Alright, this has been a fun “mini-series” for my blog. We will close it out today with Part 3. The chapter we have been studying begins by Paul stating his desire that this wild church at Corinth would stop being ignorant about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I believe there is a lot of ignorance even today about these gifts.

Paul masterfully addresses the subject in question in chapter 12, writes chapter 13 about the superiority of love over any gift (one of the major problems still…no love), then addresses the protocol necessary for the functional use of the gifts in public.

1 Corinthians 12:3-6

3            Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

4            There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.

5            There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.

6            There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.

It is important to realize the context here because clearly Paul is …

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Better to Receive?

If God gave you a gift would you receive it? That is the question I ended Part 1 of this blog with. I think when the question is asked with no context, almost anyone would enthusiastically say, “Yes!” God has, in fact, given us many gifts. Salvation is the greatest gift of all.

Rom 6:23



23            For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I am happy that I received God’s gift of salvation. When it comes to the gifts He has given us there is such an awesome degree of intentionality on His part. It makes me want to treasure the gift all the more. As a shepherd, or a pastor, I appreciate the gift God has given me to help lead people closer to Him, to watch over them and to build them up. We see in this scripture that the Lord gave these gifts, which are many times are vocational, specifically so Christians could be built up.

Ephesians 4:8, 11&12

8            When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and …

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A Wild Church

1 Corinthians chapters 12, 13, and 14 have always been so awesome to me. Let me explain why. The church Paul was addressing the church at Corinth, one of the most immature, enthusiastic, sinful, yet hopeful churches imaginable. They were messing everything up. They didn’t know how to do communion. They were going wild using spiritual gifts without order. They were having orgies and yet still showing up to worship passionately. They were trying to one-up all the other leaders in the church with their deep spirituality while still practicing extreme paganism. These people were wild, but they loved Jesus. They were new in their faith but they didn’t quit just because they were doing it wrong. They kept pushing forward (with the help of one extremely wise apostle).

In these chapters you find an amazing story of Paul explaining the “gifts” of the Spirit to these energetic people. The context of these chapters is one of rationale and gentle correction. He is not chewing them out. He is lovingly explaining why they are doing things wrong and how …

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