Sermon Notes

12 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be ignorant. 2 You know that when you were gentiles you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. 3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. 4 Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, 5 and there are varieties of services but the same Lord, 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of powerful deeds, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. 12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
(New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, NRSVue)

12 1-3 What I want to talk about now is the various ways God’s Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often misunderstood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable. Remember how you were when you didn’t know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It’s different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can. For instance, by using your heads, you know perfectly well that the Spirit of God would never prompt anyone to say “Jesus be damned!” Nor would anyone be inclined to say “Jesus is Master!” without the insight of the Holy Spirit. 4-11 God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful: wise counsel, clear understanding, simple trust, healing the sick, miraculous acts, proclamation, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues. All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when. 12-13 You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive. (The Message, MSG)

This morning, I had the privilege of witnessing the final Spring 2026 chapel service organized by the Black Ministerial Caucus at Drew University Divinity School in Madison, New Jersey. As Divine providence would have it, the selected theme for this worship experience was, “We’re In This Together” and the sermonic text that the visiting preacher, Rev. Kerwin Webb, selected was 1 Corinthians 12:12-14. The responsive Call to Worship addressed this spiritual and practical reality of Jesus’ church with these words:
Leader: We did not come here alone.
People: We were carried here.
Leader: Carried by those who prayed before us, marched before us, and refused to give up before us. We are not here by accident.
People: We are here by covenant.
Leader: Bound together in one Spirit, baptized into one body. The body is not one member, but many. Every member matters. Every voice is needed. Every story belongs here.
People: So we gather, not as individuals seeking our own salvation, but as a community, answering a collective call.
Leader: Come, let us worship together.
All: We’re all in this together. And together, we march.
As the preacher proclaimed, I reflected on how the theme for the service, and Paul’s correspondence to the Corinthian ekklesia, converged to emphasize the crucial importance and intrinsic value of every person within the body of Christ. Every person has gifts and graces that God has given for the upbuilding of God’s kin-dom. Every person matters to God and to the body of Christ. Every person is crucial to the full flowering and effective functioning of the body of Christ. We’re all in this together! And, most importantly, the Holy Spirit gives gifts to every believer to help—not harm—the unified and collective body of Christ.
As the service closed, they sang a contemporary song penned by Hezekiah Walker, “It is God’s will that every need be supplied. You are important to me, I need you to survive!” And that is TRUTH—we need each other, every one of us, to survive! We don’t always agree. We don’t always think exactly the same way. And, let’s be honest, we don’t always like each other. But we need each other to survive!

While 1 Corinthians is widely considered the first letter that Paul writes to believers in Corinth (1 Cor. 5:9), it is not the first communication to this ekklesia (“assembly” or “church” in Greek). 1 Corinthians it is but one way that Paul and his ministry communicated with Corinth. Modes of communication included written letters (1 Cor. 7:1; 8:1; 12:1) and verbal reports from visiting friends (1:11; 4:4; 5:1).
Paul and Sosthenes wrote this letter to Corinth (1 Cor. 16:8, 19) around 52 to 54 CE while they were in the city of Ephesus. Paul spent at least 18 months in Corinth (Acts 18:11). When he left Corinth, he made his way to Ephesus, where his initial ministry was very brief (Acts 18:19-21), and his second stay was for three years (Acts 19:8-10; 20:31). It was during this second stay that Paul received a report on how things were going in the Church at Corinth which was a province in the Roman empire. In response, Paul wrote his “lost” letter to the Church, which was not recorded in Scripture (1 Corinthians 5:9-11).
Unlike other Pauline epistles, the Corinthian Correspondence—this is what scholars call 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, and fragments of other letters that are found within these writings—includes more than one authentic letter, allowing us to piece together a glimpse of Paul’s relationship with the believers of Corinth over an extended period of time. The entire Corinthian Correspondence, when read together, reveals that 1 Corinthians was not universally accepted, by the Corinthian ekklesia. 2 Corinthians 2:4 mentions a letter of tears in which Paul was says he was forced to foolishly boast to make his point. (Based on literary evidence and rhetorical language, scholars believe 2 Cor. 10:1–13:10 could be that letter.)
This week’s lesson comes from a portion of 1 Corinthians (12:1 – 14:40) that focuses on the proper function of spiritual gifts and love.

