The whole idea of Paul in this section is to stress the essential unity of the Church. The Church is the Body of Christ and the characteristic of a healthy body is that every part in it performs its own function for the good of the whole. But unity does not mean uniformity, and therefore, within the Church, there are differing gifts and differing functions; but every one of them is a gift of the same Spirit, and every one of them is designed, not for the glory of the individual member of the Church, but for the good of the whole.

Paul begins by saying that all special gifts (charismata) come from God. It was Paul's belief that any special ability that a man has comes from God and, therefore, must be used in the service of God. The fault of the Church, in modern times at least, is that it has interpreted this idea of special gifts far too narrowly. The Church has too often acted on the apparent assumption that the special gifts which the Church can use consist of things – like speaking, praying, teaching, writing– all more or less intellectual and academic gifts. It would be well if the Church would realize that the gifts of the man who can work with his hands, of the craftsman, are just as really special gifts and just as really come from God. The mason, the carpenter, the electrician, the painter, the engineer, the plumber all have their special gifts; and the Church would vastly enrich itself if it would appoint to office craftsmen who were prepared to dedicate and consecrate the skills of their hands to God, just as much as she appoints to office those whose gifts lie in their power of speech or thought or writing. There is no reason at all why a craftsman who will freely put his craftsmanship at the service of the Church should not be appointed an elder of the Church so that he can use his skill for the Church. Every special gift is from God and can be used for God.

It is of the greatest interest to examine the list of special gifts which Paul gives, because from it we will learn much about the character and work of the early Church. Let us take the items one by one.

He begins with two things which sound very like each other– the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge. The Greek word which we have translated wisdom is sophia. It is defined by Clement of Alexandria as "the knowledge of things human and divine and of their causes." Aristotle described it as "striving after the best ends and using the best means." This wisdom is the highest kind of wisdom; it is nothing less than the knowledge of God Himself. It comes not so much from thought and from the mind as from communion with God. It is the wisdom which knows God. Knowledge – the Greek word is gnosis – is a much more practical thing. It is the knowledge which knows what to do in any given situation. It is rather the practical application to human life and affairs of sophia. The two things are necessary – the wisdom which knows by communion with God the deep things of God, and the knowledge which, in the daily life and work of the world and the Church, can put that wisdom into practice.

Next on the list comes faith. By this Paul means more than what we might call ordinary faith. This kind of faith has been defined as potent faith and as the power to realize the spiritual. It is the faith which really produces results, the faith which – in the old phrase – can really move mountains. It is not just the intellectual conviction that a thing is true; it is the passionate belief in a thing which makes a man spend all that he is and has on it. It is the faith which steels the will and nerves the sinew of a man into action.

0 God, when the heart is warmest,
And the head is clearest,
Give me to act;
To turn the purposes Thou formest
Into fact!

It is the faith which turns the vision into deeds.

Next Paul speaks of special gifts of healings. The early Church lived in a world where what we would call healing miracles were a common–place. If a Jew was ill he was much more likely to go to the Rabbi than to the doctor; and he would most likely be healed. Aesculapius was the Greek God of healing. People went to his temples, usually spending whole nights there, to be healed, and they were healed. To this day we find the votive tablets and inscriptions among the ruins of these temples commemorating healings and no one goes to the trouble and expense of erecting an inscription for nothing. In the Temple at Epidaurus there is an inscription which tells how a certain Alketas, "although blind saw the dream vision. The god seemed to come to him and to open his eyes with his fingers, and he first saw the trees that were in the temple. At daybreak he went away cured." In the temple at Rome there is an inscription, "To Valerius Aper, a blind soldier, the god gave an oracle to come and take blood from a white cock with honey and to mix them into a salve and anoint his eyes for three days, and he received his sight and came and gave thanks publicly to the god." It was an age of cures. There is not the slightest doubt that gifts of healing did exist in the early Church; Paul would never have cited them unless they were real. In the letter of James (5:14) there is an instruction that if a man is ill he must come to the elders and they will anoint him with oil. It is the simple historical fact that until the ninth century the Sacrament of Unction was for healing; and only then did it become the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, and a preparation for death. The Church never altogether lost this gift of healing; and one of the biggest things that is happening to–day is that the Church is rediscovering it. The old Frenchman Montaigne, one of the wisest writers who ever wrote, said about a boy's education: “I would have his limbs trained no less than his brains. It is not a mind we are educating nor a body; it is a man. And we must not split him in two." For too long the Church has split man into a soul and a body, and has accepted responsibility for his soul but not for his body. It is one of the great recoveries of our time that once again we are learning to treat man as a whole, and the day will come when the doctor and the minister will once again work hand in hand.

Next Paul lists wonderful deeds of power. Almost certainly what he refers to is exorcisms. In those days many illnesses, often all illnesses, and especially mental illnesses were attributed to the work of demons; and it was one of the functions of the Church to exorcise these demons. Whether or not these demons were in fact real, the person so possessed was convinced that they were real, and the Church could and did help him. Exorcism is still very much of a reality in the mission field. At all times it is the function of the Church to minister to a mind diseased and disturbed.

Paul goes on to mention prophecy. It would give us a better idea of the meaning of this word if we translated it preaching. We have too much associated the word prophecy with the foretelling of what was to happen in the future. But at all times prophecy has been far more forthtelling than it has been foretelling. The prophet is a man who lives so close to God that he knows God's mind and heart and will and intention, and so can make them known to men. Because of that the prophet's function is twofold.

(a) He brings rebuke and warning, telling men that their way of action is not in accordance with the will of God.

(b) He brings advice and guidance, seeking to direct men into the ways in which he knows God wishes them to go.

Paul goes on to mention the ability to distinguish between different kinds of spirits. In a society where the atmosphere was tense and electric and where all kinds of abnormal manifestations were normal, it was necessary to distinguish between what was real and what was merely hysterical, between what was genuine and what was the product of excited delusion, between what came from God and what came from the devil. To this day, when a thing is unusual and outside our ordinary orbit, it is supremely difficult to tell whether it is from God or whether it is not. The one principle to observe is that we must always try to understand before we condemn.

Lastly Paul lists the gift of tongues and the ability to interpret them. This matter of tongues was, as we shall see, causing a great deal of perplexity in the Church at Corinth. Although it still exists even in this country, it is for the most part alien from our experience. What happened was this – at a service of the Church someone would fall into an ecstasy and would pour out a torrent of unintelligible sounds in no known language. It was a highly coveted gift because it was supposed to be due to the direct influence of the Spirit of God. To the congregation it was of course completely unintelligible. Sometimes the person so moved could interpret his own outpourings, but usually it required someone else who had the gift of interpretation to do so, Paul never questioned the reality of that gift of tongues, but he was well aware that it had its dangers, for hysteria and ecstasy and a kind of self–hypnotism are very difficult to distinguish.

The picture we get is the picture of a Church vividly alive. Things happened; in fact astonishing things happened. Life was heightened and intensified and sensitised. There was nothing flat and dull and ordinary about the early Church. Paul knew that All this vivid, powerful activity was the work of the Spirit who gave to each man his gift to use for all.