35 What Is the Mark of True Spirituality? (1 Corinthians 12:1-3)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome back to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. We are studying 1 Corinthians 12, verses 1 through 3 today. This is the 35th talk in our series on 1 Corinthians. You can find lecture notes for today's talk on the link below the podcast so you don't have to take notes. And you can also find them on my website. Just go to wednesdayintheword.com slash 1 Corinthians 3.5. And while you're on the website, you'll find lots of helpful information to improve your Bible study. There's no charge, no spam, no ads, just Bible study. Glad to have you along. Well, we're starting a new section today. Paul is still addressing topics related to how the Corinthians are handling themselves when they meet together. He's done with the Lord's Supper, and now he's turning to the topic of spiritual gifts. Chapters 12 through 14 of 1 Corinthians function as one unit, but within that unit he makes several distinct arguments. His thought moves in units or subpoints, and we're going to look at one unit of thought each week. Today we're only going to look at the first three verses of chapter twelve. This is the foundation for his argument, and I want to make sure we understand it because everything he's going to say to from now till the end of fourteen depends on these three verses. Let me go ahead and read them for us. This is first Corinthians chapter twelve verses one through three. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to the mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. In twelve one he starts out now concerning spiritual gifts or manifestations of the Spirit, and this phrase now concerning is the marker we've seen since chapter five that signals that Paul is about to address a new topic. You'll recall that this letter is a response to a verbal report Paul has received about what's happening in the church in Corinth, and it's also a response to a letter they have written to him in which they asked him specific questions. And these questions are not academic philosophy, rather, they relate to actual problems that the church is having. So it's not like they're randomly debating the value of meat sacrifice to idols or the nature of spiritual gifts. These issues are causing disagreements and divisions within their church, and they've written to Paul for help. The first question we want to ask as Bible students today is what question did the Corinthians ask Paul? What is it that he's about to address? And as we've seen in previous sections, how you understand the question influences what you think Paul's saying in the answer. For example, one commentary I looked at argued that Paul was asked these questions, and I'm quoting. Does every believer have them? How can believers know which gifts they have? How important are they to the individual and to the life of the church? What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and how does it relate to spiritual gifts? Are all of the gifts given in every age of church history, or were some given only during a certain time period? Can the gifts be counterfeited? If so, how can believers tell the true gifts from the false gifts? Well, while those are interesting questions that we might have today, it's really hard to see how the Corinthians would have asked those questions of Paul. And if we start there, we will very likely miss Paul's point and come away with answers that Paul never intended. And I'm gonna argue that that list of questions does not describe what this passage is all about. And as we go through the various sections, I'm gonna argue that the question that the Corinthians asked came from this situation, and this comes from studying twelve through fourteen as a unit. Here's what I think was going on. In Corinth, there is a group that strongly emphasizes manifestations of the spirit, and in particular, they are infatuated with speaking in tongues. They think that if you have a visible, obvious manifestation of the spirit, like speaking in tongues, that that is a surefire guarantee that you are a spiritual Christian and that the spirit has come upon you and that you're a believer. That's the mark of spiritual maturity. You must have the spirit because we can see it outwardly in this expression of tongues. Therefore, those who don't have this visible manifestation of the spirit are lacking. We're not even sure if they're spiritual or not. And Paul is speaking to that kind of situation. He's speaking to a group of believers who are grading and judging each other by whether or not they're speaking in tongues. And they're looking around and they're saying, Well, God is clearly working in those who speak in tongues, but we're not too sure about everybody else. You guys who aren't speaking in tongues, you better be worried. And through the next chapters, chapters 12 through 14, Paul's going to make a series of points to give them perspective on that situation. So if I had to sum all that up in one question that he's answering, it would be this Is tongues a measure of true spirituality? And if not, what is true spirituality? Now that's a very important question for us to understand, and it's a very different question from what are the gifts and how do I know what I have. Honestly, I don't think Paul addresses those questions of what are the gifts and how do I know which one I have. I don't think he addresses that type of question at all. But let's dive into this. Let's read the first verse again. In 12.1, now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware. If you're reading the New American Standard Version, you'll notice that the word gifts is in gray font. And that means the word is not in the original Greek text, but it's been supplied or added by the translators to fill out the meaning. The translators think it's implied. Literally 12.1 reads now concerning spirituals. And the word we have is just the Greek