>> Jen: Well, good morning there friends and faithful listeners. I hope you all had a fantastic start to your week and are ready to jump into some scripture with me this morning. So make sure to pause the podcast if you need to and grab a cup of coffee or a cup of tea this morning. Today we're going to be discussing the spiritual gifts of First uh, Corinthians chapter 12. Well, I don't have tea or coffee this morning. I'm just drinking plain old water. I'm kind of on a water
drinking kick right now. That's my new health thing. But at least this health fad is free. Whereas whenever I get into other health fads it seems like firstly they never work and also they cost a lot of money. And we'll see how I feel while doing this like whole water drinking kick in a few weeks. I'll let you know. I'll let you know if I notice any visible
changes. Let's go ahead and read First uh, Corinthians 12 and talk about the spiritual gifts and a little bit about what spiritual gifts are, because I think a lot of people don't really understand them and maybe have some superstition about what spiritual gifts really mean. So let's go ahead and read verses 1 through 14 today and as always, I'll be reading from the web. Now concerning spiritual things, brothers, I don't want you
to be ignorant. You know that when you were heathen you were led away to those mute idols, however you might be led. Therefore I make known to you that no man speaking by God's Spirit says Jesus is accursed. No one can say Jesus is LORD, but by the Holy Spirit. Now there are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are
various kinds of service, and the same LORD. There are various kinds of workings, but the same god who works all things in all, but to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the profit of all.
For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same spirit, and to another gifts of healings by the same spirit, and to another workings of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of languages, and to another the interpretation of those languages. But the one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing to each one
separately as he desires. For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For in one Spirit we are all baptized into One body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free, and we are all given to drink into one spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. Starting in this chapter and ending in first uh, 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is going to be talking
about spiritual gifts. And apparently the uh, Corinthians had asked a question about these spiritual gifts, not really understanding what they were. Now, concerning the spiritual things, brothers, I don't want you to be ignorant. You know that when you were heathen or Gentile, you were led away to those mute idols, however you might be led. Paul reminds the Gentiles that many of them, most of them before they were Christian, were actually heathen or
pagan. The majority of the uh, Corinthians, it sounds like, were not of Jewish background. And because they were not of Jewish background, they had fallen away to worshiping these idols that were very popular in the time of the uh, Corinthians. The Roman idols, such as Jupiter, and then of course, the Greek idols like Zeus, which, by the way, Zeus and Jupiter are the exact same idol, just the Romans took the Greek one and renamed it Jupiter.
But that's what the majority of the uh, Corinthians worshiped and believed in were these fake idols. And because of this, a lot of superstition went along with these fake idols. So Paul reminds them, don't go back to that same superstitious ideology that you used to have when it comes to the understanding of spiritual gifts. And even to this day in Christian circles, there is some, um, superstition that goes along with the understanding of spiritual
gifts. It's kind of hard to really understand how the Holy Spirit works and what he does. But a good place to start if you're curious about the Holy Spirit, is the book Forgotten God by Francis Chan. I really loved that book. It helped me understand the Holy Spirit a little bit more. And no matter how much anybody studies the Holy Spirit, we can never fully understand the Holy Spirit or understand the mind of god, obviously.
But a good place to start if you're curious about the Holy Spirit is that book Forgotten god by Francis Chan. But of course, superstition has been around since the dawn of existence, pretty much. And it's easy to bring our superstition into our understanding of Christianity. But Christianity and superstition just don't go hand in hand, because superstition has no solid
foundation behind it. It's kind of like if I tap on this thing three times or if I ring this bell four times, it'll help me achieve what I want to achieve, but there's no solid Proof that you doing those activities will actually help you achieve what you want to achieve. But the Holy Spirit, he is real. There's no superstition about that. He is real. And he gives us these special gifts that Paul is about to lay out. But he reminds the Gentiles not to go back to their superstitious beliefs when
it comes to the Holy Spirit. Verse 3 says, Therefore I make known to you that no man speaking by God's Spirit says Jesus is accursed. Uh, no one can say Jesus is LORD, but by the Holy Spirit. Now, the Greek word for LORD in that verse is actually Kyrios, which is the Greek translation of Yahweh. No one can say Jesus is Yahweh except by the Holy Spirit.
Now, we typically think of the name Yahweh as the name for God the Father, but Paul here is actually saying that Jesus is one and the same with god the Father or Yahweh. So he's putting Jesus and the Father on the same level here when he says, no one can say Jesus is Yahweh, but by the Holy Spirit. But what this verse means is that if somebody is speaking through the Holy Spirit, he's first and foremost not going to curse Jesus.
And secondly, he is going to admit that Jesus is Yahweh or that Jesus is LORD or God because the Holy Spirit is working through that person. So that's how you can know if somebody is truly operating in the Holy Spirit, is if they claim Jesus as their God. And also if they don't blaspheme Jesus, that is how you will know. Now, why does Paul mention that? Because he's about to talk about spiritual gifts. There's a difference between talent and spiritual
gifts. Talent is something you were kind of innately born with, something you're just naturally good at doing. But a spiritual gift is something that didn't necessarily come natural to you before you were a Christian. So there is a difference between talent and spiritual gifts. So Paul says, you'll know if somebody is truly using a spiritual gift and not just a talent, because they will be able to proclaim the truth about
Jesus. They're not going to curse Jesus, they're not going to blaspheme God, and they will claim Jesus as their God. That's how you'll know if somebody is using a talent or if they're using a spiritual gift. Verse 4. Now, there are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit, there are various kinds of service and the same LORD. So every spiritual gift is unique and is different but they're all used to edify and
build up the church community. That is the point of the spiritual gifts is to evangelize to those who aren't necessarily believers, and then also to build up and edify those who are already believers. There are various kinds of workings, but the same God who works all things in all. So we shouldn't look down at any particular gift or think one gift is so much better or so much more mighty than the other gifts. They're all used for the benefit of
expanding the kingdom of God. To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the profit of all. So there you go. for to one is given through the Spirit, the word of wisdom. That's one of the spiritual gifts. Another is a word of knowledge. Another is faith. And another gifts of healings, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, different kinds of languages, and interpretation of languages. So these are the very spiritual gifts that Paul mentions in this chapter.
He does mention a few more, his other letters. So there are more than these spiritual gifts. But you'll notice that these aren't necessarily talents. These aren't things that people are born with. Exactly. The first one Paul mentions is the word of wisdom. It's very clear in Scripture that wisdom is given to us by God. We are not automatically born with a ton of wisdom. We are given wisdom by God. Same goes for knowledge of scriptures. We're not innately born with that.
We have to study God's Word and have a understanding of what we're reading in order to have knowledge of the scriptures. So those are the first two Paul mentions. The third one is faith. Now, faith is not the type of faith that you and I think of where we come to Jesus because we have faith in Him. The faith that Paul is talking about here is this deep faithfulness that people have when they are going through trials, persecutions, and potentially their life is on the line. Possibly
martyrdom. That is a spiritual gift, and nobody is innately born with that. Nobody wants to go through martyrdom. But it's really interesting because if you hear stories about people who were in terrible circumstances and got out of them, it's crazy the amount of faith and peace those people claimed to have when they were going through those particular trials. There's a really cool story about some missionaries who were jailed in a really hostile environment
for several months. They were trying to get out, they couldn't get out, and they were all together. It was a very bad environment for them. But yet when they finally got the chance to go home, one Day, maybe like a year later, these missionaries all met up for coffee and were just, like, talking and stuff. And every single one of them were like, do you kind of miss being in prison? And all the missionaries were like, yes, why do we miss being in prison?
And they all came to the conclusion that it was because of the amount of peace and just the Holy Spirit's presence that they felt when they were in prison. Whereas when they went back to their comfortable lives in the Western world, they kind of stopped thinking about the presence of the Holy Spirit and the amount of peace that they had. So in a way, they missed that
persecution. And there's tons of stories like that where people just suddenly find this crazy faith when they are under persecution and when they're about to be martyred. There's a famous story of. I forget what preacher it was, but back when, you know, preachers were, like, burned at the stake in the 1500s, there was a preacher who was singing at his death, like, he's being burned at the stake, and he's just singing joyfully. There was another guy
who, uh, would burn his hands. He knew he was going to be burned at the stake, and so he was putting his hands in the fire, like, preparing himself for this and praying these prayers as he's, like, burning his hands, preparing to be burned at the stake. And people just wondered, like, how can you possibly go
through these kinds of things? But it's the Holy Spirit who is giving you this insane amount of courage and strength for when you are faced with absolutely impossible situations that other people can't even fathom going through. So that's the kind of faith that Paul's talking about here. So that's the third one. The fourth one is gifts of healing, which we all know what those are. Another the working of miracles and to another prophecy. The next one is the
discerning of spirits. So this would be being able to tell truth from lies, being able to read a person very well, and just being able to know if they're operating with the Holy Spirit or not. And then lastly is the gifts of language and also the interpretation of languages. Now, some people have a natural gift of being able to just learn languages. I have a friend who lives in the Netherlands, and I think he is fluent in four languages and can speak like six others.
