1 Corinthians 12:1-31. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, May 31, 2026.
We are going to look at how the Holy Spirit helps us through spiritual gifts within the Church. Our passage today is not given to explain each spiritual gift and its function, like a how-to guide. Rather, Paul is writing to correct errors and abuse within this area of spiritual gifts. This chapter combats pagan thinking by giving us God’s thinking about spiritual gifts. Proper understanding will go a long way to helping us correct abuse in this area.
It is common today to respond in two different ways. One response is born out of fear. It shuts down all spiritual gifts, whether declaring them invalid today or simply declaring that no one is doing it correctly. Another response is to embrace them. However, that embrace runs the risk of raising our subjective experience and desires above what the Holy Spirit is actually wanting to do through spiritual gifts.
Passages like this one are written to help us navigate this area in step with the Holy Spirit.
Let’s look at our passage.
Paul begins by noting that they weren’t always Christians. Most of them had a prior life of worshipping the Greek gods (this is Corinth, Greece). They had been led astray to these mute idols. Because their religious understanding had been informed by paganism, they were not recognizing the difference of worshipping and serving the One True God. They lacked understanding of the reason for spiritual gifts and how they should be exercised. Their whole prior experience came from a world that was in rebellion to God and His ways.
This sets up a baseline contrast between the false religions and truth. They had been led to these idols in a number of ways. Some were simply born into it. Others may have encountered human and (or) spiritual deception involving manifestations and signs. The ancient world was filled with prophecy from these so-called gods.
In our culture today, most are born into materialism that does not worship literal idols. However, materialism simply replaces the Creator God with something within creation, i.e., money, sex, power, humanity, or even self.
Those who are not following God are not led towards Jesus. The spirit of this world, whether in materialism or false religion, points us away from Jesus. However, the Holy Spirit always leads us towards Jesus, and him as the blessed Lord over all things.
Paul establishes this up front. The spirits of this world lead us to a position that sees Jesus as cursed, something to avoid. Those who exercise spiritual gifts in the Church must be led by the Holy Spirit and not the spirit of this age. One is poison and the other is eternal life.
The Corinthian problem was a particular fascination with one of the spiritual gifts, speaking in tongues, i.e., an unknown language. It was pushing out all of the other spiritual gifts and creating division among the believers.
Paul emphasizes that the diversity of gifts comes from the same Holy Spirit. Yet, he also emphasizes that God Himself is a unity of plurality (e.g., the mention of “Spirit (v. 4) Lord (v. 5) and God [the Father] (v. 6). We may not completely understand the nature of God, but we do know that there is a unity within plurality. It is the unity within God that sends the Holy Spirit. He manifests that unity of purpose in a variety of spiritual gifts, spiritual ministries, and spiritual workings. These always manifest within or through an individual, but it is for the benefit of all (for the common good). Paul then states that this is as He (the Holy Spirit) wills. The emphasis is not on the individual being gifted or having a gift. It is upon the Spirit manifesting through them as the Spirit of God wills. Of course, individuals will have to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. That cooperation needs to be not only in the exercise of the gift but also in the way it is exercised.
Our flesh can get in the way of the Holy Spirit in this area of spiritual gifts. It can get in the way by blocking it, first in your own life, and then in the life of others. However, our flesh can also get in the way by using spiritual gifts for our own desires and purpose. The Corinthians appear to be guilty of both. They are blocking the purpose of the Spirit and a multitude of spiritual gifts, while overly pursuing one gift for their own aggrandizement.
Paul gives a list of spiritual gifts: word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, distinguishing of spirits, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. This is clearly not exhaustive since we have other gifts listed elsewhere. It is not even entirely clear that Paul is trying to say that a word of wisdom is a separate spiritual gift from a word of knowledge. This list is couched in the language of an individual being given something from the Spirit of God, which is then shared with the Church.
Essentially, this diversity of expressions are coming from the same Holy Spirit who gives these individually as He wills.
Paul uses a popular illustration of the human body to demonstrate how spiritual gifts are meant to operate in the Church. The Church is pictured as a body of Christ. This means that Christ is the One who operates the body. Yet, each Christian is a part of this body.
A human body has many parts to it, but it incorporates one body and acts as a whole to accomplish what the mind of the body desires (hint: this is Jesus!).
