't mean that slanderously. My wife's an introvert. It's okay. If you're abiding, that togetherness is going to happen. If you're abiding, the honoring is going to happen. If you're abiding, What does he say in the next verse? What's the outcome at the beginning of 25? No division. Now how many of you brought your Bibles? Everybody got your Bibles?

Flip with me over to Colossians chapter 3. I think my daughters are somewhat tired of me turning to Colossians chapter 3, but I think it's like The best Nike running shoes of Christianity is Colossians 3. It's my favorite place to go. Verses 12-14, if you get there, will you read them? What chapter? Colossians 3, verses 12-14.

Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any men have a quarrel against any. Even as Christ forgave you, so also do we. And above all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. OK. So just in case there are any cracks in the characteristics, put forth as, frankly, fruits of the Spirit in 12 and 13. 14 says put on love. which is the perfect bond of unity. So it's almost like Paul keeps writing this thing, and he writes similar things in Ephesians chapter 3 and 4.

As those things come together, as they draw us together, love fills in the cracks so that there will be no division amongst us. So let's ask the mirror reverse question of that. Love fills all the divisions and the cracks. The mirror question is if we observe cracks or divisions in our own body, in our own lives. Let's look at ourselves only. We're not going to worry about other believers.

And this would apply to the Corinthians. We need to ask, are we loving? If not, we submit to the Lord in those things. Okay, Lord, teach me to love here. But that love in chapter 13 is going to cover a multitude of Christian porcupines. Sins. It's going to cover a multitude of sins, not Christian porcupines. That's here, right? So, God has composed this. God has bestowed honor. Abundant honor. Not just honor, but abundant honor. created a way to fill those divisions in the body, which the Corinthians suffered through immensely.

We're on chapter 12, and he's going to keep going, right? But we've had division after division after division. I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of this, I'm of that, I do this. Division after division after division. Paul's like, hey, love fills us.

Then he has to write a second letter and a third letter and come visit him, but he's trying. We can learn a lesson now. Alright, so then he says in the last part of 25, but that the members may have the same care for one another. So the one another's, the caring for one another, that love, that's there. And the members care for one another.

Whenever you get a scrape or a burn or something on your arm, what do you do? Okay, well this one's damaged, and the other one comes alongside. Right? So we do that. But it's the same, only it's my body from the outside coming to assist you with your body and your household and your needs. Okay? And so those things, and we're caring for one another. That's intimacy. That's awesome. That's the body. That's how that should be operating. if we're body, right? That's the context. Okay. So that's page 3.

And I'm actually moving faster than I thought I was going to. So top of page 4, verse 26. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. And now you are Christ's body and individually members of it. Now, how many of you, when you read something like verse 26, think like an engineer? And you start to think, wait a minute, that analogy has holes in it. Because I read that and immediately went, wait a minute, that has holes in it. Because if one member suffers, all the members suffer.

If I smash my thumb with a hammer, I've never done that before, but I hear it hurts, right? No, I've done that lots of times. When you smash your thumb with a hammer, this hand doesn't hurt, right? Like, ah, there we go, Paul, we found an exception to you. But that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about the principle where if you damage, let's say you stub your toe, right?

Then you walk funny and the rest of your body walks with it. There are examples of that. Not all examples of injury are this. But Paul is talking about a principle here where the body If you get the flu, the problem may be in your stomach, but all of you feel crummy. All of you feel terrible. So as members of one of another, we have this need of observing that and suffering alongside. Now let's ask this very important question.

Is Paul talking about Christians and non-Christians? As Christians, if you see a non-Christian suffering, you should suffer with them. He's not talking about that here. There's other places where we might find that. But let's be careful when we exposit that we don't just say, if somebody's suffering, you should suffer with them. That's not what Paul's talking about here. Because this church has got division in it, right? This church is super weak and super wounded and it's dishonoring, its members are dishonoring one another. So that's not the case for this one. On the other hand, aside from suffering, if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

Now, this last spring, Connor Anderson graduated from high school. And this is a simple example. But we celebrate it. That's awesome. Connor graduated, actually, I think second in his class. Pretty bright kid. Third, oh, see, the great aunt knows. Yeah, the only third in his class, stinker, right? And it's as if he just put a little bit more effort in, right? No, I joke. So he's honored.

So we rejoice with him. Those things happen. When somebody gets married, we rejoice with them. When somebody gets a new job, we rejoice with them. Various things happen. We celebrate with one another. The Lord has provided this thing. That's great. Let's celebrate together. But if there's division, you're not going to do that. You're like, oh, that's that person that I don't like. but that doesn't belong in the church. So, verse 27, now you are Christ's body and individually members of it.

