But as to spiritual things,
brothers, I do not wish
you to ignorant. You know
that being led away, you nations
were led to dumb idols.
Therefore I make known
to you that no one
speaking by the Spirit of God
says, Jesus is a curse.
And no one is able to say
Jesus is Lord,
except by the Holy Spirit.
But there are differences
of gifts, but the same
Spirit....
1Corinthians 12:1-4a
To understand why Paul had need to write such a letter to the Church at Corinth a person must have some understanding of the Greek world. One of the problems that the Church faces today is that pastors and leaders often teach from a modern culture and our modern world. The Greek culture was far different from our culture today as they had what we might call: espirit de corps, as each city was in of itself a state, a city state government. People of a certain Greek city were faithfully loyal to their city, their home. Corinth was an ancient city, one that had great influence, and was a major city but was destroyed and then rebuilt by Julius Caesar. The people of the city were always influenced by their past wealth and power and did not want to lose it again and did much to regain its position as a powerful city/state. Corinth was a busy city, a city that had great influence because of its four mile isthmus of land that boats from all around the world would come and be transported from one sea to the other. These people came from all over the world and brought with them their culture. This had great influence upon the Corinthian people. Furthermore, Corinth was a worship center and a temple devoted to Aphrodite had been constructed on the top of the hill, yet no remains of it have survived nowadays due to the fact that new buildings were constructed at that prominent position during the medieval years and the Turkish domination of Corinth. The lower city was the location of the Temple of Apollo while the Acrocorinth ( a hill outside the city) was dominated by the Temple of Aphrodite. Greek writers in the 5th-4th centuries B.C. characterized Corinth as a city of commercialized love and a "Corinthian girl" meant a prostitute. The Corinthian church of Paul's day struggled with worldliness and sexual sin, both of which were typical of this cosmopolitan city. The temple originally had 38 columns of the Doric order; 7 are standing today. It is important when attempting to understand the Bible and why the Bible writers wrote as they did is to know the historical as well as the grammatical; a historical/grammatical approach to aid us in our understanding. Over time words change in their meaning and their understanding and while this is not necessarily wrong there must be an understanding of the original words and original meaning. If we fail in this manner of interpretation we will be led into error and lean upon our culture and of our presuppositions. We will not be exegetical in our interpretation, rather we will become isogetical, that is, we will place our words into Scripture. This is what has been done far too often in many Churches by many leaders of the Church.
This word that is so well known and used by people today carries a similar meaning to the old understanding and meaning yet is not the same and can mislead us. The word is "charisma" or in the plural "charismata." We have come to understand and use this word to denote or describe a person who has a certain indefinable quality which attracts people to him. Luke records such an use of the word when describing Apollos (Acts 18:2-28). There is then a sue of the word that corresponds to our use of the word today, but Paul lack such "charisma." Both men though had spiritual gifts, that is, charismata, and those gifts were given to them by God. The Scriptural use of "charismata" is simply, "a gift of holy grace, a favor which one receives without any merit of his own: "Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith" (Romans 12:6). Paul in writing to Timothy: "Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands" (2Timothy 1:6). This word, "charismata," the plural of "charisma" is unique as it is found only in Paul's writings, except for 1Peter 4:10; ("charisma") is used. A "charismata" is then to be a mean to manifest God's grace and we translate the word "gifts." These "gifts" were given to the Church, that is to individuals for the benefit of the Church. Paul does use two other words for gift(s); dorea and doma, and they are similar to "charismata." There is a fourth word used for gifts; "pneumatika," which when defined precisely means, things belonging to the Spirit: spiritual things.
I am laying the groundwork so that we can understand this Doctrine of Gifts and without this groundwork we do not have a clear basis, a true understanding. An illustration may be of planting an orchard of peach trees. You must prepare the ground, plant the young tress, water them, fertilize them, prune them, and in about four years they mature and produce a crop of peaches. We won't take four years (ha!).
For even the Son of Man
did not come to be
served, but to serve,
and to give His life
a ransom for many.
Mark 10:45
Enjoy this day; God made it
Richard L. Crumb
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