Gifts That Profit

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“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)

The Basket Case Chronicles #142

“But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal” (1 Cor. 12:7).

Let’s begin our discussion of this passage by citing a more contemporary translation. “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7, ESV). We have many different gifts, with many manifestations, but there is one common theme. All of these things are given by God (the Spirit) in order to establish the common good, or common advantage. To anticipate a metaphor that is coming up, there is one body, with one interest—that of staying alive—and the different gifts are like different organs or members of that body. The liver does one thing, for the common good, while the kidneys do something completely different from that, also for the same common good.

This means that we cannot dismiss the liver because it is not acting like the stomach or the kidneys. But we can object if the liver is acting like a diseased liver, or perhaps like a rock or at stone. The liver doesn’t act like the stomach, but a stone doesn’t act like the stomach either. Gifts are tested, not by whether they match a different gift or not, but by whether or not they benefit the common good. Genuine gifts bring that profit; spurious gifts do not.

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