word for spiritual in the plural. We have to supply the noun by the context. So it could be spiritual gifts, it could be spiritual things, it could be spiritual people or something else. And you could make a case to translate this as spiritual gifts, but I think that is kind of misleading for us modern Christians because we have an entire theology about what the term spiritual gifts means. And when we see that phrase, we read our pre-understanding into it rather than letting the context tell us what the author's talking about. So in modern Christianity, the term spiritual gifts has become a kind of technical term with a very specific theology behind it. When we see spiritual gifts, we immediately think of a supernatural enabling or an ability that God gives us to serve Him in a particular way. So like the gift of teaching, the gift of evangelism, of mercy, helps, or something like that. When we read the term spiritual gifts in a verse, we immediately assume that Paul is talking about this supernatural abilities or supernatural enablings. And in this case, I think that starts us off on the wrong foot. Interestingly, there is only one place in the New Testament where we actually see the phrase spiritual gifts, and that's in Romans 1. Paul is telling the Romans that he wants to visit Rome so that he can impart a spiritual gift to them. And then he explains what he means by spiritual gift. He says he wants to encourage them in the faith and be encouraged by them as well. So this is Romans 1, 11 and 12. For I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. So that is the one explicit place in the New Testament where we see the phrase spiritual gift, and in that case, Paul is not talking about spiritual gifts in the way we talk about it today. The gift in Romans in that case is a gift that Paul wants to give to his readers, not a gift the Holy Spirit is giving to believers, and it's spiritual in the sense that he wants to encourage their faith as opposed to give them a physical present. It's not a talent or an enabling. It's very clear in Romans that Paul is not talking about supernatural abilities that God gives each believer. Paul is clearly not saying I want to come to Rome so that I can give you the gift of mercy or teaching or something like that. For us today the term spiritual gift has developed a very specific meaning, but in the Bible that phrase was not used that way at all, and that's something we need to be aware of as we study, and especially when we come to a verse like twelve one. We want to be careful not to read our modern understanding into this section, and I would argue that the commentator I quoted earlier made exactly that mistake in his list of questions. He took the term spiritual gift, read in our modern understanding of that term, and then came up with a list of questions based on our modern idea. Well as I read chapters twelve to fourteen, I come up with a very different picture of the situation Paul is addressing. And I think that situation helps us figure out what Paul means by spirituals or spiritual things here in 12 1. I would translate this manifestations of the spirit. I think the question on the table is what is the mark of being a spiritual person? What do these manifestations of the spirit, like tongues, indicate about our spirituality? So I don't think he's about to address something like let me explain spiritual gifts to you so you can figure out which one you have. Rather, it's let's talk about these manifestations of the spirit so you can get the right perspective on what they're all about. So now concerning spirituality or now concerning manifestations of the spirit, what does it look like when the spirit makes himself known in someone's life? That's the question. All right, let's add in twelve two. So this is twelve one and twelve two. Now concerning manifestations of the spirit, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Twelve two is kind of tricky to translate. It's missing a verb, and the word led astray is a bit difficult to understand. Fundamentally, it means to lead away. You would use this word to describe taking a horse by the bridle and leading it out to pasture, or if you arrest someone, you would use this word to describe taking them off to prison. But it's got other nuances. I think the basic idea here is being carried away or losing control to the god. And we want to ask the question then, why does Paul bring up their pagan background and what did they used to do before the idols? The Gentiles among the Corinthians grew up going to pagan temples, and their concept of religion was formed in these pagan temples. In the pagan temples, the idols were mute. The idols themselves could not speak as they're just statues made by human hands. But the priests and the worshipers in the pagan temples would speak mostly through ecstatic experiences. So they would rant and rave and say things that were supposedly the voice of the temple god. In pagan worship, you became possessed by the god. You drank a bunch of wine, you sniffed the incense, and you danced yourself dizzy until you lost control and the idol god took control of you. That's how an idol god manifested itself in your life. So for the Corinthians, what does a spiritual person look like in a pagan temple? Well, the spiritual person is the one who is speaking ecstatically or babbling or seems out of control. And the Corinthians have imported that concept into their belief in Jesus. They expect a similar kind of phenomena to occur in the Christian church. And they look around and they go, Well, what is like our pagan experience? Aha, it's speaking in tongues. So the question on the table is, is that true? Are tongues really the mark of being a spiritual person? Because that's what we're used to seeing in the temples. And you know, tongues look a little bit like the stuff we're used to. So that's what being a spiritual person must mean, right? And if not, what is the nature of spirituality? Should