First Corinthians 12:7-11 Spritual Gifts In the Corinthian Church 2

So we're going to pick up where we left off last week and finish out this section down through 11. And like I mentioned, Mike and I are going to do kind of two extents for a bit here to kind of accommodate being away. So I'm going to do, this will be my last matches this week, and then Mike's going to pick up in chapter 12 as well. So hopefully it won't be too much back and forth.

Okay, so the outline, you know, I've noticed even in Sunday school, Chester McCauley's been a great blessing, I know, historically to this body, and actually, and remains today. You know, his outlines are just, this is only part of his ministry, but his wonderful outlines have helped me immensely.

So anyway, so last week we talked about, We started about spiritual gifts. We defined what spiritual gifts were. We talked about their pagan past. And then we talked about their origin. And we're going to review that briefly. But today we're going to spend most of the time talking about the Corinthian spiritual gifts. And I underline Corinthians And hopefully that will come across here. These are gifts that were given to the body of Christ in Corinth for that time period. And it's crucial to see God's doing in their body of believers. And then the question will come up, well, what about today? And I'll try to answer that. I'm sure Michael will address that several times during this study. Okay, so let's go on. We're gonna review the first six verses here.

Now concerning spiritual gifts, Brethren, I do not want you to be unaware. So he doesn't want the Corinthians to be unaware. And the idea is to be ignorant, to be ignorant of this fact. And that word shows up, has shown up in the past back in chapter 10 about being ignorant about our fathers under the cloud and passing through the sea. So Paul uses that phrase, you know, several times.

And it's concerning spiritual gifts. And notice that gifts is in italics. And that's actually not a bad thing, the more you come to look at this. He's gonna focus here on spirituals. Pneumaticon, it's literally spirituals, plural. That which is characterized by the Holy Spirit. So in the context, And this, so McCauley kind of shares, the context tells us what these spiritual gifts are for 9 and 10, which we'll see later.

They show these are special abilities for serving the body of Christ. And again, it's kind of crucial to see these are not, these gifts were not for individual believers to make them feel more spiritual or to have a closer walk with the Lord. They were to serve the body of Christ. And hopefully I can bring that across. When we see what the body of Christ was about in Corinth, we're gonna see that they were very needy. They were needy of God to be directing them and carrying them along as they grew in the faith of the Lord Jesus.

Okay, second verse. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. So this is kind of like looking back on the past of the Corinthians. You know is on the basis of fact, you Corinthians were pagans and you were led astray to mute idols so let's kind of or better the inner linear has you were carried away And the idea is they were mute or voiceless idols.

You know, you don't see, maybe in cartoons or maybe in horror movies, you see idols talking, but they can't talk by their very nature. They're lifeless, right? They cannot talk without a voice. So paganism followed idols that could not express their will or answer questions. And then Constable adds, dumb idols are idols that do not speak in contrast with a living God who does speak. So you're gonna say, well, Roger, I've never heard God speak, right? Well, he speaks to us through his word, right? That's how he speaks to us.

And beautiful passage in Hebrews talking about this process that God put together for man. It says, God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers, in the prophets, in many portions and in many ways in these last days has spoken to us in his Son. So God, you know, look at the very beginning of Genesis. It says, you know, God said, God said, God said. So God, it's interesting, God spoke first and then later down the road, right, he had it recorded, right? So I like this little three-word thing that Macaulay put together. God is, God speaks, God inscripturates.

And that's a new word for me. He puts it into writing. He puts it into nouns, verbs, sentences. And someone has said, if you're a good student of the Word, you're a good student of vocabulary, grammar, all that stuff that you hated in school, right? Well, that's what God is about. He has inscripturated His Word. He's put His spoken Word into thoughts. And that's what Paul's point here. You came out of this pagan, voiceless God to a God that speaks to you. And he's put it down in writing.

Okay, the third point, and this is kind of a little section that somebody was able to test. So this is how you test. So, don't forget, this is a letter primarily to the Corinthians. We're kind of peeking in. It's like you're reading somebody else's mail. So this, it was written to the Corinthians to help them.

Remember, the Corinthians, they didn't have a Bible. Can you imagine becoming, I mean, without a Bible, and you have to depend upon someone speaking to you God's word, Paul, Apollo, or Cephas, those three men were in Corinth. Then Paul left. So they had very little written word, to my understanding. And I don't think they had, these are Gentiles, so I'm not sure how familiar they were with the Hebrew writings. Probably couldn't read Hebrew. Anyway, they had to depend upon the spoken word. So anyway, this idea of testing what someone says is crucial.

