What drives Ministries? Spiritual Gifts? Is there something deeper that has been missed?

(A study of 1st Corinthian Chapter 12 and 13)

Eph 4 : 7-15, talks about Gifts that Christ gave to men. These are generally refered to as Spiritual Gifts. The greatest gift that Christ gave to men was the Gift of the Holy Spirit. From this great Gift comes all other spiritual gifts available to us (1 Cor 12 :4 and 11) , in accordance with our level of desire to engage ( vs 31) in the greater gifts.

These gifts are manifold. . . the manifestation of the Spirit is given to EACH ONE for the profit of ALL, . . . . .wisdom, knowledge, faith, healings, miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, different tongues, interpretation of tongues, according to 1 cor 12 vs 8-11; referring to them as ministries and activities

In vs 27, the gifts are spoken of as appointments in the church in a hierarchichal manner, first apostolic, second prophetic, third teaching , after that miracles, healings, helps, administrations, tongues including interpretations of tongues

In Ephesians 4 vs 11, the gifts are spoken of as a ministerial administration to the church such as apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral and teaching . ( which are popularly refered to as the 5 fold Ministry)

Why did Christ give us gifts? For what purposes were they given?

Eph 4 : 12-15 says the following:

• For the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry

• Edification of the church unto spiritual maturity

1 Cor 12 : 7 says:

• The manifestation of the Spirit is given to Each One for the profit of ALL, referring to the church

Some have taken the gifts and level of gifting to mean an office, a title, a kind of spiritual superiority depending on the level of gifting received , giving rise to spiritual pride. Some even display their gifting as apostles and teachers on name cards and publication materials. Some have started websites to promote membership and prices structures for prophecies. I wonder why men do this, when Christ could have easily done a nice wooden placard with all his carpenter’s wisdom and might and hung outside his shop saying ‘ King of Kings and lord of Lords’?  But he didn’t ; choosing to keep his identity a secret, being entirely ministry focused in regards to what he might impart to man , during his mortal life duration on earth. Did he not show enough what ministerial focus should be?

1 Cor 4 : 7 says ‘ What did you have that you did not receive? Now if you indeed did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?’ Yet man wants to boast of what he has received. That is our very fallen nature . . . . to know ourselves and make ourselves known!!

The office and the administration of spiritual gifting has in many ways served to stifle the Spiritual manifestations (as spoken of in 1 Cor 12: 4 onwards), as it has in many cases, started to focus more on pride and hierarchy, the protection of spiritual territory and domain; what we term as the secularization of God’s intended Spiritual Ministry unto the Church. Because of this the manifestation of the Spirit which is meant for Each One and for the profit of All as per 1 Cor 12 :7 has been seriously stifled.

This was not the intention of 1 Cor 12 and 13 and Eph 4.

So how does the Man of Ministry stay engaged in his course and avoid being stifled by secularization and pride?

The answer to this is in 1 Cor 13 : 4-8 in the greatest rhetoric ever written on LOVE.

Love is long suffering , Love is kind


Love does not envy, does not parade, is not puffed up


Love does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil


Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth


Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things


Love never fails!

15 avenues of the manifestation of love are being explained here.

Paul is essentially saying here that the Man of God, the Man of Ministry, even the young Christian who engages in spiritual gifts, in the context of church building and edification, can only prosper or bear fruit if he is motivated by Love.

In other words Love has to motivate the Man of God and power his spiritual gifting!

Wow! Now that throws a completely new  light into the concept of church building!

If you meditate on the Love rhetoric as above, one will note that 3 words out of the 15 , mean the same. This is the word endurance or long suffering . There is a purpose always when a word is mentioned more than once in the scriptural context. There is an emphasis intended here.

Endurance means to put up with a weaker person’s innuendoes and standing by him or her until they ’Move up’ spiritually; . . . . . .not giving up on them. Note it does not mean at all , ignoring serious character issues and sweeping them under the carpet. Neither does it mean we eliminate weak Christians along the way, in the manner that secular establishments do so in eliminating the weak, and keeping the strong so that they  can make positive advancement! Love requires us to standby the weaker individual and help this little one make it. Now that is hard, really really hard !

Note what vs 8 onward says in regards to the giftings ……these will vanish when the perfect comes, that is when we meet the Lord face to face.

So what are the purposes of the gifts then? To give us mere titles, offices and significance or is it to edify and spiritually build the church , until we meet the Lord at the time of perfection?

Again note in verse 11 , how Paul refers to the church spiritually as children who need to mature until adulthood, and why the spiritual gifts are needed to help the childlike believer to put away childish things, in growing unto full maturity

And again Paul refers to a mirror in verse 12. Mirrors in Paul’s time were not made with computerized precision as we know them to be today. They were dull, wavy and gave a dim image of the person using them. Paul is again referring to the image on the mirror as to the spiritual clarifying of the inner man until he is able to see and be seen clearly face to face. Again talking about ‘ Spiritual maturity’ and the removing of blemishes.

The whole idea of the spiritual gifts given by Christ, through the Spirit to the church is to prepare it unto full spiritual maturity. The man of God who desires the gifts has to engage in the gifts for one purpose only, to equip the saints and edify the church. He has to desire the greater gifts, for this is the only progression that allows church expansion; as the spiritually mature who desire and attain the greater spiritual gifts and calling, go forth and set up new congregational entities and those with a lesser calling ‘move up’ to take their place.

Currently, and unfortunately, . . . . . . .leadership replacement seems to only takes place through forceful displacement , church split or death!!!. . . . . .What a tragedy!



Verse 13 concludes it all by saying Faith , Hope and Love, but the Greatest of these is Love!