So if there's one thing that I love to do, it's bring back cultural references and nuances that you might not know, and I apologize if I repeat myself on this, and you do know this, but at the time The philosophers would have, and the politicians, everybody loves a politician, would have been arguing and discussing the issue of the one and the many. The one and the many, the polis, the many and the one, the individual. Because when you're making laws, sometimes the minority has a major impact on the many, and sometimes the many let the minority skate through. Those things happen.

But the philosophers would be discussing this problem. But how does the church resolve that? The church resolves that in 27. Now you are Christ's body and individually members of it. In the church, we are the one and the many in Christ. We are one in Christ and we are the many individually members of it.

So I get to celebrate that I'm The appendix. I'm the vestigial organ, right? That's a joke. I don't think anybody's an appendix. But we get to celebrate the fact that we are individually one of another. Together. And suffer together. One of another. And that the love is that pulsing blood, if you will, that keeps us connected and the energy inside the body of the Holy Spirit moving, all of those things coming together so that we're an organism, we're not an organization. We don't have a board of elders that are like our board of directors at a company with a CEO pastor and the deacons who are the managerial The church isn't an organization, it's an organism. And so all those things come together in a meaningful way.

Now I've got a question at the bottom of this section that I want to ask. And this is very personal. I haven't gone and done a survey to find out the answer. This is for you to answer for yourself. What is the number one reason people give for leaving a church body and becoming reclusive? We may have a lot of overlap. Probably somebody said something to them that they took the wrong way or was meant the wrong way. Okay.

So is that the Holy Spirit? Yeah. Is that the Holy Spirit or is that the flesh? The flesh. Right. Okay. There's a root cause analysis that I like to do and that's that the flesh is almost always involved with that. But sometimes it's the part of the body and sometimes it's the part of the individual. But if love's involved, that's not what the outcome is. So that's kind of the thing I want to draw out of that. Alright, so now let's kick into the spiritual gifts. We talked about the body and now Paul is going to synthesize here and we're going to get into the spiritual gifts in 28.

The establishment of the church. Brian is leaving already. We haven't even gotten far enough. Alright. Verse 28, and God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues. Okay, so God has brought these gifts around. Now, we're going to go through each one of these as we have time. I'm going to move quickly, since obviously time is running out. But do ask if you've got questions about something here.

The Corinthians were worried about honor, and who's the first and foremost inside of the church that's getting honor here in 28? The apostles. How many apostles were in Corinth? Zero, as far as we know. That's why Paul's writing a letter, right? So if they want to be hot to trot, they've got nothing that they're bringing to the table from the apostleship department. Although the Apostle Paul loved them dearly and seemed to live very sacrificially to take care of them. But first apostles. So what makes an apostle?

They saw the Lord. What else? They had to see the Lord They were called to testify and to spread the gospel, and they were given a ministry to establish the church with special authority, often with miraculous signs. So it wasn't just that I saw Jesus, because there were lots of people in Israel that saw Jesus, right? Thousands. He fed them. They saw Jesus, and then they were called, and then God showed that His hand was on that ministry by giving them miraculous signs.

So apostleship seems to have disappeared. Even the Catholic Church today does not pick apostles. They say the Pope is an apostle. They don't pick apostles this way. They can't. When was the last Pope that saw Jesus? I think we can say zero. So they're disqualified. In my lifetime, which isn't granted that long, but in my lifetime, I don't recall the last Pope that did a bunch of miracles.

I don't say that to call out the Catholic Church per se, but these things are critical that the apostleship is very specific. If you go look at these cross-references that I've got here, you'll see there's very specific things that were going on and it was very intentional. It's almost like God had a plan. Maybe, right? It's crazy.

Now prophets, and I want to be careful because prophets gets used weirdly in the Charismatic Church. The prophets that were given throughout the scriptures seem to carry a specific gift. Even in the Old Testament, they spoke the word of God for the people to listen to and meditate on. This was not specifically for telling future events.

I want to say that very explicitly. Sometimes you hear people say, Oh, I'm a prophet. I have a friend who thinks he's a prophet. I'm not sure it lines up with this. The prophets are not foretelling the future. I had somebody prophesy over me when I was in the Charismatic Church. I'm going to share this prophecy with you, you'll be impressed. He came up to me, he put his hands on my shoulders and he looked me in the eyes and he said, when you get older, God is going to give you broad shoulders. That was it. I still don't know what that means. But, you know, okay.

But that's not what Paul uses prophets for. He doesn't say, here's a thing about you, or a time down the road in 12 months you're going to have a new baby. That's not the use of prophet here. That's not scripturally the only way that the prophet behaves. So when we have prophets here in the church, they don't have the scriptures.

They don't have all of the New Testament. They have all of the Old Testament, so that was good. But they don't have all the New Testament, so they need the Holy Spirit to specifically send word that this is doctrinally correct. Because all they've got is the Old Testament, and that's got 613 laws that they can't be fulfilling.

