1 Corinthians 12:1-11 Commentary

On this third Sunday in the year of our Lord, 2025 the RCL turns our attention toward the end of Paul’s first letter to the sometimes-contentious bunch of Jesus’ followers who live in Corinth. Hard on the heels of scolding them about some of their practices surrounding the Lord’s Supper the apostle directs his hearers’ attention to what 12:1 calls “spiritual gifts [pneumatikon*].”

Those gifts are, however, yet another example of a central Christian tenet that has often been a source of contention. Christians have, after all, found ways to argue about which spiritual gifts God still gives Christ’s 21^st century body. We’ve, what’s more, sometimes cast a suspicious eye toward those whose use of those gifts seems either too “showy” or too stilted. Some of us have even envied folks who seem more spiritually gifted than us.

Into that divisiveness Paul speaks a word of amazing grace. While there are a number of themes around which the Spirit might help preachers to organize a presentation on 1 Corinthians 12’s grace, verse 7’s reference to “the common good [sympheron]” might be especially pertinent to Jesus’s 21^st century friends. We live in a culture in which work for the common good sometimes seems like an endangered species.

The ASV translation of sympheron renders it as “to profit withal.” The Message paraphrases verse 7 as “Everyone gets in on [spiritual gifts], everyone benefits.” Both communicate a gospel truth for a broken, hurting world: God gives God’s dearly beloved people various spiritual gifts so that we may bless all people.

This is great news for a culture that’s so often must work so very hard to cross partisan lines with anything but vitriol. God gifts God’s dearly beloved people in order that we may bless people on all sides of the issues that divide us. God graces us with these gifts to bless people regardless of things like their political persuasion, skin color or sexual orientation.

While Paul’s profession that God gives us spiritual gifts for the common good may anger, frustrate or puzzle some of us, it shouldn’t surprise anyone. After all, we serve a risen and ascended Savior who calls to us to love, forgive and pray for even our enemies. Jesus’ friends follow the one who even prayed for his calloused torturer’s forgiveness.

The apostle’s assertion of widespread blessing by God’s adopted children in some ways parallels Paul’s assertion of to whom God gives these manifestations of the Spirit. “To each one [Hekasto],” he insists in verse 7a, “the manifestation [phanerosis] of the Spirit is given for the common good.” Just as God graces us with gifts to benefit all kinds of people, God graces each and every Christian with those gifts.

This is language of startling generosity. The apostle insists that God isn’t stingy or even particularly choosy about to which of Jesus’ followers God grants spiritual gifts. God doesn’t choose to gift a handful of super Christians with these manifestations of the Spirit. No, each of us is the beneficiary of this shocking generosity.

So Christians aren’t surprised to hear Paul remind us that we don’t get to be stingy with our choice of whom to bless with our spiritual gifts. We don’t get to pick and choose who benefits from our use of the gifts and talents God gives us. Jesus’ followers are as lavish with the benefits of our spiritual gifts as God is with those gifts. They are sympheron, for the common good.

That’s, in fact, consistent with Paul talk about charismaton (“gifts). While the Spirit summons Christians to cultivate those gifts, we didn’t somehow earn or even create them. They are graces – with all of that word’s connotations of being undeserved. Christians didn’t receive spiritual gifts because we were particularly religious. We received them out of God’s unconditional shocking generosity with God’s dearly beloved people.

In fact, while those gifts are startlingly diverse, Paul goes to great lengths to emphasize their common source: the living God whom we worship in Jesus Christ. The apostle’s verses 4-6 are like a steady drumbeat: “different kinds of [diaireseis] gifts but … the same [de autou] …” In verse 11 Paul, in fact, returns to this theme when he speaks of spiritual gifts as being “the work [energei] of the one [hen] and the same [to autou] Spirit.”

Christians receive a wide variety of “gifts,” “service,” and “working.” Yet their source is one: “the same Spirit … Lord … [and] God.” In fact, while Christians sometimes emphasize the Spirit as the source of these gifts, by referring to the Spirit, Lord and God, Paul may be at least alluding to the Trinitarian character of the great gift giver.

Keeping that in mind, preachers can turn to Paul’s list of charismaton. Preachers may listen for the Spirit’s promptings as to how much time to spend exploring each individual manifestation of the Spirit. Or we might note some common themes that run through verses 8-11.

One of those themes is the wonderful variety of ways that these gifts benefit everyone. By gracing us in these ways and more, the Spirit turns the attention of those whom the Spirit has “gifted” not inward, but outward. This text has provoked a fair amount of what I call “navel gazing” among Jesus’ friends. By that I mean that some of us almost obsess about which gifts God has given us.

Verses 8-10 turn our attention away from ourselves and toward those around us. This is particularly clear in The Message’s paraphrase of some of those gifts: “wise counsel … healing the sick, miraculous acts of proclamation, [and] interpretation of tongues.”

The shocking variety of spiritual gifts with which God graces us are reasons not for introversion, but extroversion. There are appropriate times and places for things like studies and inventories of Jesus’ friends’ spiritual gifts. However, the Spirit always desires to use them as prompts to Christians to use those gifts in order to benefit all kinds of people.

What’s more, while Christians are sometimes tempted to be at least quietly proud of our giftedness and the particular gifts we’ve received, Paul rejects any such nonsense. In verse 11b he writes, God “distributes [diairoun] them to each one [idia hekasto], just as he determines [bouletai].” There is no hint of spiritual superiority among those whom God gifts. God, in The Message’s paraphrase, “decides who gets what and when.”

In closing preachers might remember that we need to let the Spirit help us to filter discussions of those gifts through our own particular theology and traditions. We may also want to at least note that there is some disagreement among Jesus’ friends about which of these gifts the Spirit still distributes. But we may never let those disagreements hinder our use of those manifestations of the Spirit has granted us for the wellness of all people.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

Perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of the current American political climate is its partisanship. While historians remind us that partisanship has always haunted politics, 24-hours news cycles help keep our attention focused on it. While I don’t doubt that individual politicians are committed to working with other politicians for the common good, all too often their words and actions seem to contradict that commitment.

In its September 30, 2022 online newsletter, Common Good reflected on the U.S. Senate’s failure to enact infrastructure reform that was introduced by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. While he at least arguably worked with members of both parties for the common good, his bill was killed, ironically, by what the article calls “a weird coalition of Republicans and far-left Democrats.”

The article closes by opining, “Washington is tied up in knots —politically and structurally. This week’s failure underscores that the challenge of modern democracy is not just overcoming the extreme fringe on both sides. Democratic governance requires the capacity to act, and a citizenry that demands action instead of finger-pointing. Among other changes, as Common Good advocates, Washington must rebuild lines of authority to enable officials to make decisions for the public good.”