Using Our Gifts

Using Our Gifts

1 Corinthians 12:4-11, 27-28

            In 1991 Connie Ray and Alan Bailey created a gospel musical, Smoke on the Mountain.  Set in 1938, it tells the story of a Saturday night gospel sing at a little country church in North Carolina.  The performers are the Sanders Family, a mother, father, brother and three teenage children.  They have been absent from the gospel circuit for a while, caught up in family affairs, but are now ready to re-enter the world of sacred performance and share their music and testimony with the world.

            Their host for the evening is Pastor Mervin Oglethorpe of the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church.  In a sequel, Pastor Oglethorpe falls in love with and marries June, the oldest of the Sanders children.  When we first meet him he is not only full of the Spirit; he is also somewhat full of himself.  This is obviously his first full-time pastorate, and he takes himself rather seriously.  Here’s how he introduces himself to the assembled congregation, made up of several area churches.

            “As Preacher, Choir Director, Chairman of Finance, Director of Education, and Youth Director, I’d like to welcome you to Mount Pleasant Baptist Church.”

            Whew!  It sounds like all his congregation has to do is show up every Sunday morning, sit back, and watch this religious superman work his magic.  There’s one man doing everything, and a whole room full of spectators.

            That’s the picture the gospels presents, isn’t it?  Jesus is going about doing good, teaching his disciples, arguing with the religious leaders, while everyone else spectates.  That works for the gospels.  After all, the people were in the presence of the Son of God.  Why wouldn’t they let him lead?

            We get a different picture of Christianity in Acts.  Jesus has left this earth, and the disciples are now tasked with carrying on his work.  While Peter emerges as the acknowledged leader, he shares the responsibilities with his fellow apostles.  We know that even those of Jesus’ inner circle not mentioned by name are out in the world preaching, teaching, healing, and spreading this new religion.

            The person whose name we hear the most is Paul, who makes several missionary journeys, starting many churches, visiting them and others, and writing letters to them and still others.  He seems to be as superhuman as Pastor Oglethorpe, but here’s the difference:  he has his limitations, and he knows it.  He knows he can’t be in more than one place at a time, and so must develop leadership in the different churches to carry on while he is busy elsewhere.  We see his efforts clearly in his letters to Timothy and Titus, young pastors (much like our friend Mervin) who he advises and mentors so there will be someone to carry on when he is gone.

            In his first letter to the church at Corinth he speaks of spiritual gifts.  Everyone has gifts, he says, given by the Holy Spirit, and the church needs all of its members to use all of their gifts if it is going to grow, to prosper, and to make a difference in the world.  

            After speaking about the source of these gifts (the Holy Spirit), and comparing the church to the human body, Paul writes words that should make us sit up and take notice.

            “Now you are the body of Christ,” he says, “and individually members of it.  And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administering, and various kinds of tongues.”

            Many gifts given to many people to perform many ministries.  That’s the way the body of Christ functions best.