Week 46 Corinthians
If I had to compile a list of Spiritual Gifts in the NT I’d get my first nine in 1 Corinthians 12. A handy list. And today I was wondering why Paul wrote it.
I think his point was that different gifts can differentiate. If I highlight differences then eventually things get spread out all over the place. But Paul’s idea – his recommendation so I don’t just end up with a bunch of differences – was that differences should come together under one big oneness: different spiritual gifts but the same Holy Spirit.
A normal tendency with differences is for them to centrifuge off into diversenesses. Differences have trouble locating common ground. It’s easier to differentiate.
Paul compares the church and its members to a body and its body-parts. A physical body needs lots of different parts doing their job to make for Total Body Functionality. That seems pretty obvious but Paul still added that: the hand can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you”. I guess he was admitting that individual body parts really love their individuality.
Toward the end Paul says: there should be no division in the body… He’d already admitted there were all kinds of differences in the body – so he was tipping us off about divisive differences.
Differences have a natural tendency to divide & separate & distinguish & look-for-preening-space. Differences have egos. So they really work together best when divisive-diversity isn’t king.
Note: quotes / paraphrases from 1 Corinthians 12:4, 21 (NLT), 25 (NASB)