For the Good of the Body

Much ink has been spilled discussing the gifts of the Spirit. To look at only one small aspect of this complex topic, we will recall that gifts are given to an individual for benefit of the community. The bestowal of a spiritual gift is not about the individual upon whom it is bestowed, but rather about the community's need for that gift. This can be seen in the case of Moses, as Walther Eichrodt describes:

This organizer who enjoyed no proper political power, this national leader who boasted no prowess in war, this man who directed the worship of God without every having received the status of priest, who established and mediated a new understanding of God without any of the credentials of prophetic powers of prediction, this wonder-worker who was yet far above the domain of mere magic, confronts us from the very outset with one ineluctable fact: Israelite religion is not the product of scrupulously guarded tradition, swollen with the accretions of history, nor does it rest on any sort of organization, however cleverly or successfully devised, but is a creation of that spirit which blows where it is inclined to do so, and which in mockery of our neat arrangements unites in the richness of marvelously equipped personalities things patently incompatible, in order that it may forward its own mighty and life-giving work. At the very beginning of Israelite religion we find the charisma, the special individual endowment of a person; and to such an extent is the whole structure based on it, that without it it would be inconceivable.

God planned the building and expansion of His kingdom, including the manifestation of spiritual gifts (I Cor 12:7). In discussing these gifts, the focus must be on the community, not the individual. Within dogmatics, some topics have an individual emphasis, and others a corporate emphasis; spiritual gifts must fall into the latter category. Attempts to analyze these gifts under the former category have caused significant confusions.