1-3 What I want to talk about now is the various ways God’s Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often misunderstood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable. Remember how you were when you didn’t know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It’s different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can. For instance, by using your heads, you know perfectly well that the Spirit of God would never prompt anyone to say “Jesus be damned!” Nor would anyone be inclined to say “Jesus is Master!” without the insight of the Holy Spirit.
In the opening verses of the lesson text, Paul introduces his teaching on spiritual gifts with the adverb, now, illuminating the importance of the subject he is about to address. This particular teaching is likely in response to a question that one of the members poses to him. (Remember, epistolary literature is occasional practical theology at work.) Paul writes to address concerns surrounding these issues. It is important to note that this is his most extensive teaching on any subject within 1 Corinthians.
While the ekklesia in Corinth thought they were knowledgeable about spiritual things, (pneumatika in Greek), Paul says their so-called knowledge and wisdom have failed them. In the philosophical and ideological DNA of the city of Corinth, Corinthians were obsessed about matters of spirituality. According to one New Testament scholar, in the 300 years leading up to the 1st Century CE, words related to “spiritual things” were only documented 36 times. However, in the 1st century CE there are at least 104 words that relate to pneumatika. By the 2nd Century CE, scholars document 990 occurrences for the word pneumatika; most of them stemming from Christian discussions surrounding Paul’s writings in 1 Corinthians. In the lesson text, Paul asserts the ekklesia in Corinth does not truly understand spiritual gifts at all.
Paul says, it’s not long ago that they worshiped idol gods. That idolatry, which was informed by the numerous temples and religious shrines of the Corinthian populace, caused them to be blinded to the Truth of God. Now, because they have affirmed Jesus as the Christ through their acts of confession, the Corinthians have been liberated from that wrong type of theology and philosophical thinking. Now, they know the truth. They should reject any thinking that leads them out of the light and back into the darkness that they used to dwell in. When you know better, you’re supposed to do better. Further, God wants them to utilize their heads and their hearts as they seek to discern the moves of the Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can lead people into full knowledge and understanding.
4-7 God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people!
In these verses of the lesson text, Paul discusses the unity that God establishes in giving gifts (charisma in Greek) to believers. All gifts originate in God, and come from God, for the purpose of glorifying God and edifying the body of Christ. This sameness as reflected in the NRSVue, NIV, even the KJV, nomenclature, “Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone,” (verses 4-6, NRSVue). “Same” indicates that God ordains unity while not requiring uniformity. The “sameness” flows from the singular nature of God—to always will goodness for humanity—but does not singularly bless some people and not others. Every believer has been given different gifts that are designed to bring about the same spirit of helps, the same assignment of ministry, and the same value of service.
The Divine intention in giving spiritual gifts to all believers is cooperation, not competition. The diversity of God-given gifts in no way undercuts the mutual appreciation of every gift. Paul’s insistence on the fact that God gives gifts for the universal good of all reframes how all spiritual gifts should be evaluated and valued equally. Paul also minimizes the spiritual gifts that the Corinthian community glamorized (wisdom, knowledge, glossolalia), at the expense of other gifts.
Paul also considers the diversity in spiritual gifts not only as the Holy Spirit’s intention, but also as a result of the differences in persons’ individual contexts, backgrounds, and experiences. The Holy Spirit knows every believer intimately and therefore bestows gifts according to that individual believer. Paul only has a problem with a particular gift—or the Corinthians’ perception of gifts—when the Corinthian community elevates people because of ranking certain spiritual gifts over other gifts.
8-11 The variety is wonderful: wise counsel, clear understanding, simple trust, healing the sick, miraculous acts, proclamation, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues. All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when.
In the final verses of the lesson text, Paul says the diversity of God’s gifts is intentional and then lists various gifts (charismata in Greek). There are many gifts, many varieties of gifts, many different approaches to service and speaking—not all the same by any means—but, all given by the same Holy Spirit.
Paul’s list of spiritual gifts provides us with a glimpse into the personal dynamics at work in the Corinthian Church. People have either identified these gifts in themselves, or the community has identified these gifts in particular individuals. However, Paul appears to have an issue with glossolalia, or speaking in tongues because he takes time to single this gift out. The fact that he mentions this gift last—although it seems to be important to the Corinthian community—signals that Paul is seeking to refocus their attention towards the gifts that edify the entire community.
In summary, the most important unifying message this lesson offers contemporary Christians is found in verse 7: “all gifts are given by God for the universal good of all believers; that is to edify and help build up the body of Christ.” Every Christian has gifts that helps to build up and sustain the Church. We can’t make it without each other; we need each other—and the spiritual gifts of every believer—to survive.

i. Laura Nasrallah, 1 Corinthians,” in in Gale A. Yee’s Fortress Commentary on the Bible, (Fortress Press: Kindle Edition), 2985.
ii. J. Paul Sampley, “1 Corinthians: Introduction, Commentary and Reflections,” in The New Interpreters Bible Commentary, (Abingdon Press, 1994), 810-814.