So here's our verse here. Therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, Jesus is accursed, and no one can say, Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. Therefore I make no one. So the first part of this is, no one speaking by, that's a pretty important preposition, by the Spirit of God, says Jesus is accursed.

So the whole question here is not whether you can say these words. You know, you can say, as kids, remember, you know, I dare you to say this and you dare me to say that. You can say all kinds of words and you can say all kinds of saying, but this is saying, Is the Holy Spirit really working in your life? What's happening with the Holy Spirit in your life? So if the Holy Spirit is truly working in your life, there's no reason he would say Jesus is a curse. A couple of points, and the key part here is by means, by means of the Holy Spirit, only a believer, by means of the Holy Spirit, it's only, you know, Only a believer can speak by means of the Holy Spirit.

Okay, secondly, no one the Holy Spirit motivates would curse Jesus Christ. You know, the whole interaction of the Godhead between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is to glorify Christ, to point people to Christ. So he would never say that. So this is, again, looking at what people say and testing what they're saying.

Secondly, no one can say Jesus is Lord except by means of the Holy Spirit. So once again, only a believer can truly say Jesus is Lord. The best example of that, I told you last week, is this wonderful Thomas. Doubting Thomas, right? What does he say after he actually puts his hand there and he touches the Lord and he verifies that yes, he did He is back, and here's the marks of the crucifixion. He says, my Lord and my God. He wasn't prompted to do that. He wasn't told he needed to say that Jesus Christ is Lord. He just said that. And I think that's something that we say kind of instinctively without even thinking about it. The Holy Spirit's function is to glorify the person of Christ. Okay, so that's kind of the test there.

Verse four, so verse four, five, and six are all gonna be about the variety of gifts between the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Okay, now there are varieties of gifts. Variety is a word that can be translated distributions, apportionments, different kinds. Kind of talks about the fact that the Holy Spirit is not putting all his eggs in one basket, so to speak. Anyway, he's apportioning them out.

Twelve six has since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us and something that kind of came across this time going back over these verses and preparing for the the rest of them was that the personal nature of These gifts they're suited to the believer, and they're suited to the time that is needed it's not something it's a And it just to me it kind of expressed God's love and care for us that he would be careful about who He gifts and and what gift they have and it's not the same as your brother or sister next to you necessarily the same category made but not God if people are different God is God is concerned about individuals and we're individuals and he gifts us according to his will and So the word gifts is charisma, a gift of grace, a gift involving charis on the part of God as the donor. These charisma are abilities that enable a person to glorify God and serve God and then I would add to that and serve the body of Christ and not focus on himself. but the same spirit.

So we're going to see in 5 and 6 this phrase, the same spirit. I think it tells us the fact that we have one God with three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and they act together. They have different functions, but they act together in unison. So 5 and 6 say there are varieties of ministries and the same Lord.

There are varieties of effects. But the same God who works all things in all persons so ministries is the idea We are word for deacon from this service ministry service to believers and Service turns out if you look through the list of there are multiple lists in the New Testament this is one list for the Corinthian Church of other lists that service shows up as a gift of the Holy Spirit and And there are effects. This is a little bit, kind of, effects to me doesn't bring out the full impact of this word.

This is a word, and this is where I mentioned last week, you guys who have been here, Holly Hills, on and off for a long time, you remember Vern and his Energizer money? You had him hopping over his charts all the time. Well, this is this word, the core word is Energeo. It's a result of the energy of God in the believer's life. The results are energized by God's grace. It says, who works, and the word shows up again, but it's translated works this time, who energizes all things and all persons.

Okay, so this last week, this is where I got a lot of comments, actually after the message, too. Okay, so Constable shares, after looking at these verses, he says, it is God who is responsible for our abilities, our opportunities for service, and the individual ways in which we minister, including the results. So what I told you last week, when Bonnie reviews my charts, she looks for spelling errors, for, you know, just disconnects between my head or whatever. Anyway, she said, Roger, God's done everything.

What do we do? And so I use the example of just showing up to help out for meals and stuff like that. So hopefully I did a little bit more than that. But it got me thinking. It got me thinking what, it got me thinking what, and Vonnie said, well, what do believers do? Well, we kind of know this, but we need to be reminded. Well, here's three aspects, and there's a lot more. The believer is to walk by faith and not by sight. God has prepared the good works. He's gifted us. He's done everything that's needed. And what he asks us to do is to walk by faith.

