1 Corinthians 12:3b-13 Commentary

Christians sometimes rightly think of Pentecost as the birthday of the Church. Since birthdays are often occasions for gift-giving, it seems appropriate for preachers to join Paul in considering and celebrating the gifts [charismaton*] the Holy Spirit gives to the members of the Body of Christ that is the Church. Few texts open themselves to this better than this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson.

One of the threads that’s woven throughout 1 Corinthians 12 is the contrast Paul draws between the “different” or “many” [diaireseis] and the “one” [auto]. Quite simply, the apostle asserts that while there are a wide variety of gifts and people in Christ’s Church, the one Spirit has disbursed at least one of those talents to every Christian.

Some scholars find it interesting that the spiritual gift with which Paul begins in 1 Corinthians 12 is perhaps among the least commonly recognized. “No one,” the apostle asserts in verse 3b, “can [dynatai] say, ‘Jesus is Lord [Kyrios],’ except by [es me en] the Holy Spirit.”

In writing that Paul insists any profession of Christ’s lordship is rooted in the transforming and equipping work of the Holy Spirit. Even the apparently most spiritual people can’t claim Christ rules creation and its creatures unless the Holy Spirit empowers them to do so.

That profession suggests that verse 3b contains this text’s first implied call to deep humility coupled with gratitude. After all, it means no one has ever figured out that Jesus is Lord on our own. Paul won’t let Jesus’ friends even suspect that we are somehow spiritually superior to followers of other or no religions. We profess and submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ through the mighty work of the Holy Spirit alone.

In verses 4-6 Paul continues to list the Spirit’s birthday gifts to the Church. “There are,” he celebrates there, “different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service [diakonian], but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working [energematon], but in all of them [panta] and in everyone [en pasin] it is the same God at work [energon].”

Preachers who listen for the Spirit’s guidance may hear the Spirit calling us to note a couple of things about these remarkable verses. In them Paul speaks of the pneuma (“Spirit” — 4), the Kyrios (“Lord” – 5), and theos (“God” – 6). These references to each of the persons of the Godhead reminds God’s dearly beloved people that the God who does this work is Triune. While verse 11 emphasizes the Spirit’s “hand” in birthday gift-giving, verses 4-6 helps us resist the temptation to glorify the Spirit above the other members of the Trinity as the solo giver of all good things.

In verse 6 Paul, what’s more, insists that God works in every gift as well as in each and every one of God’s adopted children. We don’t get to assume that God somehow works more powerfully or directly through one spiritual gift or another. Nor will the apostle allow Christians to even quietly suspect that God works more mightily in some of Jesus’ friends than others. As The Message paraphrases verse 6, “All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people!”

In verse 11 Paul reiterates that message by insisting “the same Spirit … distributes [gifts] to each one [hekasto].” That suggests just as none of Jesus’ friends are exempt from the Spirit’s presence, so none of us are also exempt from having received the Spirit’s gifts.

On top of that, by repeating forms of energon (“working” and “work”) in verse 6, Paul may be suggesting that the work with which God has gifted God’s image-bearers in some ways mirrors the work God does. Of course, we can’t do things like create simply by the power of our word or care for the whole creation the way God does. However, the apostle implies that God’s adopted children’s work of creating beauty and caring for creation is at least a sharing in God’s own work.

In verses 7 and following, Paul describes what some of what that startlingly diverse work looks like. Preachers will want to listen for the Spirit’s promptings to discern just how deeply to dive into the nature and shape of the specific birthday gifts the Spirit gives the Church.

However, we might at least note that Paul refers to the talents God has given us as a “manifestation [phanerosis] of the Spirit [tou Pneumatos] (7a). While that Greek word implies a gift or talent, it can also refer to “exhibition.” That summons Christians to be both humbled and grateful to remember that the birthday gifts the Spirit shares with the Church show our neighbors something of God’s character. The Message picks up on this interpretation when it speaks of how “Each person is given something to do that shows who God is.”

What’s more, the apostle goes on in verse 7b to insist all of those gifts are “given [didotai] for the common good [sympheron] ” (7). The Spirit doesn’t gift Jesus’ followers in order for us to put them away in storage. Nor does the Spirit give these displays of who God is in order to make us feel good about or proud of ourselves. Jesus’ friends are humbled and grateful to remember, as the New Living Translation paraphrases this assertion, “A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.”

On top of all that, preachers might point out the variety of gifts the Spirit gives God’s dearly beloved people is startlingly wide. We  might even recite the paraphrase The Message offers of verses 8-10’s list of those gifts: “wise counsel, clear understanding, simple trust, healing the sick, miraculous acts, proclamation, distinguishing between spirits, tongues [and] interpretation of tongues.”

In verses 12-13 Paul applies the “many” and “one” theme to the Body of Christ and its members. In verse 12 he tells Corinth’s Christians, “Just as a body [soma], though one, has many parts [mele], but all its parts form one body, so it is with Christ.”

At first glance the apostle may seem to be offering little more than a basic human anatomy lesson. While the human body has many parts, all of those parts together form one body. So while the body of the ascended Christ, the fully human incarnation of God’s Son, has many parts, all of those parts form one now risen, ascended body.

However, it’s clear that in verses 12-13 Paul is also offering more than a lesson in basic human anatomy. It’s obvious that the Christos (“Christ”) to whose body he refers also refers to the body of Christ that is Christ’s Church. After all, as the apostle writes in verse 12, “We were all baptized [ebaptisthemen] by one Spirit so as to form one body – whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink [epotisthemen].”

God’s adopted children are, in other words, humbled and grateful to know there is one Spirit and Church but virtually countless numbers of Jesus’ friends. There is one Spirit and Church, but an almost startling variety of Jesus’ followers.  There is one Spirit and Church but at least two different kinds of God’s adopted children. There is one Spirit, but members of at least two different socio-economic groups make up, by God’s amazing grace, the one Body of Christ.

Paul’s ending of this lovely hymn of praise is, admittedly, mysterious. Even scholars struggle to understand just what the apostle means by asserting all Christians have been “given the one Spirit to drink” (12b). Yet preachers may need to say about it little more than this: while this verse is deeply mysterious, its “watery” allusion points to the baptismal, life-giving and -sustaining Holy Spirit. Jesus’ friends are humbled and grateful when we remember the Spirit has graciously made the Spirit’s home within each and every member of the diverse but united community of God’s gifted people.

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

Illustration

In his chapter entitled “God and a Grateful Old Man,” in his wonderful book, My God and I: A Spiritual Memoir, Lewis Smedes writes about the close working partnership between gratitude and hope. He notes, “I have two main feelings toward God these days: gratitude and hope.

“Both feelings keep slipping in and out of my spirit, one on the heels of the other. When gratitude comes, hope is right behind it. If I am feeling grateful to God for the gifts he has given me, I at once start hoping that he will give the poor of the world more gifts to be grateful for.

“I feel ashamed to feel so good [about] what I have while most people on the planet feel so bad about the little good they have. And my shame makes me impatient with God. Which is all right, because impatience is one of hope’s life signs.”