And they need the Holy Spirit directing them and guiding them. So they need a prophet who is clearly teaching what God has been giving them, but, and I'm going to call this out and we'll go into it in detail in the coming weeks, 1 Corinthians 14, 29-37, so a couple chapters ahead, the prophets are supposed to speak and the rest of the mature believers are supposed to evaluate it and make sure that it's not bunk.

Make sure they're not making things up. in revealing new truths, they happen to be like, and everybody gave me a million dollars. That's Benny Hinn's ploy. So that's not what a prophet does. Now he says, teachers, and I happen to be fond of teachers. That's kind of my gift. So teachers have a ministry to equip those with what the Lord has already provided, and those who will listen.

And that's not a very fancy gift, frankly. I'm not a fancy guy, so that works out, right? But it's not a fancy gift. I don't have new knowledge. I should never be telling you some, oh, Randy's teaching and he's got a special word from the Lord. Give me a million dollars, right? No. It's just this is what God's word says. And you better go double check it. Make sure I'm not wrong. But the church in Corinth, how are their teachers doing? How are their prophets doing? They're kind of stinking it up.

So I think Paul may have listed these with priority order, quite on purpose, to establish for them an understanding of what the greater gifts were. We're going to quickly move through healing, where obviously we know healing is where miraculously someone's sickness or their illness or brokenness or missing limbs or whatever else gets replaced or fixed or healed.

The gift of helps, this is one I never heard anybody pray for in the Charismatic Church. Not one soul ever said, God give me the gift of helps. They always wanted healings and miracles and prophecy misinterpreted. So helps would be really the assistance, being some hands and feet, if you will, inside the body.

That's really important. Administration, another gift nobody ever prayed for. Administration being, it's a gift that that will bring the body and organize things. If something goes wrong, if somebody has needs, the administration is going to be able to get those helpers moving in the right direction.

Let's get this stuff done. Often deacons in Holly Hill's context operate in this fashion. They're going to help connect the dots. Make sure the teaching ministry is not hindered. Make sure the elders are not hindered so that everything is going well. Then he says various kinds of tongues. That's the English translation.

But the idea is that there are plural tongues, but they were known languages. Every time we see tongues, it's known languages. The problem with the word tongues is that it's 1611 King James English, and we don't talk that way anymore. So when you see tongues and you hear people talking about tongues, it just means languages. But because it's the word that we don't use anymore, everybody redefines it and goes, prayer language? No. Somebody's talking about It's not a prayer language that they have in Acts chapter 2. The Holy Spirit comes down with tongues of flame and fire. They spoke languages people knew.

In 29, he talks about the uniqueness of our ministries. All are not apostles. 29 and 30. All are not apostles. And he goes through. And they're rhetorical questions. Not everybody's this. We're not all right hands. We're not all left hands. And now he brings to spiritual gifts. We're not all gifted the same way. Because the body needs more than just right kneecaps.

I want to take some special attention and we'll close on 31. He says, but honestly desire the greater gifts. I've heard this taught a few different ways. I'm going to teach it to you the best way I know in context. He says, but honestly desire the greater gifts. What are the greater gifts doing here in this list of gifts? How sound would the Corinthian church be if they have the greater gifts. Are the greater gifts tongues? Are the greater gifts healing? He orders them. He numbers them. Paul used the Greek language to deliver precision, and he numbers them. He says, the most important is apostles.

You don't got that. All right. Bad English. Sorry. They don't have apostleship. But they had prophets. What were the prophets doing? I think they were asking for a million bucks, right? And the teachers weren't teaching. and they were claiming, I'm after Paul, I'm of Apollos, all the things that were going on that were divisive, that were breaking down the church, destroying it from the inside out, it was collapsing.

If they were desiring the greater gifts, it wouldn't have been the fancy pants stuff that we all see the charismatic church seeking. It would have actually been the things that would have fortified the church and built it up and kept it going on the straight and narrow. the fancy pants gifts would have come alongside and validated. It was the work of God. But the greater gifts would have been a very structurally important thing.

The last half of the last verse. And I show you still a more excellent way. More important than the spiritual gifts, I've got to show you this other thing that's super important. But you're going to have to wait until next week. I'm going to teach verses 1-7. This should have actually been probably in 13.1. But it's a little hard. Somebody arbitrarily put the numbers.

And I show you a more excellent way, and next week we're going to dig into the love chapter. But the love chapter starts with gifts, and the body, and their abuse. So he's going to show us a better way that doesn't involve the abuse, that doesn't involve the flesh. Alright, I've gone over. Any questions, thoughts, things you wish I didn't say? All right, okay, cool.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this chance that we have to study your word. Thank you that we can race through this passage and know that if we're abiding and we're loving, we're going to fill some cracks. Lord, I praise you for my family here. My brothers and sisters in Christ, thank you. I love them. I love you for them. We just pray that you would give us this love manifested and worked out in our church in such a way that it would kind of freak people out when they come in because we're such a loving group of people. We just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.