we be given over to these unusual and inexplicable experiences or not? And Paul is reminding them that their idea of spirituality was formed by their experiences of going before the mute pagan idols and being carried away. They were led away supposedly by the idol god and they had these ecstatic experiences. And now they've become Christians, they've turned away from the idols, but they still have this idea that worship is all about these ecstatic emotional experiences and being carried off by the Spirit. So they still think the way you can tell that a person is truly spiritual, has truly been taken over by the Holy Spirit, is this outward manifestation of speaking in tongues. Paul's reminding them that their pagan background gives them this perspective on what spirituality is all about. Because pagan worship is all about being carried off in an ecstatic experience by an idol, speaking in tongues looks to them like the height of spirituality. It's kind of familiar. So they've concluded, we know how we can tell if someone's truly spiritual. We know because the Holy Spirit has taken over their mouth and is giving them the supernatural speech. So what's wrong with that group over there who doesn't speak in tongues? They must not be truly spiritual because we know from our pagan background this is what spirituality looks like. And Paul's reminding them of their background so that he can go back and correct their perspective. He says, Remember what you used to do when you were pagans. Now let me tell you what the true mark of spirituality is. Let's add in verse three. Now concerning manifestations of the Spirit, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Paul makes this very important statement. No one who has the Spirit says Jesus is anathema or accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Spirit. Now we don't want to take Paul overly literally here. There's no magic in this particular phrase. Paul is not claiming that I am physically unable to utter the phrase Jesus is Lord unless I have the Spirit, and conversely, once I have the Spirit, I'm somehow physically unable to say Jesus is cursed. That's not what he's saying. There are all kinds of people who have said these phrases with and without faith, and the words themselves are not an infallible sign of whether or not the Spirit of God is at work in someone. The problem in Corinth is not that someone is standing up and ecstatically uttering Jesus is Lord and they can't figure out if the Holy Spirit's behind it or not. That's that doesn't make any sense. It makes much more sense to understand these phrases as summary statements of the fundamental belief of the person speaking. If you embrace the idea that Jesus is Lord, it is because God has given you saving faith through his Holy Spirit. So no one can say and mean Jesus is my Lord without the Spirit of God at work in him giving him faith. Likewise, no one can say and mean Jesus is a fraud and I don't want anything to do with him as an expression of faith. When we're confronted with the claims of Jesus of Nazareth, there are only two fundamental responses. We can accept and embrace his claims, or we can reject his claims and reject Jesus. To say Jesus is anathema means Jesus is under a band. He is someone to dismiss, to reject, or to avoid. I don't accept his claims, I don't want to follow him in any way, he is to be rejected. On the other hand, to say that Jesus is Lord is to embrace and accept a fundamental truth of the gospel. Now it's interesting that he includes both, and it's I want to kind of ask why couldn't you just say Jesus is Lord and leave out the other one? But I think he includes both because in the pagan trances, when you were under the influence of a temple god, you could say just about anything. You could say one thing and another person could say the opposite, and no one really cared much. But in Christianity, it matters what you say. The content of what you say matters a great deal, and you must be able to say and mean Jesus is Lord. Paul's trying to tell them, look, your pagan background has confused you about what constitutes true spirituality and what constitutes a sign that the Spirit of God is at work in someone. The question is not have you lost control in a trance or speaking in tongues? The question is what do you do with Jesus? It doesn't matter how ecstatic you are or what you seem to be experiencing, the question is do you embrace and confess that Jesus is Lord? If you have come to genuine saving faith and embrace the claims of Jesus, then you're a spiritual person. It doesn't matter whether you've ever spoken in tongues or not. We can only recognize that Jesus is Lord by the power of God. We may never speak in tongues, but if when we speak we show that we understand that Jesus is the Lord, the Messiah, the King of kings, then we are spiritual. The Spirit of God has manifested Himself in us because we reveal that we genuinely understand who Jesus is and we embrace Him and want to follow Him. On the other hand, it doesn't matter if we're ranting and dancing and raving and speaking in tongues if we've rejected the claims of Christ. Paul's saying, I don't care how visual or dramatic your experience is, your experience is useless if you don't embrace the claims of Jesus Christ. So the mark of the Spirit, the mark of the Spirit of God at work in a person's life is not what kind of ecstatic outward experience they have. The mark of the Spirit of God at work in a person's life is that they can say and mean in a very profound way that Jesus Christ is Lord. That's the spiritual person. The spiritual person embraces and follows Christ. The person who rejects him is not spiritual. So you do you want to know what the mark of true spirituality is? That's it. The mark of God at work in someone's life is that that person will say and mean that Jesus is Lord. Okay, since this is the foundation for the rest of his argument, I want to spend some time on what it what does it mean when we say Jesus is Lord? When I say Jesus is Lord, what am I saying? It's not that different from saying Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is Lord is a shorthand phrase for the specific beliefs that make up the gospel. The gospel is sometimes summed up as Jesus is Lord, and God demonstrated that by raising him from the dead. So Jesus is the anointed king who will rule over God's creation, which is to say, He's Lord. He is the one who has been given rule over all. He has been chosen to speak for God, to rule for God, to teach in God's name, to Represent him to judge and forgive in God's name. Paul summarizes it this way in Romans ten, this is Romans ten nine. