Every spiritual gift should be operated within the environment of the love of Christ. Paul made this point clear as well:
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy... and though I have all faith... but have not love, I am nothing. — 1 Corinthians 13:1–2
The twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth chapters of this first letter to the Corinthian believers contain Paul’s dissertation on spiritual gifts. In chapter twelve Paul laid out the gifts. In chapter fourteen, he warned and pointed out how they are often perverted from their intended use. But in between, in chapter thirteen, he revealed that love is the measure, the standard — the
greatest of these is love. — 1 Corinthians 13:13
This is like a Holy Spirit sandwich, and love is the filling. Love is the very oxygen in which the kingdom of God operates, and without love, we, like Paul, are nothing more than sounding brass or clanging cymbals.
As we have noted previously, all believers — you, me, every single one of us — are likened to a body. We are, in fact, the visible body of Christ to the world today. While we are dependent upon the Holy Spirit for our spiritual life, we are interdependent upon one another as well. Like members of our own physical body, we must work together in love and unity to accomplish His will. This is why each of us is especially gifted for a unique purpose to function in the body of Christ.
We must forget the idea that the church is an organization. It was never primarily intended to be such. You are part of a living organism: the church, the body of Christ. My own physical body depends on the health and strength of every part of it. If one part ceases to function like it is designed to do, my whole body is affected. If my liver ceased functioning, I would not say, “Oh, I have lots of other organs. I am not going to worry about this one.”
Every part of my body is interdependent on every other part. And so it is with the body of Christ. We can’t say of another believer, “We don’t need her. Forget her — we’re okay without her.”
To this Paul said,
There should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. — 1 Corinthians 12:25–27
In the distribution and the functioning of the gifts, we are dependent upon the Holy Spirit. But in order to function as Christ intends, we are interdependent on each other.
God has given these gifts to us. They are not earned nor deserved. They are supernaturally bestowed by a sovereign Lord. Every believer has a gift. No believer has all the gifts. They are to be used for God’s glory, for the uplifting and building up of the church, the body of Christ. And they are always to be exercised in an environment of love. They are designed
for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. — Ephesians 4:12
These gifts, listed primarily in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, the Romans, and the Ephesians, are given with three distinct characteristics. There are motivational gifts designed to encourage the church. There are miracle gifts that prove the authenticity of the faith. And there are ministry gifts that seek to meet the needs of the entire body of believers. Remember, you have at least one. As we journey through the list of gifts in these next few chapters, see if you can discern which one(s) have been given to you, so that it might be said of us what was said of those early believers, that we, too, were characterized by “great joy.”
