September 16, 2022

Passage Read: 1 Corinthians 12-13
Meditation Verse: 13:11

Thought

Paul was an apostle, which he lists as the first among spiritual gifts. He didn't lay aside that gift as he grew in his understanding and practice of love, but neither did he promote his exercise of his gifts. As an apostle, he basically had all the gifts, including prophecy and tongues and healing, and he exercised all of them, but not to promote himself or his spirituality. He had visions and taught from those visions without always announcing that this was from a vision from God. He healed people, but it wasn't what he made his ministry out to be. He proclaimed Christ and those gifts served that purpose. He cared about people everywhere and the gifts helped him do that, but his ministry wasn't characterized by his gifts, but by his proclamation of the Gospel and advancing it beyond its present borders.

Application

This passage doesn't say that gifts crease when love comes (and it certainly says nothing about them ceasing with the completion of Scripture), but it does imply that as love comes, we stop being consumed by the display of our spiritual gift. A child is excited about every new toy and plays with it constantly, until something new comes along. When spiritual gifts come, we naturally have a tendency to be consumed by their expression, but when we get used to them and grow in love, so that we're more concerned about helping people than about displaying our gift, the gift doesn't cease, but it becomes subservient to our actual mission rather than being center stage, as if it were the primary mission. Maturity moves the gift into its proper place and puts it in its proper perspective. Love guiding and controlling all is the mark of maturity, not an ender of gifts, but the power that puts them in the place they were meant to be.