Foreign aid from God's kingdom

This week's study is on 1 Corinthians 12:1-11:

With regard to spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were often led astray by speechless idols, however you were led. So I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are different ministries, but the same Lord. And there are different results, but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. To each person the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the benefit of all. For one person is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, and another the message of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another performance of miracles, to another prophecy, and to another discernment of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. It is one and the same Spirit, distributing as he decides to each person, who produces all these things.

Paul is talking here again about the Holy Spirit. It's a very dense set of verses. Each could probably be a Bible study in its own right. We learn from them how to discern good supernatural things from evil supernatural things. And we get an idea of why we have access to it and what sorts of things it is for.

Paul doesn't want the Corinthian church to be ignorant. Before they were Christians, a lot of them worshiped pagan idols and had probably seen some freaky stuff. Our modern worldview completely ignores the spiritual, supernatural aspects of our existence and tries to jam everything into the molds of science and psychology. 

People outside of our modern worldview are not so constrained. Paul had no issues with making the Corinthians believe in the supernatural, like we might today. They believed it. They lived it. So "How do you know which voice is the right one when there are so many claiming to be God," was probably a big question on their minds.

God is not going to condemn himself. And no rebellious spiritual entity is going to urge people to drop everything and follow God. So if someone is claiming to have a message from God, and they're demonstrating that Jesus is their Lord, they're probably hearing from God. On the other hand, if they're downplaying Jesus and uplifting something else (like themselves usually), you should be skeptical.

The Holy Spirit will agree with Jesus, who agrees with his Father. The Holy Trinity is not out in the front yard wrestling it out in front of the neighbors. God is God.

So then how do we classify what sorts of supernatural things God might do? Paul basically says there's all kinds of things. You can't really limit it any more than you can limit God. You see Christians wasting a lot of time splitting hairs over which manifestation of God's power is more impressive than which other one, and which are real and which are not, but they all come from the same source. If God is glorified, and his Lordship is established, the gift is genuine.

Paul then lists a bunch of examples. Some of the things on there seem pretty mundane (wisdom?) and not very supernatural, and others are way out there (tongues? prophesy?), but God gives them to us to help his people. The message isn't "here is an exhaustive list of what God can do, in order of appearance" but "whatever is needed, God will provide, by his power, through the Holy Spirit, in and among us."

So what Paul is sharing is both limiting and empowering. We are limited in the sense that we shouldn't just be going with whatever spiritual thing is happening without looking at what it is doing and whether it is glorifying God. But we also shouldn't be drawing up a prescriptive list of what God will do, with whom, and under which circumstances. God is God. He produces and distributes as he sees fit.

One way to look at supernatural gifts is like foreign aid from God's kingdom. When a wealthy industrialized country helps a developing country, they will often provide equipment, weaponry, advisors, and so on. It's an infusion of things from that more advanced country to the less advanced one, to try to bless them and help them to grow. But these gifts also help the country doing the giving. They're great PR. They glorify that country that can produce such things and give them so freely.

God's gifts are the best. They reflect his character and accomplish his plans when they are in our hands. He is glorified when they fulfill their purpose. We have no idea the bounds of what is possible through his Holy Spirit in our lives. If you'd like to help expand his kingdom, pray for the Holy Spirit to use you, naturally and supernaturally, to do so.