It would be ludicrous to imagine body parts dividing over one another in envy or rejection, but this is precisely what makes Paul’s illustration so powerful. In verse 15, he imagines a foot saying it is not a part of the body because it is not a hand. Similarly, he imagines an ear saying it is not a part of the body because it is not an eye. Whether this is out of a sense of inferiority or not, Paul emphasizes that, even if a foot and an ear were to say that they weren’t a part of a body, it would not thereby make it so. In fact, a body implies a multitude of different body parts doing different things. You can’t have a body that is only one big eye, one big hand, etc. It is a body precisely because it has all of these different capabilities working together to accomplish the one thing purposed by the mind.
In the area of spiritual gifts, this is important. If we were all the same or trying to be the same, we would be missing valuable and necessary spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit is trying to supply through us.
Paul gives a variation on this argument in verse 21. He imagines an eye saying to the hand, “I have no need of you.” Similarly, he imagines the head saying to the feet, “I have no need of you.” In verses 22 and 23, he adds the ideas of weaker body parts and less honorable body parts. Notice the idea of division here is driven by looking down on certain spiritual gifts and pushing them out. Of course, there are individuals behind these spiritual gifts. The pressure within the group was to conform to some irrational vision of what was intended by spiritual gifts.
God is the one who has placed you within the body of Christ just as He has willed. He is also the one working by the Holy Spirit to express a variety of spiritual gifts. In fact, it is ludicrous to imagine only one spiritual gift. The same God of Creation who expressed His creative ability in a vast panoply of a variety of creatures, is the one who is behind the spiritual gifts. It stands to reason that it must have variety if He is the one behind it.
Paul undercuts this tendency to uniformity by the Corinthians by pointing them back to the Spirit. It is the Spirit who manifests these various spiritual gifts. If we think some gift, or person, is more honorable, valuable, than another, it doesn’t matter. Our estimations can be quite horrible at times, especially when we are not thinking biblically.
Instead of dividing over the different spiritual gifts, we should work together for the common good that the Spirit intends. Honor is not determined by the body part, but by God who has made it and given it a particular function.
Paul then adds to the argument. If one body part suffers, all the body parts suffer with it. If one body part is honored, the whole body rejoices with it. In fact, the Spirit of God honored the apostles (Peter, John, Paul, etc.) with the power and position to establish the church in doctrine and in practice. It would be foolish for modern day “apostles” to envy that position and try to improve on it or replace it with something better. Instead of kicking against God’s function through these men, we must learn to let the Spirit work through us in a way that works together with the Spirit’s work in them. When we honor them, we honor ourselves because we are all together the body of Christ on this earth!
Though Paul has already given some connections from the illustration of a body to the reality of the body of Christ, the Church, he then brings home the illustration in some concluding statements.
We are all together the body of Christ and members of it. Regardless, what you may think or feel, God has made a place and function for you. By faith, we must embrace that place and seek that function (or those functions) that the Spirit wants to manifest through us while harmonizing with what the Spirit is manifesting through others.
Of course, all of this assumes that we are not letting the spirit of this world manifest in and through us.
God has appointed various ministries (apostles, prophets, teachers) and various works of power (miracles, gifts of healings) and various other gifts (helps, administrations). He ends the list with the spiritual gift that fixated the Corinthians, “various kinds of tongues.”
We do not all have the same ministry, and no one person has all of these ministries happening through them. However, we all do have the ministry and gifts, that the Holy Spirit so desires.
Paul concludes with two statements that seem contradictory. “Earnestly desire the greater gifts.” This thought will be picked up again in chapter 14. By desiring tongues alone, the Corinthians were displaying their ignorance about what makes a spiritual gift greater or not greater than another.
Yet, the second statement declares that there is a more excellent way. This segues to chapter 13 and a treatise on why love is the foundation to any exercise of spiritual gifts. It is interesting that he does not call love a spiritual gift. It is a way, the way of Jesus, that we are called to travel with the Holy Spirit and our fellow believers.
Why do we let spiritual gifts divide us? It all comes down to ignorance of God’s purpose and refusal to be led by the Holy Spirit. May God help us to work together with the Holy Spirit for the common good of the Body of Christ!