A sermon preached by the Revd Dr Trevor Jamison at
Saint Columba’s United Reformed Church, North Shields, 19th January 2025
Watch the whole service on YouTube
Some time in the early 50s AD Saint Paul wrote a letter to Christians who were living in Corinth. That city was a port in Greece, handily located on a narrow strip of land between two areas of sea. You could unload at one side of Corinth, move your goods to another on the other side, so avoiding a long sea journey around the land to the south.
Paul was writing back to a congregation with which he had been present two or three years earlier. Some issues had arisen in the life of the congregation. Someone had consulted with him about those issues, and now Paul was writing to advise them, or perhaps to put them right. A significant part of his letter related to how the Corinthians worshipped together and issues that arose from that. Over the next six weeks or so I’ll be visiting those issues in my preaching, and there will also be a discussion series running, led by Louise Sanders and me, looking at the same Bible passages.
This week we are in 1 Corinthians 12 and the issue is about ‘spiritual gifts’ and how they were used in worship and in the general life of the church in Corinth back then. What Paul had to say to them then provides us with food for thought for how we worship now, and how we operate as a church today. So then today’s Bible reading begins, ‘Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uniformed.
Paul wanted Christians in Corinth to be informed about spiritual gifts, and I am sure that were he around today he would want the same for us. He would want us to think about these spiritual gifts and who receives them. He would want us to know where these spiritual gifts come from. He would want us to recognise who these spiritual gifts are for.
So let’s start with seeing what Paul includes on his list of spiritual gifts.
And the first thing you have to say is that there are a lot of them: ‘now there are varieties of gifts, says Paul (12:4):
- Utterance of wisdom – sharing practical insights about living Christian life
- Utterance of knowledge – sharing a message you believe has come from God
- Faith – not just everyday belief, but strong faith, perhaps in times of difficulty
- Gifts of healing – psychological, spiritual and physical
- Working of miracles – extraordinary acts beyond what is normal
- Prophecy – saying what God is saying in your situation
- Discernment of spirits – judging whether those who claim to be prophetic are really speaking God’s word or their own
- Various kinds of tongues – what we might call ecstatic utterance in language which is not recognised as usual; also known as “speaking in tongues”
- Interpretation of tongues – being able to reliably translate what those who are “speaking in tongues” are saying
And this list is not exhaustive. There are other lists of spiritual gifts in other letters from Paul, written to other congregations, which mention different gifts. He included the gifts which he thought were relevant to each congregation as he wrote to them and to their specific situation. Presumably, if and when he wrote to other congregations, like this one, he would mention yet more spiritual gifts in addition to these ones.
And these many gifts are given to different individuals: ‘to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit,’ Paul writes. (12:7) So there are many spiritual gifts, and they are given to different individuals. Some individuals may be given more than one, but no one possesses them all. That is part of why we Christians meet as congregations; so that we can bring together our wide variety of spiritual gifts; more gifts than any one of us could possess.
But although there are many gifts, and many individuals receive different ones, there is only one giver of spiritual gifts: God. That might sound obvious (because it is!), but it is worth remembering because there is a human tendency to forget that, and to believe that the gifts we have are our own; to believe or suggest that those who have a well-regarded gift should be treated as well-regarded people, and those with a gift perceived to be less spectacular should be less highly regarded. No! The spiritual gifts we receive come from God, not out of our own goodness; we are all on the same level as far as this is concerned.
Note also the way in which Paul expressed this: ‘there are varieties of gift, but the same Spirit; there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; there are varieties of activities, but the same God who activates all of them in everyone.’ (12:4-6) The same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God. The phrase “Holy Trinity” appears nowhere in Bible; it has arisen in the life and tradition of the Church, trying to make sense of our experience of God. Here, though, we have one of those occasions when you see how the phrase and the doctrine came about as believers pondered on what they read in their bibles – the same Spirit, Lord, God.
So, many gifts given to individuals; gifts given by the one God, arising out of God’s grace, not our innate good qualities as human beings. So what are such spiritual gifts for?
The answer is that they are given for the good of everyone, or as Saint Paul puts it, ‘to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.’ (12:7) Not one of us is given a spiritual gift from God just for ourselves, and our own good feelings or sense of worth. Or at least we never receive these gifts for ourselves alone. Though spiritual gifts, which come from God, are given to each individual, it’s always for the common good, which, of course, includes each of those individuals. I suppose the rule of thumb is to make sure that others benefit from your gift, whatever it is, before you in turn get to benefit from it.
So, to sum up …
There are many spiritual gifts, which are received by many different individuals. These gifts, though, have only one source, one giver – the Spirit, the Lord Jesus, our Lord God. And the spiritual gifts we do receive are gifts exercised for the good of everyone, not just the one who receives the gift. They are gifts exercised as part of a group, as members of a congregation.
I mentioned “members” of a congregation. Well, the next sermon in this series will be on 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31 – how Saint Paul envisages a congregation as one body with many parts or “members”. See you then!