Gifts of the Spirit and Love

Introduction

            The Corinthian church had many problems. One of these was their pride of position. They thought that one who was used to speaking in tongues was truly spiritual. In chapter twelve of his letter, Paul defines the source, owner, and one who bestows ‎pneumatikw=n as the Holy Spirit. This is only logical since these are literally “gifts of the Spirit” (BDAG #4152). After showing that these gifts are for all saints “for the common good”, he delineated persons who, like the Levites (Num. 8:19), were given as gifts for service. There was no place for pride with God in control and the possessor of all. They possessed no gift, but they knew God who would lavish them upon those who were available and willing at that time He chose! However, there was still “a more excellent way” (12:31). We will discuss the gifts and their relationship to love, as well as why Paul placed love between his discussions of gifts, how love influences their use, and its eternal necessity compared to the gifts.

The Way Which Frames the Gifts

            Before discussing how the gifts should operate, Paul interrupts himself to give the proper framework in which the ‘greater gifts’ are to function (Fee 2014, 691). Love is a way, not a gift, from Paul’s standpoint. Love was the context in which the gifts operate, instead of the egotistical status seeking in which the Corinthian believers operated. Love’s context was the love of God for mankind (John 3:16), not merely a feeling. “Paul’s concern is not simply with their over-enthusiasm about tongues but with the larger issue of the letter as a whole, where their view of being people of the Spirit has caused them to miss rather widely both the gospel itself and its ethics” (Fee 2014, 698). Paul put this argument on love between the gifts to give them proper context.

            Paul begins with tongues. The Corinthians saw tongues spoken within the context of the church service as an indication of being a person of the Spirit. However, in their context without love, it became useless. The super-spiritual indicator was reduced to mere noisy (BAGD #2278) brass or wailing (BAGD #214) cymbal. The angelic sound became worthless noise! He contended that the gifts of prophecy, knowledge, and faith without love resulted in the one so used being “worthless, meaningless, and invalid” (BAGD #3762b). Knowledge was highly prized at Corinth, “but if Paul were to have this prized knowledge revealed to him by God, it becomes meaningless information without love … only love can understand the wisdom of the cross” (Garland 2003, 613). Sacrificial giving, which was not grounded in love, whether it was giving all of one’s possessions to provide for the needy or one’s own body in sacrifice for the cause of Christ, was of no benefit. Christ had said that some who called Him Lord, without doing the Father’s will, would be turned away at the judgment and told, “I never knew you; Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23). Paul was saying, even “martyrdom for loveless reasons is ultimately meaningless” (Garland 2003, 615). Only within the context of love did the gifts have worth or meaning.

            His argument then shifted from the context of love to the nature of love to amplify its superiority as the basis of conduct over self-aggrandizement. Love will “bear up under provocation without complaint” (BDAG #3114). Long-suffering is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) and logically would be a characteristic emanating from a true person of the Spirit. Love was kind. Kindness (BDAG #5541) is the second fruit of the Spirit, which defines the nature of love and flows from a person in whom the Spirit dwells.

“Love is said to be not the very things that Paul has already said that the Corinthians are: jealous (cf. 3:3), self-promoting, puffed up (cf. 4:6), shameful (cf. 5:2; 11:4), each one a seeker of his or her own advantage (cf. chs. 8-10), easily provoked, and reckoners of wrongdoing (cf. ch. 6)” (Witherington 1995, 265). This argument showed how the Corinthian claim of being people of the spirit ran counter to the reality of the context of truly being pneumatikw:n. They still displayed the competitive nature of their pagan past in doing all the things that were contrary to the nature of the more excellent way, which was love. Love did not rejoice in injustice but in truth, unlike their desire for lawsuits. Love bore, believed, and hoped always. Those who displayed it were consistent, unlike the tendency of some in Corinth to attend idol temples.

To conclude his description, Paul said love endured always. This “refers to love’s ability to hold out during trouble and affliction” (Garland 2003, 620). This was necessary for them in light of the coming trouble mentioned in chapter 7.

            He concluded his digression with a commentary on gifts that love outlasted because they were temporary. In relation to these words, Paul used the word pivptei which means “become invalid, come to an end, fall” (BDAG #4098). Prophecy and knowledge will be abolished or made useless, and tongues will ceasei. “Paul is introducing an eschatological perspective on love and spiritual gifts” (Garland 2003, 621). These gifts are only partial in that they belonged only to this present age. Paul stated that the need for these gifts was only until what is perfect comes. This perfect ended the need for the gifts. Obviously, the perfect could not be something within this age. The culmination of this age is the coming of Christ. “At the coming of Christ, the final purpose of God’s saving work in Christ will have been reached; at that point those gifts now necessary for the building up of the church in the present age will disappear” (Fee 2014, 716). Paul said to them, “When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things” (13:11 NASU). Paul did not call the gifts childish, but said that they belonged to a certain period of time. Just as there is a time for all things (Eccl. 3:2 – 8), so it is with the gifts. Only within the Church age, which culminates at Christ’s return, are these necessary.

            Paul used the analogy of viewing one’s image in a mirror, just as he had used childhood, to emphasize the difference between the now and the then. This view was a “riddle” or “indirect” (BDAG #135). Paul contrasted this to seeing face-to-face. The latter obviously refers to being in the actual presence of a person. It is not a distorted image that we have in Christ through the Spirit, but it is as yet indirect, not complete. A present-day analogy would be the difference between the item we bought off the internet and what it actually was when it arrived. The knowledge the Corinthians had was not blurred, but only a reflection of what it really was. Their knowledge was partial, relegated to this age, but when the consummation occurred, they would know fully. They knew Christ partially, but then face-to-face.

            Faith, hope, and love were a well-known triad in Christianity at this time. “Paul probably added faith and hope to love here to allow the familiar combination to balance the triad of prophecy, knowledge, and tongues” (Garland 2003, 625). Paul also adds these to emphasize the enduring character of love. In the present age, faith, hope, and love endure. When Christ comes, “faith will become sight and hope will be fulfilled” (Witherington 1995, 272). Love is eternal. Paul stressed that this behavior, called love, which is the more excellent way in which gifts operate, endures forever. Therefore, it was the greatest of the triad of behaviors that symbolized Christian life in this age.

Conclusion

The church at Corinth was a church that believed in the exercise of the gifts, but clung to the pagan ways of competition, boasting, and social status, to name a few. Paul needed to tell them that the gifts operated only as the Spirit manifested and administered them. They were not part of a spiritual hierarchy. Gifts, whether grace-gifts (12:8:10) or ministries (12:28), were part of this present age. Unfortunately, the Church of today either marginalizes or declares that the gifts have ended. The Church now uses psychological personality profiles to determine one’s gifts. Some even declare that they are given at the point of one’s birth into the world! “One wonders how Paul would have responded to present-day cerebral Christianity, which has generally implied that we can get along quite well without the Spirit in this present age, now that the church has achieved its maturity in orthodoxy” (Fee 2014, 722).

                                           REFERENCE LIST

Bauer, Walter, ed. 2000. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early

Christian Literature. Rev. and ed. Frederick W. Danker. Seattle, WA: Biblesoft.

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Fee, Gordon D. 2014. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. Grand Rapids, MI:

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Garland, David E. 2003. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: 1 Corinthians.

            Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

Witherington, Ben. 1995. Conflict & Community: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on

1 and 2 Corinthians. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.