Living with Real People (Part III)

“One Another” Passage Number Three: Our final example of these texts is found in 1 Corinthians 12. Verses four through 14 once again list gifts and emphasize the point that these many gifts come from one Spirit and result in one complete body. Verses 14 through 26 make it clear that the Corinthian church was having difficulty with living in loving fellowship. Apparently, people were honoring some gifts above others, leading to controversy, jealousy, and pride. Paul spends a good bit of time talking about how important all parts of our bodies are, and how our whole bodies break down if one part is not functioning. At the end of the chapter, verses 27 through 30, Paul lists gifts yet again, and urges his readers to “earnestly desire the greater gifts.”

How strange! Didn’t he just get through insisting no gift was greater than another; all were important? Didn’t he just say in so many words, in verses 24 and 25, that this diversity of gifts actually caused unity, “so that there may be no division in the body”? This seems counterintuitive. If we are to be truly united, the Corinthians might have asked, shouldn’t we all have the same gifts and the same jobs to do for God? No, says Paul, just like our physical bodies, our churches need all their different parts, and they need them to work efficiently together, with no one making lists of who’s important and who’s not. Now he turns around and says, “Earnestly desire the greater gifts.” Then Paul moves into one of the most beloved and celebrated chapters in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13. What is the greatest gift of all? Paul lays it out clearly in Romans 13:10:“Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Emphasis supplied.)

Jesus was pretty insistent about it. In His last hours with His disciples, with the weight of the world beginning to make itself felt, He said again and again, “Love one another!” Love everybody, love all the time, love as I have loved you. (See John 13:34, 35; 15:12, 17.) This is the only way the world is ever going to even consider buying into this unbelievable story of grace and redemption.