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Peter says something very similar in his sermon in Acts. This is Acts 236. Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. That's a quick summary of the gospel. Jesus is the one God made Lord and Christ, and God demonstrated that He did that through this sign of raising Jesus from the dead. When I first come to faith, one of the first things I realize is that I have been created by God, and God has the right to tell me what is true, what is not true, and to determine my destiny. So he has the right to tell me right from wrong, how I must live my life and determine my fate. He is the standard by which I will be measured, and he has the authority and the right to judge me. And God has appointed Christ to represent him and proclaim truth and teach us how to find life. So the Messiah, the Christ, represents God for all those things that God has the right to do, like tell me what is right and wrong, tell me what is true and what's a lie, tell me how I must live and determine my destiny. So the Messiah is my master and king who tells me what to do on behalf of God, and he is the one who will ultimately determine what happens to me. And that Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth. And I know this because God raised him from the dead. Jesus stood right in front of the teachers of the law, the people who were described as searching the scriptures to find the Messiah, and they failed to recognize him. He stood right in front of them teaching and preaching and performing miracles, and they said, No, you're not the Messiah, we're looking for someone else. So to say that Jesus of Nazareth is Lord, that the carpenter who lived at a certain period in history, who taught and performed miracles and was crucified on the cross and rose from the dead, to say that he is Lord is to say that He is the Messiah. He is the one who's been appointed to speak for God. What he says is true. His teaching is the truth I have to follow. His words are the words of life. He is the one who has the power to forgive my sins and grant me eternal life. He is also the one who has the power to judge and condemn and destroy me. His commands will set the course of my life, and he is the one I will seek to worship and obey. To say Jesus is Lord is to look at the life and message of Jesus of Nazareth and say, I believe He's the one. I believe He is the Messiah. He is the one who speaks for God. God has appointed him as King of kings and Lord of Lords, and He will rule over all creation. I believe He has the words of life, and I want to find eternal life, so He's the one I must listen to. That's the truth I have to embrace. As I look at His teaching then I see I'm called to love the Lord with all my heart, I'm called to love my neighbor as myself, and I have profoundly failed at both of these because I'm a sinner. Thankfully, Jesus the Messiah has come to offer his life as the payment for my guilt so that I might find forgiveness and be reconciled to God. True life is not found in the things of this world, but it's found in the coming kingdom of God. I'm not saved by my religious performance, by my outward keeping of the law, or by how good or wise I am, I'm saved by the mercy of God through the blood of Christ. If the Spirit of God is at work in me, then I see that set of ideas as truth. I know that what Jesus is teaching is from God, that He has the words of life, that the truth is what He says is true, and that my eternal destiny is in His hands. So to summarize Paul's point in these three verses, Paul's speaking to a group of believers who are grading and judging each other by whether or not they speak in tongues. God is clearly working in those who speak in tongues, they think, but we're not sure about everyone else. Because of their pagan background, they think that the mark of spirituality, the mark that the Holy Spirit is at work in someone's life, is that that person speaks in tongues. If you're not speaking in tongues, then you better be worried because you may not be a child of God or a spiritual person. Paul says that's not the mark of a child of God. The person who is truly spiritual, the person in whom the Holy Spirit is clearly at work is the person who can say and mean in a profound way that Jesus is Lord. You can tell a truly spiritual person by how they respond to Jesus. If they embrace and accept him as Lord, then they're his children. If they reject him or mock and dismiss him and think he's a fraud, then they're not his children. If I'm going to ask the question who's spiritual, which people are following God, that's the criteria I want to use. If I'm judging myself as to whether or not I'm a child of God, that's the standard I want to use. So you want to know who's a spiritual person? You can tell by what comes out of their mouth, but it's not tongues, it's whether or not they embrace the fact that Jesus is Lord. Before we go on, I want to stop and think about this perspective on what true spirituality looks like. The Corinthians thought true spirituality was marked by these visible, outward, ecstatic experiences, and some people today would share that same view, but think about the other ways that we define spirituality and how we grade how mature or how spiritual someone