The Early Church Gathering - Part 2

What was Paul actually saying about the role of gifts in the gatherings of the church?

This is the second in a three-part series. This series is somewhere between a paraphrase and a Socratic Dialogue written in Paul’s voice, which is intended to help clarify and bring to life what he was saying in 1 Corinthians 11:17-14:40. These three “essays” are meant to be experienced in consecutive order, which is important for both context and flow of Paul’s argument. This second “essay” focuses on 1 Corinthians 12-13.

Here is a link to The Early Church Gathering - Part 1

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“Now here is how you should think about spiritual gifts in your gatherings.

When you gather together, don’t use the gifts the Lord has given each of you to create social hierarchies among yourselves, competing to see whose performance is the most sincere or the most dynamic. Before you became part of Jesus’ new family you devoted yourselves to the worship of lifeless idols made in the form of the human body - the definitive practice of your culture. You used to go through all sorts of fervent, emotional exercises in an attempt to summon your gods or invite their presence into these idols. Just to be clear, these sorts of practices are incompatible with worshipping Jesus. When you try to gain access to Jesus’ presence using these sort of “worship rituals”, you are attempting to fit Him into the rituals of your culture, rather than setting them aside to show devotion to Jesus. When you insist on engaging in these practices, it’s a slap in the face to Jesus. He has already animated you in His image, and given you gifts for the purpose of serving one another, that is what He desires as your expression of worship. Those who engage in honoring and serving one another with their entire lives are by their very actions, both worshipping Jesus and visibly proclaiming that He has indeed become the King of all creation. He doesn’t need an exuberant, emotional performance. He is already present with you as you build one another up in your weekly gatherings.

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 Jesus' body was broken to make you a living family  

So function as one unified body 

Stop “worshipping” Him in the same way you worshipped lifeless idols 

Instead function as His living body  

By serving and building up the entire family

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Now there are all sorts of gifts given by Jesus’ Spirit, but His Spirit is also the One who makes us one unified family, empowering us to engage in good works. There are also good works that we should be doing to serve one another, and then together serving our neighborhoods and cities, but there is only One who initiated these good works, only One who empowers us to make the necessary sacrifice to accomplish these together (who Himself made the ultimate sacrifice to inaugurate this new family).

We have become a family together by Jesus’ Spirit and our entire lives need to be reordered so that we prioritize living together as a family of families. We should stop being controlled by the pressure of our culture to constantly pay attention to our own lives and households, and instead trust Jesus to meet our needs, while paying attention to each others lives, making space to talk, live life and help one another. This should also be well represented when you gather together each week. He gives gifts to each one of you, so you can contribute accordingly, even to those with less personal charisma or those with more lowly life circumstances. We all have unique contributions to make in the family gatherings. One person is able to help others with applying the basics of these new family principles to their life situations; another is able to bring teaching in a clear way that helps everyone understand; another has strength of heart and mind and is able to encourage those who need their faith strengthened; another one is given the ability to help authenticate the Spirit’s work among them, sometimes with miraculous signs; another is able to clearly see the direction God’s Spirit is acting in the world and suggest how best to participate with Him; another is discerning and able to see things that others miss; another passionately speaks in words that may not instantly be clear, but still have potential to build others up if done well; still another may be able to jump in and help explain those unclear things for everyone else. Jesus’ Spirit gives these gifts not to exalt or create a satisfying experience for each gifted individual, but so that each one can contribute to building up the whole body. Jesus’ Spirit gives each of you gifts based on His understanding of the needs in the community and His intimate knowledge of each of you, so don’t envy or try to mimic one another’s gifts and contributions.

As you all gather for this meal, and break bread together, it should remind you that Jesus’ body was broken to make you one unified family. Just like our bodies have many parts, but all the parts work together to the benefit of the whole body, so everyone in your churches there (even though you come from diverse cultural backgrounds and various social classes) have all been raised up into His new family (pictured in your baptism). As you all gather together for this meal and drink the cup, it should remind you of His sacrificial blood that signifies the new covenant He inaugurated, within which He is building His global family. All of this should help you understand how to shape your gatherings and your entire lives around the plan which He commissioned me to make known and implement.

Again, our bodies have many parts, they aren’t made up of just one type of part. What if we were just buckets of feet, or bushels of arms and hands – can you imagine? [A horrifying image!] How could the body function properly? Why should the ear envy the eye and feel left out because it can’t see? If we had no ears, how could the body appreciate a beautiful piece of music, or enjoy the laughter of children? Why should the nose envy the ear? If we had no nose, how could the entire body enjoy the smells of dinner being prepared or the blossoming of an olive grove? If we were all just one kind of part, then there is no body, just a collection of individual parts. That doesn’t make any sense for our own bodies, and it’s also nonsense when it comes to your church gatherings. All the parts are necessary for the body to function properly and experience wholeness. Each part performs its role so that the entire body benefits from the unique contribution each part makes. The eye can’t tell the hand it is useless, or the head tell the feet they are less important. It should actually be the opposite. The bits of our bodies that are weaker are the parts that are indispensable! The weaker, more sensitive parts that we keep covered are the ones we take extra care to protect. The way God has made the body is so that we pay attention to and look out for the weaker parts, so that those get extra attention, because what would happen if those parts were lost or damaged? Our entire body would be marred and could lose some of its critical functions. So instead, we care for all parts of the body. If one part of your body is injured or in pain, you don’t say to that part, “I’m sure that must hurt. I hope you feel better soon.” No, your entire body responds to the pain and is aware and attentive to the part that is hurting. If your hand draws a beautiful picture, no one praises only your hand, and says “your hand is such a gifted artist”, they praise your entire person and honor you, not just your hand, and the entire body is built up and celebrates.

Now together you are one body, and each one of you is a part of that body and needs to be intentionally making a contribution that benefits the whole body. Yet, Jesus has provided a specific hierarchy of authority and leadership for the discussion portion of your gathering, so that it will be done in an orderly way and will benefit the entire community. When you gather, prioritize the contributions of any apostolic leaders who are present, then those with a prophetic, or theological insight, then those who bring a clear teaching. After that, make sure you give some time for those with the more visible, dynamic gifts, which the Spirit may use to make His presence evident to nonbelievers gathered with you. Then there are those with administrative gifts, which are just as critical, but don’t figure as prominently in the discussion portion of the gathering, since much of their work is done supportively, behind the scenes. Is everyone a gifted apostle or prophet or teacher? Should you all attempt to engage in charismatic, eye-catching gifts? Should everyone speak out in passionate outbursts? Is everyone gifted to help clarify what is being said? No. Everyone’s contributions should be apportioned properly according to the gift given, and done according to this prescribed order. So sincerely desire the gifts that are used to clearly instruct, rather than the ones that are self-gratifying, that bring attention to the individual, but often fail to build everyone up in their understanding.

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What does this all mean? What is the essence of what I am saying? 
I’m saying that inspirational experiences between you and God are fine, 
but when you emphasize them in your weekly gatherings, 
you end up with everyone focused on their own individual experience with God, 
rather than each one contributing in a way that builds up everyone 
else’s thinking and understanding. 
This is not a true expression of love for one another.

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Let me try and capture these thoughts more poetically, to help emphasize what the core focus of your gatherings should be.

When I’m there visiting with you, if I speak eloquently, with great rhetorical skill, or if I communicate with the most moving spiritual emphases and storytelling, but don’t show love by engaging in building you all up, then it’s just like I’m an instrument badly in need of tuning. [I might as well sound like Charlie Brown’s school teacher.] If I have all sorts of prophetic insights and understand things that are only a mystery to others, or if I have a firm, unshakeable faith so that I can achieve great accomplishments and make things happen that others only dream about, but I focus all my energies on my own development, or my own emotional gratification, or engage in experiences that are self-satisfying, instead of lovingly building up others in the community, then it is all just a waste of time and those things will be added to the burn pile when Jesus returns. Even if I give away everything I have and devote my entire life to helping the poor, destitute and homeless, and willingly give my life in the process, but have somehow missed the point that the entire gathering is a reenactment of Jesus’ loving sacrifice, meant to build up His family and be a visible witness that Jesus is King, then it’s all been for nothing.

Love that is expressed properly in your gatherings, is patient and gently instructs; it’s not in a competition with others, envious of their achievements or exaggerating its own; it doesn’t look down on those who are weaker or younger in faith, or behave hurtfully toward them; it’s not easily annoyed or frustrated by those whose life circumstances have made them more sensitive; it’s not happy when someone trips up or suffers difficulty, but instead it is happy to make the long-term investment in others so that they acquire wisdom and gain stability. Love willingly takes on the burdens of others, and holds up through any frustrating or difficult circumstances those burdens might bring; it recognizes the potential in everyone and envisions them becoming mature, then it patiently engages and endures that process with them.

Love doesn’t give up at the halfway point, it remains faithful to the end. Once prophecies are fulfilled, they are set aside. Our own words fade away as we speak them, but our loving relationships will last into new creation. Knowledge has a short half-life. You are all continually learning and gaining understanding together. Old understanding is eventually superseded by new understanding, because right now we only see glimmers, we only know a sliver of what God knows, and even when we do have prophetic insights, it’s not with complete knowledge of all that God is doing or will do. However, when Jesus returns and makes everything new, it will all make complete sense and we will fully comprehend. When I was young, I acted irresponsibly, made demands of others and focused just on myself, but as I grew up, I gave up behaving like that. So grow up and be mature in your relationships with one another, but recognize that for now, it’s like looking through a window covered with raindrops; all we see is a refracted kaleidescope of what is on the other side, but in the end, Jesus will clear away all the raindrops. For now, we only know Him partially, but when He returns, we will completely know and understand Him (and all that He has been doing) as He already knows and understands us.

While faith, hope, and love are all critical, love is the one that has the most tangible result. The one that builds lasting relationships. The one that, when it is missing, everything else falls apart. Loving community is the prerequisite for strong faith and lasting hope.”

The Early Church Gathering - Part 3

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Scott Canion is based out of the NYC area and is part of the METRO equipping team, a network of global leaders who are establishing churches that are families, patterning themselves after Acts.