And, man, I would love to have that kind of gift. But that's definitely a talent that he has. When it comes to the spiritual gift of tongues is what this would be called. This would be something that you're not necessarily talented in from the beginning, but then suddenly you're just able to understand
different languages. Or there's, uh, another interesting story that I've heard where an American went down on a missions trip to South America and the language was Spanish down there, but he didn't know any Spanish. So he's on this missions trip and he's doing some building or whatever, a building project, and a man comes up to him and starts talking to him. And they're having this
conversation, so they hit it off. And the guy on the missions trip starts evangelizing to this man and telling him about Jesus and everything. Well, when the conversation is over with, you know, the man leaves and all of the people that were around the kid on the missions trip, they come up to him and they're like, whoa, you know, we didn't know you spoke Spanish. We thought you just spoke English, but you speak like perfect Spanish. And he was like, what are you talking
about? I was speaking English the entire time. And it turned out that the man he was talking to didn't speak a lick of English. And this kid thought that he was speaking English to this guy, and it turned out that he was speaking Spanish or everybody could hear him speaking Spanish to that man. So that's another really interesting story that I've heard about the gift of tongues. And that kid obviously didn't have a talent in speaking other languages.
But then when it came down to it, the Holy Spirit gave him the gift of tongues in order to be able to evangelize to that Spanish speaking man. And then the last one Paul mentions is also the interpretation of languages which we're going to see is very important to the gift of tongues. Paul actually says the gift of tongues when it comes to a church setting is useless without an interpreter. Because if everybody's like just speaking in tongues during a church service,
then, uh, nobody's going to know what's going on. Because some people don't have the gift of tongues. So they'll just be hearing everybody speaking in different languages and not be edified at all. But scripture will go into that later on. So to conclude all of this, for as the body is one in verse 12 and has many members, and all the members of the body being many are, uh, one body, so also is Christ. So in other words, you know, you and I,
we have many parts on our body. We've got fingers, we've got toes, we've got arms and legs and tons of other body parts, right? But you know, we wouldn't say that we're a Hand. If we're describing our body to somebody, we would say we're a human being. We're one body with many different parts. And that's how it is with the church and with spiritual gifts as well. We're all the body of Christ. We make up, uh, different parts, and we're
unique. We have separate functions, but yet we all serve the greater purpose of just being the body of Christ. For in one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body because we've been baptized. Anybody who's a Christian and has gone through baptism has been baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And once you come up out of that water, you are considered a new creation. And you come up out of that water as a newly introduced member of
Christ's body. Because we've been baptized into the Holy Spirit. Whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free, we were all given to drink into one spirit. So there you go. Scripture is for everybody. It's for Gentiles, it's for Jews, it's for men. It's for women. Paul says slave and free because there were so many slaves back in the days of Paul. It's also for every nationality under the sun. The Scriptures are for everybody. And God doesn't
play any favorites. He wants all people of all backgrounds to come to him and to share in this new family, to share in this body of Christ that the Scriptures talk about so often. For the body is not one member, but many. It says in Scripture that God does not want anybody to perish. He doesn't want a single person to die in their sins. He wants everybody to come to him. Every single person. So the church is supposed to be
very unifying. And the utilization of these spiritual gifts is what is going to help the church truly be unified as members of Christ's body. So if you are a new Christian and you go to church and you hear the pastor talk about the body of Christ, this passage is what he is referring to. And also, body of Christ can be communion as well. But when the pastor calls the church the body of Christ, it's because of First uh, Corinthians, chapter 12.
Anyway, faithful listeners, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. And if you did, make sure to go over to Apple Podcasts and write a review and rate the podcast five stars. Or if you're on a podcast platform that has a rating system, please go ahead and rate it there as well. And honestly, that's a really good way to evangelize, shockingly enough, because the more ratings and reviews the podcast gets, the more it gets pushed out to people who might
need to hear it. Anyway, faithful listeners, I hope you have a fantastic and wonderful rest of your Tuesday. I'll see you guys tomorrow bright and early, or whenever you choose to wake up. Happy listening and God bless.