It Starts Small

In that day there were a lot of counterfeit gifts going around from the occult. Satan has always been one to mimic the real thing, twisting it and abusing it for his own purposes. The two most common of these included ecstasy and enthusiasm.

Ecstasy was a kind of almost hypnotic frenzy. Through sensuous and frenzied hypnotic chants, one believed he was communicating with the divine. It was deemed a super spiritual practice and often confused with tongues. This has its roots in false religion and demonic activity.

Enthusiasm involved dreams, visions, etc.

We see this is no stranger to churches today.

The basic problem was that in the church many accepted anything that appeared to be a miracle. They saw it as automatically good and worthy to try. But they were ignorant. They didn’t know they should test the things that were going on. They also didn’t know how to test them.

From the beginning of 1 Corinthians we remember that they lacked no spiritual gift. They were gifted spiritually, but they were abusing their gifts. The first problem was that they were ignorant. Satan is prowling around like a roaring like seeking someone to devour. If someone is ignorant of the truth, they are in danger. Imagine a deer who cannot recognize a lion. That deer is dinner.

The Corinthians did not even know the truth about spiritual gifts. Consequently, they didn’t know how to use them correctly. This was one of the first epistles. I’m sure Paul had taught them something. However, they didn’t have the benefit of a complete Bible yet. They may have had some excuse for being unaware. But we have absolutely none. We need to know the truth so that we can properly serve God. In Timothy we know that we need to rightly divide the Word. (

Their second problem was that they seemed to be easily deceived. When they were unbelievers, they followed idol worship. They also engaged in the occult and pagan practices that were so prevalent in that area. Unfortunately after they believed, a number of these practices carried over to church practice, though some in different forms.

The book shows that the Corinthian church had a big problem. They imitated the world around them and got sucked into it. This happened instead of truly being set apart. In chapter 14, we learn about some of their abuses of the practice of tongues. It is clear that counterfeit gifts were creeping into the church. These gifts were leading many astray. Today it happens too. There are many stories of fake healings and fake tongues. People even report rolling in the aisles and acting like dogs and cats. How can we prevent being led astray?

Know the truth.

Evaluate everything by the Scripture. Don’t just accept something because a church teaches it or is practicing it or it is common.

 ³ Therefore I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:3

The abuse of the gifts reached such an extent that people blasphemed the Lord in moments of ecstasy. It was clear that demons were responsible. They used these moments of ecstasy to mislead church members. They wreaked havoc spiritually.

4 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

² This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³ but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even now it is already in the world.

1 John 4:1-4

The truth is always a measure of what is right and wrong. If things appear good and seem to work, but are untrue, they are not good. What areas could this be applied to today? Preachers. No matter how smooth and polished they are, if they don’t teach the word we should not listen to them.

Paul then teaches us about the source of gifts and purpose of gifts. The source is not people and certainly not demons. The source is the Holy Spirit, Jesus, God the Father. In short, the Trinity. If He is the source, then the gifts are also for Him. They should always be conducted in accordance with His will and in His way.

These gifts are supernaturally bestowed on believers. There are three general categories of gifts, verbal, serving, and sign gifts.

The verbal gifts are for speaking and serve to edify the church. These include teaching, preaching, prophecy, knowledge, wisdom, etc.

Serving gifts include things such as leadership, giving, mercy, faith, and discernment.

The sign gifts included miracles, healing, tongues, and interpretation of tongues.

So there all kinds of gifts and perhaps even combinations of gifts, but the same God gave all of them. Therefore there is no basis for pride that one’s gift is better than another person’s. Later in the chapter, it shows that every gift is vital. Every believer has a distinct and important role to fill.

Although there are many gifts, the purpose of all the gifts is the same. That is the common good. They are meant to build up the body. This helps the body better glorify the Lord. It also enables reaching the world for Him.

This is a good reminder for all of us:

We need to be unified.

We have the same goal and need to be working for it.

You have a special gift from the Lord.

You should be using your special gift by actively serving others.

Are you using your gift? Are you actively serving others? Are you concerned about the common good?

Paul then sets apart each gift and a description. Did you catch that there is a repeated phrase or word? In focusing on each spiritual gift and what it is, I almost looked over this repeated phrase. The repetition indicates its importance. It may be the main theme for this whole section.

It is “Spirit” or “same Spirit”.

