1 Cor 12 Niv (2024)

FAQs

What is the main point of 1 Corinthians 12? ›

Every believer in Jesus has the Spirit, and the Spirit gives to every believer one or more spiritual gifts. The gifts are given for the common good, and the church is like a human body. Each gifted function in the church represents a body part, and all the parts are essential.

Each of the five ministry gifts (apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher) are common social/cultural topics. The first ministry gift listed, apostle, has significant meaning for the first-century church.

The gifts mentioned in our current passage are wisdom, knowledge, faith, gifts of healings, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues, and interpretation of tongues.

Paul encourages the Corinthians to earnestly desire the higher gifts. By this, he likely means they should want to see gifted apostles, prophets, and teachers in their church. This might seem confusing, since Paul has labored over these last verses to explain why there is honor and value in all gifts and roles.

The gifts are 1 ) wisdom, 2) understanding, 3) counsel, 4) fortitude, 5) knowledge, 6) piety, and 7) fear of the Lord. This list is based on Is 11:2. The imparting of the gifts of the Spirit is associated with baptism, as well as Confirmation and Ordination.

The Spirit gives one or more spiritual gifts to every believer for the common good, to be used in service to the church. Nobody acquires or earns their own gifts. The same Spirit gives them away, for free, as He sees fit, meaning that having one or the other gift does not make a Christian more important than another.

Wisdom is considered the first and the greatest of the gifts. It acts upon both the intellect and the will. According to St. Bernard, it both illumines the mind and instills an attraction to the divine.

So, instead of abandoning us or retaliating against us, he offered us a gift, the best gift that has ever been given: his Son. Though we did not honor God as we should, in his unbounded generosity, he gave his very best and most valuable, the only thing he had only one of – his Son.

The gift of prayer is perhaps the most important and necessary spiritual practice that promotes growth as a disciple of Jesus. As we read throughout the Bible we run into people — common, ordinary people — who pray. These people talk to God in response to him speaking to them or because of some need.

How to apply gifts of holy Spirit in everyday life? ›

By actively seeking and nurturing the gifts of the Spirit, believers can lead lives that are more aligned with God's will, filled with wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord (1 Corinthians 12:8-10).

"For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit" (1Cor. 12:13). FOR – Verse 13 seems to be an explanation of how it is that "we all" become part of the one body, and (in the latter part of the verse) how it is that we have gifts that differ.

What Paul helps us see is that each person in the body of Christ is given a gift and there are a variety of gifts, services and activities for us to build up one another in love and faith. The Holy Spirit apportions these gifts as he wills and we're to faithfully use them as opportunities arise (1 Corinthians 12:11).

And as the First Epistle of John says, “This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven” (4:10, Good News Translation). We might say that the greatest gift that has ever been given to humanity is God's gift of Christ Jesus.

Paul concludes by singling our “faith, hope, and love” as the three enduring gifts. Faith here denotes trust, confidence; hope emphasizes the continuing nature of that confidence. But the greatest of these is “love” because God is love, and the manifestation of divine love in Christ is the foundation of faith and hope.

Paul writes to the church in Corinth to address some big problems: division, sexual misconduct, confusion about food and worship practices, and controversy surrounding Jesus' resurrection. Paul says these issues can be resolved because Jesus is alive.

Outline. 1 Corinthians 1–11. Paul warns against divisions within the Church and emphasizes the importance of unity among Church members. He warns members against sexual immorality, teaches that the body is a temple for the Holy Spirit, and encourages self-discipline.

Final answer:

The two main reasons Paul originally wrote 1 Corinthians were to address divisions and conflicts within the Corinthian church and to address issues of immoral behavior and sexual immorality.

These abilities, often termed "charismatic gifts", are the word of knowledge, increased faith, the gifts of healing, the gift of miracles, prophecy, the discernment of spirits, kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues.