1 Corinthians chapter 12

vs 11

Paul wraps up his idea by repeating again that all these different gifts are the work of the same Holy Spirit, and it is God who determines who gets the gifts, not us.

vs 12

Once again, Paul is focussing on unity. Unity and division are such massive parts of this book - it flows through the whole thing. A body is made up of parts, and without those parts, it just isn't a body.

vs 13

That's why there is no difference between Christians - because the Spirit into which we have been baptised is the same spirit. Why we drink the Spirit, I honestly don't know. I mean, the word Spirit in greek is linked to wind, not water - you'd think we would breathe the Spirit. But I guess it's just a turn of phrase.

vs 14

I'm pretty sure you just said that, Paul.

vs 15

A body is not defined as such because of a specific part - a person with no hands is still a person. So in such a way, a part of the body cannot define itself as not a part of the body just because it doesn't serve some function.

vs 16

Swap body parts, same argument.

vs 17

Each part has its own role, and that is why different people are needed in the church and different gifts are given to the church. This argument is vital to understanding why the charismatic movement cannot demand that every member of the body of Christ speak in tongues - if we were all a tongue, who would the interpreter be?

But the happy clappys aren't the only ones who make this mistake. We brethos created a system that heavily rewarded the preacher/teacher type gifting, and made that above and beyond all other gifts. Our open worship system still does this, so we've got to be careful to specifically look out for and encourage other gifts too.

vs 18

Because God is creator, he designs things perfectly, and that includes the body of Christ, the church. So all the gifts a church has, God has given them for a reason. This doesn't mean that a church without people doing miracles or speaking in tongues is not a church, in the same way that a person without a tongue is still a person.

vs 19

But a church made up of all prophets would not be a church - that would be a prophecy convention. Now I am not saying this verse is Paul saying that people shouldn't create churches based on specific gifting (there is no way that there was enough Christians in the early church that they had a choice of churches to go to in Corinth in the first place). But what he is telling the Corinthians is not to focus on one gift to the detriment of the others.

vs 20

Because many gifts make up one spiritual body of a church.