26.03 | Gifts that Keep on Giving
1 Corinthians 14
‘The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.’
1 Corinthians 14:4
Last week was my youngest daughter’s seventh birthday. One of her star presents was a friendship bracelet making kit. Eeva is both incredibly good at fiddly craftwork, and has a great big, fun-loving, generous heart, that loves to give away handmade cards and gifts. It was a perfect blend of her love of crafts and her love of people. It was a gift that she could use to give things away.
We’re on the other side of yesterday’s sandwich today. Paul is returning to the spiritual gift conversation that began in 1 Corinthians 12, bouncing both chapters of the centring characteristic of love. And his words today continue exactly that theme.
He picks the two gifts that were causing the controversy in the church:
Tongues, and prophecy.
If you’re not familiar, the gift of tongues, in the New Testament, operates in one of two ways. The ‘tongues of men’ (i.e. a supernatural ability to speak in another language1) and the ‘tongues of angels’ (allowing the Spirit to move the very sounds of your mouth so that you speak words of heavenly languages). Paul says that the use of angelic tongues nurtures the soul of the person praying. It is a good gift, benefiting the souls of those who have it.
Prophecy is a little different. It appears across both Old and New Testaments as one key means of God conveying His heart, perspective, and plans to His people. While God reveals universal things about Himself and us in the Scriptures, He reveals specific things about individual lives and circumstances through the gift of prophecy. Most simply, it is a learning to hear the voice and desires of God, and to communicate these to the church. A deep characteristic of New Testament prophecy is that it should encourage others—in other words, it should increase both the church’s clarity and courage.
For the Corinthians, it was all about tongues, and less about prophecy. Tongues sounded super-spiritual, and it felt good—a great spiritual high in the rhythm of their lives. Paul, however, wants to flip this. He wants to put prophecy first.
Why?
Because the gifts need to operate out from hearts of love.
Look at what he says.
Tongues are about you. They build you up. This is good, and so, Paul says, he would be happy if everybody had this gift. He wants them to be built up. No problems there.
However, prophecy is about everyone else. They build up the church. Where tongues looks inwards to the nurture of your own soul, prophecy looks outwards to the building up of others.
It’s not that tongues are bad. It’s just that prophecy is higher. Why? Because prophecy flows from greater love. It’s no longer about you, but it’s a gift received that is then used to offer beauty and life and courage and wisdom back to those around you, speaking truth back to the community that the community may be beautified.
In the weeks to come, it won’t be Eeva, but it will be Eeva’s friends and family members who are increasingly decorated with bracelets she’s made. This is how it is to be with our gifts and strengths.
The strengths that you have in your life are there to be given, because God gives gifts for the giving.
Reflect:
Think through the things that you know that you are good at or gifted in.
Check your heart. Which way are they pointing?
Towards your self—to build your ego, reputation, or to hide them in fearful insecurity?
Or, dare you point them outwards, that those very places of greatest gifting be continually given away, in the freedom of heart that can only be found when our motive becomes love.
Pray:
Father,
When the gifts that you have given
Become about me,
I tend to go one of two ways.
To trying to use them as a crutch for my fragile ego,
Or to hiding and denying them, declaring your gift to be inadequate for public consumption.
But, Father,
Both ego and fear
Deny the goodness of your gifts;
Are toxic to my soul;
And abdicate the purpose you have given to me in this life.
And so, Father
I offer afresh today what you have given me,
That though I may see my strengths as small and fragile,
I recognise again that they are purposeful in your hand,
And I offer them, in love, for the building of those around me,
That, at the end of my days,
So many lives may have been marked
By the gifts you give,
That keep on giving.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Deuteronomy 20-22 | Proverbs 11:8-14
As in Acts 2