And then secondly, it's the idea of running with endurance the race that is set before us. The Christian life is pictured as a race. And sometimes I can believe that. I feel like I'm racing around. And maybe you are too. Doing things for the Lord. And then thirdly, laying aside every encumbrance. We don't want something to trip us up, to cause us to stumble. So the believer, and this is only a partial list, that kind of came to mind, this is what the believer is involved in, is about. God has prepared the good works, he's gifted us, he gives us opportunities for service, he allows us to do all these wonderful things, and we're blessed by doing that. We have blessing by doing that.

So we have our, my words, just showing up, that this is what just showing up is to look like. So hopefully, but I got stopped multiple times, Roger, what you said, just showing up? I hope you have a good ride home. Anyway, okay. So hopefully that clears that part up. Okay, so let's get on to today's verses. All right, so here we go. So the remaining 7 through 11.

But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the spirit, and to another, the word of knowledge according to the same spirit, to another, faith by the same spirit, to another, the gifts of healing by one spirit, and to another, the effecting of miracles, to another, prophecy, and to another, distinguishing of spirits, to another, various kinds of tongues, and to another, the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same spirit works all these things distributing to each one individually just as he wills. That verse 11 is what really struck, I read it multiple times and I said, wow, he is really concerned individually just as he wills.

Think about that. I mean, it's just kind of amazing. Okay, we're gonna look at these, we're gonna go through them all. Nine gifts here, we'll look through them all. Okay, so let's start off with seven's kind of the precursor to this. Talking about the general idea here. So verse seven. But to each one is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Once again, focus is for the common good. He has this manifestation of the Holy Spirit. It's not for himself, it's for the common good. It's for the body of believers.

So I, you know, I'm blessed with having a good, you know, our brother Hal loves sentence diagramming, and he can do it from scratch. But Courtney took the class, it's tough to do it from scratch. But there's gentlemen out there that have done sentence diagramming of all the scriptures, so I make use of that. And so this is the complete subject here.

The manifestation of the Spirit. Manifestation is the idea of making visible, observable, One translation has taking the lid off. God's desire is to manifest what he desires, and it's a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. So it shows up in other places. In 2 Corinthians, it shows up the manifestation of the truth.

And the verb here is given, and it's present passive. So God is about manifesting, is giving the manifestation of the Spirit to each believer. The word each, each one calls attention to the fact that no believer is without at least one spiritual gift. And the modifier here is for the common good. It's for the body's advantage, profit, benefit. These spiritual gifts are to profit everyone in the local church.

So again, the focus for that, we're gonna have nine of these ones that we're given. You have to put yourself back in time. You know, you love these, you love back to the future, all these things where you transport time. Well, we're being transported back, if you will, and looking at what do the Corinthian church need in terms of spiritual gifts? Okay, some ground rules. Okay, here we go.

Verses 8 through 10 list nine spiritual gifts, and from the context they were given to help establish the church at Corinth, they didn't have a Bible. I've already kind of been through this. They didn't have a Bible as we have it, so they couldn't cross-check what's being said. They had to depend upon listening. You had to be good listeners.

They had to look to Paul, Apollos, and Cephas for the teaching of God's Word. And apparently Paul's letters, when Paul left, he would write them letters, right? And we have two of their letters. There's other letters apparently that existed, but we have 1 and 2 Corinthians are letters that were written to the body of believers at Corinth. So the question will arise, do these gifts apply to the believer today?

So rather than answering that universally, I'd like to show you in each gift where I think it's at, okay? So I actually, I looked at the translation, New American Standard, and I like the Weiss better, because it brought out a key point here. So I'm just going to read the Weiss translation for verse 8.

For to one is given, through the intermediate agency of the spirit, a word of wisdom, and to another, a word of knowledge, according to the same spirit. So one of the key parts here, this is a word, it's a word, there's no definite article, it's a word rather than the word. So Constable draws from that, he says, this no article probably points to the fact that the utterances, they were utterances, again speaking, they were verbal expressions.

So we have words coming from other believers, words of wisdom and words of knowledge. And these words, these were gifts that God had given them to get his word out. They didn't have any written words, so there'd be a brother or sister that would have a word of wisdom, a brother or sister that have a word of knowledge. And these are in the body of believers in Corinth. And so something that maybe kind of points to that, you know, the Apostle Paul, he was gifted, probably had, you know, I'm not sure, you know, many of the gifts.

But he kind of, it seems like he kind of delineates here in this verse, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. So it seems like that he's alluding to the fact that these words of wisdom and words of knowledge seem to be augmenting the scriptural things that are being taught to them. And it's a little bit tough to sort of what was being said here, but what's interesting is the word of knowledge, and Merriman kind of shares, the word of knowledge helped them apply their wisdom to a given situation. So let's look at a couple more points here. The Holy Spirit, so the Holy Spirit's method, you notice here all these passages of the spiritual gifts, he says, for one is given, and then he says, to another is given. So I might say, to Bob is given, and to Mike is given, and then to Vonnie, and to Ingrid, and so on.

I might go around, so it's a method, that is his method. He's giving one, and another, and another, and another. So that's kind of cool. The delivery method was through, through the Holy Spirit. The gift of knowledge, so this is interesting, for this particular gift, we have a direct statement that it's going to pass away. So actually Jim, before the service came up to me, asked me sort of this question, are these gifts for a time period?

And it seems like they were. So here's, we're gonna study this later when we get to chapter 13. It says, love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away. If there are gifts of tongues, they will cease. If there are gifts of knowledge, it will be done away.

So these gifts were given to the body of believers at Corinth for a time period, and possibly other churches, and we're not told about that as much, but they certainly were given to this body of believers. So this word of wisdom and word of knowledge. Okay, that's the first two of the nine. Okay, then to another, faith by the same spirit. Another, I added the verb back in there just so, another is given faith by the same spirit. But I think we really need to distinguish between saving faith, faith that the believer exercises in salvation versus what faith is being talked about here. Faith exercised in salvation is not a gift.

Some would try to make you believe that, but I think if you interpret one of the key verses in this discussion is Ephesians 2.8. For by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourself, it. And it here refers to salvation. It, salvation, is a gift of God. So grace is through man's faith. Man exercises faith, and God's grace grants him salvation.

So that's the picture. But this is a different kind of faith. This is a special gifting that the believers in Corinth had, and possibly other places too. And the Amplified Bible, I like this because it kind of added a little thing in front, to another wonder-working faith by the same Holy Spirit. So this is a miraculous faith, wonder-working faith.

And someone pointed out that, well, I'll say that story for another time. I was gonna think of the story, but, okay. Faith was to be used in the performance of healing and miracles. Certain gifts and extensions of abilities certain gifts are extensions of abilities possessed and exercised by all believers."

So actually I wrote this statement down and then as I studied more, I began to think, well, I want to make a distinction as we go along. The hang-up here is that, think about, let's kind of go back and think about the fruits of the Spirit. Fruit of the Spirit. Singular fruit, guys, remember that? It's so easy to make a mistake on that one.

Okay, so if I were to ask you what they were, you'd say love, joy, peace, and so on. So those are gifts, right? They're gifts of the Spirit, and they're for the inside of a believer, right? They're to work on the inside. It's to be Christ's love, it's to be Christ's joy, and so on. But these gifts are on the external, but it's still the Holy Spirit. If you try to mix, this is where I have a little bit of a problem with what he said, if you say, well this is an extension, I kind of tacked on the Holy Spirit's ability onto my existing whatever, you got a problem. It has to be the same mechanism. The mechanism is the Holy Spirit is by the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, or by these gifts of abilities to serve the body, he's working exclusively through the believer.

We're going to see more about that. So that's why I kind of wanted to qualify that a little bit. Okay, so the last part of the verse, and to another the gift of healing by the one Spirit, to another is given the gift of healing by one Spirit, ability so actually we see here you know if you look in in scripture the scriptural accounts of healing especially like an axe and other places I mean they happen fast right I mean once once it was once the person involved like Peter we're gonna see I can read an example of Peter once he determined that was what he should be doing it happened quick instantaneously In New Testament times, but here's the interesting fact, but in New Testament times, they did not always utilize the gift of healing. If you think about it, what's being said here is that the gift of healing had to be in concert with God's will. So the person had to be in fellowship with God, acting in behalf of Him. It wasn't just, well, Joe Blow has a gift of healing. He can heal anything.

