I Corinthians 12:1-11

I Corinthians 12:1-11

12 Now, dear brothers and sisters, regarding your question about the special abilities the Spirit gives us. I don’t want you to misunderstand this. You know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols. So I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.

A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. 10 He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. 11 It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.

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Another role taken by the Holy Spirit; two really.  1.) We can only say “Jesus is Lord” by the Holy Spirit.  One cannot say that with meaning on their own.  2.) the Holy Spirit alone decides who gets what gifts.  It seems clear that everyone is to recover one of the individual gifts.  But we each get what the Spirit decides.

This is true, it seems from the context, even for the gift of tongues.  So when that pastor prayed in tongues on my behalf all night, he was exercising his gift.  And when I was well enough to teach the next day in three services, I was exercising my gift.  Why haven’t I seen this before?  The Holy Spirit decides and I obey.  I seek only to exercise my gift.

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