“Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.”

Innumerable books have been written, workshops conducted, and tests administered to help people discover and use their spiritual gifts. Theological debates rage about whether all are available for today, or just the non-sign gifts. Differing interpretations abound of what tongues really are (an angelic-spirit language or a human language previously unknown to the tongues speaker)? Does prophecy deal with authoritative words directly from God or simply proclaiming God’s Word? Does it involve future-telling or forceful applications to life?

In context, the apostle does not address those issues here, for it seems there was at least some shared knowledge about them, albeit far from perfect due to the Corinthians’ selfish use of them. We must remember his overall point: we are Christ’s body, and every one of us fits in, regardless of our gifting.

Most commentators would agree that the listing of gifts here is ordered, building from a foundation upward. First come the apostles, whom all of church history recognizes as the foundation. If it were not for apostolic authority, we would know nothing of Christ or would be hopelessly mired down in the many different versions of Christ’s story from antiquity. Christ Himself proclaimed the apostles as “My witnesses” (Acts 1:8), and the early church witness abundantly supports the apostles’ teachings as fundamental to all of Christian faith.

Second in the list come prophets. Many believe this placement speaks to their stop-gap importance: before the NT was written down, the apostles could not be everywhere to provide their official witness, so God used prophets to carry on the teachings of God (see Agabus as one example in Acts 21:10). Together, the apostles and prophets were foundational to the church, as Paul pointedly asserts in Ephesians 2:20. We believe along with many that since the foundation has been fully laid, we no longer have apostles and prophets, but their enduring influence carries on today through the Word of God.

Notice, third on the list is teachers, a dire need in Corinth. There are so many abuses of spiritual gifts that more than ever, right doctrine conveyed through sound teachers of the Word is needed—and this before believing or accepting the emotionally tempting so-called manifestations of the Spirit.

Lord, help me not be persuaded by the fantastic stories of well-meaning Christians at the expense of rightly understanding Your Word.