Well, we see cases where our brother Paul didn't, I guess, being led by the Spirit, he did not heal certain people. So one of the examples is Epaphroditus was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow. So you kind of have to read between the lines here a little bit, but it seems like that Paul said, allowed, you know, God healed him. He doesn't say, I healed him, as God directed me. He said, you know, God had mercy on him and healed him. Another one, this is interesting, and it's a word, challenging for me to read the words here. Bear with me here. Erastus remained at Corinth, but Trophimos, I left sick at Meritas. So he left this brother sick. He didn't heal him. So there are cases where, from the Apostle Paul, that he did not heal everyone. And Paul certainly could not heal himself. He had the thorn in the flesh, he could not heal himself. So the gift of faith, wonder-working faith was used in conjunction, it seems, with the gift of healing. It also was used in conjunction with this other gift here, gift of miracles. And once again these miracles were instantaneous.

We don't have a whole lot of verses for this. They make some general statements. At the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people and they were all of one accord in Solomon's portico. So again the gift of faith was used in conjunction with miracles. There are other verses that talk about that. One just makes a general statement about the working miracles among you.

Okay, moving on to another prophecy. This is an interesting one. To another is given prophecy. So the word prophecy is prophetes, speaking forth the mind of God and counsel of God. So we see, and this is basically, you think of prophecy as like in the Old Testament, like in Micah 5 too, it says, but as for you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, and it goes on, it's one we do at Christmas time a lot, talking about the birth of Christ, foretelling the birth of Christ, predicting the birth of Christ, if you will. So that's one aspect of prophecy. But really the main idea is the idea it is a foretelling, prophecy is a foretelling of the will of God, whether with reference to past, present, or future. So really it doesn't, in some ways it doesn't matter. It is, this is God's word being proclaimed, being foretold. So with the completion of the canon of scripture, prophecy apparently passed away. And we saw that verse about, it mentioned prophecy in there. First Corinthians 13, 8 and 9.

In its measure, the teacher has taken the place of the prophet. I don't think of myself as a prophet. I don't think we see ourselves as prophets. But here's what the modern day prophet is to do. The message of the teacher is to gather from the complete revelation that's contained in Scripture.

And this came from Vine and Hogg. So that's what we're about today. Prophecy in a sense has ceased, but we still get God's message out by looking at His completed revelation of His Word, His Scriptures. And then we foretell, we tell out His Word. We tell about the past, the present, and the future. All from God's Word.

Okay, and to another, distinguishing with spirits. distinguishing here is the idea to, it has to do with the discerning of spirits, and once again, if you think about, this is all a verbal communication world, they're living in the Corinthians, so when someone just comes up and pops up, so to speak, and starts saying this stuff, you know, maybe he knows what he's talking about. Like, you know, I talked to Courtney. You know what we're talking about, Courtney? Usually he does. Anyway, you're saying, well, what's this guy about? You're trying to sort him out, so to speak.

It was given to detect false teachers and spirits behind these teachers. Whether it might be their ego, it might be their, they might end up being godly, it might be selfish. But a really cool verse in this whole discussion is 1 John 4, 1. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. So that's, you know, it was needed. They couldn't go to scripture and say, brother, you're wrong. It says right here in this verse here. How can you say that? Well, they couldn't do that.

Okay, so getting down to the end here in the list to another various kinds of tongues. Glossa, supernatural gift of speaking in another language without having learned it. So, and we saw that in Acts, you know, with the day of Pentecost, you know, people heard God's word in various language, various, in their own language. So this is a true language.

And we're gonna see, you know, we're gonna have that discussion a lot more when we get into chapter 14, because we're gonna talk about the fact that the gifts instructions concern the use of gifts and the paramount object being the edification of the church. And they actually, in the Corinthians, were misusing it. They were misusing the gift of tongues. The fact that tongues is a foreign language will be also shown, that's important too, because some have other ideas about that. So here's a verse that helps us in this whole discussion.

Again, we read it before, 1 Corinthians 13.8, love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away. If there are gifts of tongues, they will cease. Okay, down to the last couple here.

Okay, so if you have tongues, this is one of the critical things in tongues, right? You have to have an interpreter because if I speak in some foreign language, and there's no one here to interpret it, then you have no idea what I said. But if Mike speaks, you know, whatever, whatever language it is, he can interpret.

He said, well, Roger really said that. You need an interpreter, and that's what this gift was about. So actually what's interesting is God had two people involved. Again, the distribution of gifts, he had two people involved in that process. Some would say it in the foreign language, and then some would interpret it.