The point is that The Spirit is the source of all spiritual gifts. It is a reminder of our unity in the Spirit, but also our diversity. Not everyone will do exactly what you do in the church. Not everyone will have this gift. Not everyone will have this calling. Not everyone has to do what you are doing to follow the Lord. As teachers, evangelists, disciples, we have a tendency to think everyone should be doing this.

But from Scripture, it is clear, not everyone has this gift or calling. God has different tasks for different people and we need to understand and accept that. We need to recognize the value of others’ contributions and not think we are doing the only thing valuable. It’s like marriage. The husband and wife have different roles, but they are both valuable and important.

Word of wisdom – Ability to understand God’s Word and His will, and to skillfully apply that understanding to life.

Word of knowledge – Ability to understand and speak God’s truth, with insight into mysteries of His Word. Knowledge focuses on grasping the meaning of truth. Wisdom is about applying that understanding to practical real-life situations in the proper way.

Faith – This would not be a saving faith or a persevering faith as every believer has that. Instead, it is a kind of especially strong faith. This faith places complete confidence in God, no matter what the circumstance.

Gifts of healing – This gift has cause divisions within the body of Christ. Some believe that it was only given to the original disciples of Christ. I do not believe God limits healing in today’s time. Healing can be sharing the Word of God with those who suffer emotionally and physically. The truth of God’s Word heals hearts, de-tangles broken and fractured minds and strengthens the spiritually weak.

Gift of miracles – Includes such things as casting out demons, the jars of oil, etc. This is a demonstration of supernatural power (God’s power) in some way that is abnormal in the natural world. Again, the purpose is to show God’s power so that the beholders will believe.

Gift of prophecy – Nowadays most people consider this gift to be a telling of the future. But it actually only means “speaking forth” or “proclaiming publicly”. The connotation of telling the future only entered in to the word during the Middle Ages. God may have used this as a way to confirm His truth in the past. However, since the completion of the Scriptures, it is no longer bringing new revelation. God’s revelation is complete. Those with the gift of prophecy can now exposit and explain the Scriptures. They can edify others with them. It’s quite similar to the gift of teaching or other speaking gifts.

Distinguishing of spirits– Christians with this gift can recognize lying spirits. They also have the ability to identify deceptive and erroneous doctrine. It involves exercising discernment to identify the lies of Satan. It also distinguishes his counterfeits and the truth of God, which is the real thing. Those with this gift can act as guardians of the church. They protect it from false doctrines and infiltration of the world’s ideas. They seem to look deeper than the average person. They see the true moral issues at stake. They identify root problems in ideas. These are in a sense stewards of right doctrine and practice. This is also a so-called gift on gifts. It gives individuals the ability to unmask whether the other gifts being shown in the church are real. They can determine if these gifts are genuine or counterfeit.

Gift of tongues – From Acts, we understand that this gift involved speaking a real foreign language. This was done without knowing it through study. Essentially, it reverses the tower of Babel. This allows believers to communicate with those of other tongues and dialects. It reaches people whom believers would have difficulty reaching otherwise. It is also another sign gift showing the power of God. This helps unbelievers to believe. This gift and its abuses will be covered in detail in chapter 14.

Gift of interpretation of tongues – This is like reverse engineering. Those with this gift can listen and understand those foreign tongues and then translate it back to their own language. The counterfeit often included lots of ecstatic gibberish unintelligible. It seemed very spiritual, but had no real value.

¹¹ One and the same Spirit is active in all these, distributing to each person as he wills.

1 Corinthians 12:11

Verse 11 is yet another reminder that all of these gifts are from the same Spirit. All the praise and recognition for these gifts goes to Him. They are distributed not according to our desires, but according to the will of the Spirit. They are for His master plan of the church. We need to serve Him as He wills not as we will. Go where we are needed instead of where we want to go or feel comfortable.

Before we continue this chapter, let us look over what God’s Word says about Spiritual Gifts.

³ For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one. ⁴ Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, ⁵ in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. ⁶ According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts: If prophecy, use it according to the proportion of one’s faith; ⁷ if service, use it in service; if teaching, in teaching; ⁸ if exhorting, in exhortation; giving, with generosity; leading, with diligence; showing mercy, with cheerfulness.

Romans 12:3-8

¹¹ And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, ¹³ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness. ¹⁴ Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit. ¹⁵ But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head—Christ. ¹⁶ From him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part.

Ephesians 4:11-16

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