Audio Transcript
You are talented. You have gifts, maybe even pulling off marvels. You are impressively gifted. But there’s a catch: You can be a miracle-worker and waste your gifts. Spiritual gifts are like dynamite. In the right hands, they blow up rock to build tunnels and highways. They can produce. In the wrong hands, in hands seeking to puff up, spiritual gifts are good for nothing. Today on Ask Pastor John: wasted talents.
And that brings us to the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, which we read together today, and to this question from Martha in San Diego: “Pastor John, hello and thank you for taking my question. In 1 Corinthians 13:1–3, Paul teaches that spiritual gifts, though valuable, are meaningless without love. He explains that no matter how impressive or beneficial a gift may seem, whether it’s speaking in tongues, prophesying, or even giving away all our possessions, it all amounts to nothing if it isn’t motivated by love. A spiritual gift plus that gift put in action minus a motive of love equals nothing. That is a powerful warning. How does this challenge our understanding of the role of spiritual gifts in the church? And why do you think Paul places love above even the most powerful spiritual abilities?”
I think the reason Paul makes love the measure of the right use of spiritual gifts is because it is so easy for us to lose sight of the fact that spiritual gifts are meant for the upbuilding of other people, not the manifestation of our own powers, even divine powers.
In other words, spiritual gifts are wonderful and dangerous, just like dynamite is wonderful and dangerous. In the right hands, it can blow a mountain out of the way for a highway. And in the wrong hands, it can blow your head off. And love is the criterion that Paul uses for how not to blow your head off, but instead create highways of Christian truth and Christ-exalting faith and obedience.
In 1 Corinthians 8:1, Paul says, “This ‘knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up.” So, there’s a wrong use of knowledge. If it doesn’t build up the other person, it puffs up the one who presumes to know. The measure of the right use of knowledge is love, because love doesn’t puff up. The lover builds up the beloved.
Building Up
Then, when he gets to spiritual gifts four chapters later in chapters 12–14, he says in 1 Corinthians 14:26, “Let all things be done for building up,” which is virtually the same as saying in 1 Corinthians 16:14, “Let all that you do be done in love.” So, since everything is to be done in love, and since love builds up instead of puffing up or tearing down, therefore everything is to be done for upbuilding — and that makes love the measure of all the right uses of spiritual gifts.
You can see him applying this measure. For example, in 1 Corinthians 14:4, he governs the use of tongues like this: “The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.” So, unless there’s interpretation for the tongue, Paul is saying “the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:5). That is, he’s more loving. Why is he greater? Because building someone up — that is, loving them — is the measure of the right use of the spiritual gift. And he says again in verse 17, “[When you pray in tongues,] you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up.” That is, he’s not being loved.
“Paul wants the church, the fellowship, the use of gifts, to be all about Christ — the trusted Christ.”
So, the question becomes this: “Well, if love means building up, what does building up mean?” I think a lot of people don’t stop and say, “What are we talking about here?” Building up seems obvious. But it’s not obvious. When you do the contextual search, most agree it means building up someone’s faith — that is, helping them be stronger, firmer, steadier, more durable in their faith in Jesus, in his word, in the promises of God. Colossians 2:6–7 says, “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith.” And Jude 1:20 says, “Building yourselves up in your most holy faith . . .” I think it’s right to say that building up refers to building up a person’s faith — that is, faith in Christ, making it stronger, more durable.
Christ at the Heart
What it boils down to is that Paul wants the church, the fellowship, the use of gifts, to be all about Christ — the trusted Christ. Spiritual gifts are to be done in love. Love builds up. Building up is the strengthening of faith. Faith is in Jesus Christ. That’s the issue, ultimately — it’s the centrality of the glory, the trustworthiness, the beauty, the worth of Christ trusted. Building up that trust, building up that treasuring, building up that love for Christ is the issue. Christ is honored when he’s trusted, treasured, and believed.
The right use of spiritual gifts is ultimately asking this question: Are you making much of yourself, or are you making much of Christ?
Now, here’s what makes 1 Corinthians 13 so provocative and so penetrating and surprising, right to the core of our motivation and whether Christ is at the heart of it: Paul doesn’t just say that the gift of tongues without love is a clanging cymbal and that the gift of prophecy and knowledge without love is nothing. He also says — and this is just so shocking — faith itself that removes mountains, if it does not have love, gains nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2). And even more amazing, you can even give your body to be burned (which certainly looks like love) and yet not have love, and gain nothing.
In other words, the very things that are supposed to be the measure of the right use of gifts — faith and love — can themselves masquerade as the real thing when they’re not. Here’s 1 Corinthians 13:2–3: “If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned [what can you do more loving than that?], but have not love, I gain nothing.”
Paul is so convinced of the deceptive power of sinful human nature that he feels the need to point out that there is a kind of love that sacrifices its own body and is not love, and there’s a kind of faith that can move a mountain and is not saving faith. You can sacrifice yourself in a self-exalting way — a way that’s not concerned with building anybody up, but rather to make much of your own self-sacrificing virtue. Yes, you can. How deceitful is our heart! And mark this: You can trust God to work a miracle, to show off your miracle-working faith, without any concern that the Christ-exalting faith of others be built up.
So, what 1 Corinthians comes down to is whether our lives, including the use of our spiritual gifts, are motivated by self-exaltation or Christ-exaltation.
