“But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.”

Repetition is the means of emphasis, as the apostle lays out his response to the divisiveness caused by the abuse of spiritual gifts. Many are frustrated that he didn’t give more detailed instructions on the operation of these gifts. Apparently it was their abuse he was more concerned about than their proper use. He does address in detail tongues and prophecy in chapter 14, but at this juncture it was more important to address the self-centeredness that characterized their behavior.

Paul re-emphasizes the unity rooted in the Spirit that “works all these things.” God is not divided against Himself; there is one and only one Spirit. Whatever He does supports the unity of the church, and not division. Secondly, it is the Spirit who determines which gifts get distributed to whom. The impression one gets is that the Corinthians were clamoring for what they thought of as the “greater” gifts.

Does this not sound familiar? Which of us hasn’t fallen into this same trap? “If only I had the gift of preaching or the gift of healing or the gift of knowledge, then people would recognize how spiritual, how significant I am.”  What terrible consequences have resulted from the person who claims the gift of healing, when people aren’t healed? Blame gets laid at the feet of the sick person because they didn’t have enough faith to effect the healing that the so-called healer proclaimed. That is like a person who predicts that Christ is returning on Wednesday, but then when that doesn’t happen he blames the Christians for not believing hard enough. Many have suffered shipwreck in their faith.

Christians today may wrongly desire tongues, for example, to build up their spiritual lives, proving that God does indeed work in tangible ways. What is often overlooked is that such ecstatic, religious phenomena have been experienced in pagan religions as well. The gifts of the Spirit were not given to bolster faith, or to prove God’s real existence, but simply to build unity in the body as each one ministers to the others as God enables him or her.

God alone makes the choice; spiritual gifts are not a smorgasbord to choose from. So, especially in our present environment of contention over spiritual gifts, we must seek God’s will and purpose in the gifts and not make assumptions based on human or even religious experiences. Unlike the Corinthians, we have the complete Word of God to study and teach us, but we must each study this subject, “accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).

Lord, I commit myself to seeking Your will and purpose in the spiritual gifts.