What does that say? Okay, so here, interpretation. And this word is interesting. This word has the whole idea of interpreting a language. It's to explain the meaning of words in a different language. Well, with that meaning, you have a hard time saying, well, I'm just saying, I have a prayer language, and my tongues are a prayer language. Well, if the interpretation is a language, that kind of goes against that. And again, 1 Corinthians 14, we're gonna talk a lot more about this, proof will be given that tongues are a real foreign language. And then we see, since tongues will cease, so will the interpretation of tongues.

So Paul kind of wraps it up here. He says, but one in the same spirit works all things, distributing to each one individually, just as he wills. And this is just a beautiful verse about the individuality of his care for the body of believers. So the subject here is one in the same spirit. The manifestation of the spirit varies.

They all indicate their presence and working of the Holy Spirit. They work, and this is the word intergeo again, to be active, to be operative. And this is a continuous action. The Spirit is constantly energizing, constantly being active. And there's two parts to this, if you look at the verse carefully, two parts to the first part. And so two continuous actions of the Holy Spirit.

The first is in all things. So to try to get my handle around what does he mean by all things, I had to kind of go back, because he kind of gave a summary. Back in verses 4, 5, and 6, he talked about the gifts, ministries, and effects. So I kind of took that to be the all things in this situation. So, Constable points out here, now we see gifts, ministries, and effects, they're all really part, God is working in the lives of believers and giving them special enablements to perform what they need to do. And that's kind of the gist of what Constable's saying there.

Secondly, distribute to each individually just as he wills. It's like divide into parts, to a portion, So I like this and this is a story about the two brothers and one the prodigal son, right? The younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me. So he divided his wealth between them. So the Holy Spirit is distributing or dividing. Each person is unique and the Holy Spirit relates to each person as individual. Paul also stressed the sovereignty, and he says, just as he wills in distributing the gifts.

Okay, so I have a summary. I had so many points on here, I had to take off my little picture. You know, I had the little picture of that gal, she's sitting on the bench, looking over the horizon in Kansas. Not too many mountains there, but it's a pretty flat surface. So actually, you know, just, you know, this is a cool summary, and it's, you know, from our brother, Chaffer, Louis Barry Chaffer. Okay, he starts off.

A gift in the spiritual sense means that the Holy Spirit is doing a particular service through the believer and using the believer to do it. I like this because it has the right focus. This spiritual gift, as with the whole Christian life, is God working in man to accomplish his purpose. Christ's life, living through us. So the spiritual gifts are no different. It's the same mechanism.

Serving through the believer and using the believer to do it. It's not something the believer is doing by the aid of the Holy Spirit, nor is it a mere augmentation of a natural gift. That's where I kind of, after I kind of went through this, I thought, well, we thought what Macaulay had said, and thought, well, boy, gotta be careful here. It's not an augmentation.

This is the Holy Spirit at work in the life of the believer. So now he compares it with fruits, the fruit of the Spirit. As it was seen earlier regarding the fruits of the Spirit, that is a direct product wrought by the Spirit within the believer. In like manner, exercise of the spiritual gift is a direct achievement of the Holy Spirit. So one is wrought within the believer, one is an achievement flowing out of the believer to edify the body, right? He's edifying the body in Corinth, he's edifying the body about God's Word, and so on. Okay, couple more points.

The fruit of the Spirit is inward, is standardized. You know, you read some of these guys, well, like Mike reads some of the old brother, you scratch your head, what are they saying? These words are too big for me, you know? Anyway, the fruit of the Spirit is inward, standardized, and it is uniform and it's outworking. Well, I think what he's talking about here, the fruit of the Spirit, we've already defined it, it's not, we have a list of the fruit of the Spirit.

So it's love, joy, peace, and so on. So it's standardized and it's working within. But the gifts are wrought by the Spirit are outward in the realm of service. And we have the first list we have. We're going to get more lists as we go along. Okay. And this is a cool one that I really like.

Gifts are varied to the point that it may be assumed that no two Christians are appointed to exactly the same responsibility. I had to ponder that for a while. I was thinking about Mike and myself. I said, well, okay, the Lord has allowed us to be elders, to teach. Wow, that's really amazing. But we're different. We're not the same guy. We're different. And you know what the Lord asks of Mike? He doesn't necessarily ask of me.

In a big sense, he does. But at the nitty gritty level, he knows us, he loves us. And just within our body, the people that are serving, doing music, taking care of the church. God works with us as individuals. And that just really kind of helped me, that last statement. God gifts us and works as individuals. Okay, let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, for this time. Thank you for the blessings we have, Lord. Thank you for your wonderful care for us. We ask this in Christ's name, amen.