is today. A couple of years ago, it was very popular to talk about kingdom oriented vocation. It's a great phrase. And the basic idea is that all jobs are not created equal. As a believer, you ought to choose a vocation that gives you not just a job and an income, but you ought to choose a job that allows you to do kingdom work. And that was the phrase kingdom work, kingdom oriented careers. And not surprisingly, the way they defined kingdom work looked a lot like liberal social justice causes. Companies that made lipstick or frozen yogurt or pet food, well that's just kind of trivial, that's not kingdom work. And I heard one speaker actually use these exact examples and argue that God would never call believers to work in a lipstick factory or to make dog food or to create ice cream flavors. And further, she went on to argue, if you think he is calling you to do that, then you've wasted your life. Because in this speaker's opinion, lipstick, dog food, and ice cream don't bring any value to the kingdom the way something like bringing clean water to a remote African tribe brings value to the kingdom. Well, is that what being a spiritual person looks like? Would Paul really say that the mark of a spiritual person is that they choose not to design a new flavor of ice cream and instead they choose to design a clean water filter? I think God could call you to design ice cream and minister to the people in your factory just as easily as he could call you to work on clean water in Africa. And I think that's the same mistake the Corinthians were making in elevating tongues over all the other gifts. We've just changed the mark. Today we elevate social justice causes over everything else and define that as the mark of being a spiritual person. I'm pressing on this point because it's foundational to his argument, and if we really grasp what he's saying here about the mark of spirituality is being able to say Jesus is Lord, it's gonna make a big difference as we go through the rest of chapter twelve. So think about some of the other ways we define spirituality. We sometimes define the spiritual person as the one who can say think deeply and meditate on the meaning of life, and they're above all the mundane daily tasks. Or sometimes we think the spiritual person is the one who has forsaken worldly possessions and simplified their life like Thoreau on Walden Pond. Or maybe the spiritual person is someone who's devoted her life to serving the poor like Mother Teresa. Or maybe it's someone who's traveled to a foreign country to be a missionary and maybe even given his life for it, like Jim Elliot. The non Christian world tends to define a spiritual person as someone who does something extraordinary, something other than work and raising a family, and we fall into that same trap. But Paul has a very specific definition of spirituality, and his definition does not depend on the fact that your job is something that you could call kingdom oriented or not. It's not dependent on whether or not you're a missionary, whether or not you're a professional minister, whether you start a nonprofit, cure cancer, work on racial reconciliation, or social justice causes. Those are all good things to do, but they do not mark you out as a spiritual giant. They do not make you a better Christian than someone who works at Walmart and raises children. For Paul, to be a spiritual person means that the Spirit of God is working in me, and the work that that spirit is doing is to transform my heart so that I can say and mean in a profound way that Jesus Christ is Lord. Ultimately, the Holy Spirit is changing me from a rebel sinner who rejects the claims of Christ and hates God to a forgiven, repentant sinner who embraces the claims of Christ and loves God. In Paul's letters, he frequently contrasts the spirit and the flesh, and he means more than the contrast between that which is physical and seen and that which is intangible and unseen. The contrast is between what I am by nature left to myself and what I am after the Spirit of God has started working in me to write his law in my heart. So the flesh is what I am left to myself with my own resources apart from the Spirit of God at work in me. The Spirit is what I am and who I am after the Spirit of God has started working in me. So how do I know the Spirit of God is at work in me? Paul tells us right in this passage. Therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. That fundamental stance that accepts that Jesus is Lord is the mark of a spiritual person. That's the manifestation of the Spirit of God working in a person's life. So spirituality for Paul is very specific, but it's not necessarily flashy outward emotional experiences. It's not the feeling I have after singing the right songs. It's not the feelings I have after a great sermon or a devotional talk. It's not any kind of vague mystical feeling I get when I meditate on God's words. It's not marked by social justice causes or giving away lots of money to worthy causes. It's not marked by my choice of profession or my lack of material things. It's not even marked by being a good, nice person. For Paul to be a spiritual person is to be someone who can say and mean in a profound way that Jesus Christ is Lord. That is true spirituality. And that idea is going to become very important as we go through the rest of the chapter, because that's the foundation he's going to build his argument on. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how I reach those conclusions. If you've been helped by this podcast, please leave a positive comment on your favorite podcast platform and tell your friends. It's really easy to subscribe, just go to Wednesdayintheword.com and click on subscribe to this podcast. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates of heartfeltmusic.org. I invite you to check out his other music. Thanks for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you here next week at Wednesday in the Word.