It has always seemed dubious proof to me. Anybody could reproduce that star – if they wanted to! And why would anyone do that? I ask. It is good butter, but I haven't thought of it as a top flavour or top brand-name above other butters. Butter is butter. One product is as good as any other. The mixtures, like Dairy Soft, don't claim to be pure butter.
Of course, there are some products on the market where the brand does matter. For instance, there are no-name "super-strength" wash-up detergents that require a super quantity of detergent to achieve the "super" results claimed in the name. The apparent savings are disappointing.
In chapter 12 Paul has set the teaching about spiritual gifts in the context of understanding that Christians together are the Body of Christ. The different parts of the human body have different attributes (gifts) which work together for the proper functioning of the body. So it is with the Body of Christ. Each member has received a spiritual gift. The different spiritual gifts contribute to complete the Body of Christ and the work God wants to do through us.
A human body could not function if there was selfish pride and disharmony among the members. Each part, endowed with a different ability, co-ordinated and directed by the head, completes the working of the body. And in the Body of Christ each gift is important. If you fail to recognise and exercise the gifts God has given you, the Body of Christ will be unable to function properly.
The Corinthian church had the opposite problem. It seems that every person not only laid claim to a spiritual gift but demanded the right to exercise it. To use an expression of a retired charismatic minister friend to describe two congregations where he had gone to help out, the Corinthian situation was "a charismatic mess".
This is why Paul moves from the gifts of the Spirit (a subject he will resume in chapter 14) to the fruit of the Spirit – to the first of that fruit which is love (Gal. 5.22-23).
The Corinthians were inclined to think of themselves as a better class of Christians, more authentic because of their many spiritual gifts. But Paul insists that the touch-stone of authenticity is love.
The Corinthians enjoyed eloquence. They admired oratory. And since becoming Christians, they were especially enthusiastic about the gift of tongues. Not all had this gift (12.30). But for those who did it was the means the Spirit used to bring special messages of exhortation and encouragement, at other times enabling them to pray and praise God. Paul values tongues along with the other spiritual gifts, but he says, "I may be able to speak the languages of human beings and even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell" (13.1). The gift is of no value without love.
Another notable gift is prophecy. It has been described as "the special ability and call which the sovereign Spirit gives to some members of the church to receive and proclaim inspired authoritative contemporary messages to the world, the church, or to individuals" (Bob Hillman, 27 Spiritual Gifts, pp. 25-26). In chapter 14, Paul clearly values it above the gift of tongues (14.1-6).
There were those too with a gift of knowledge – that special ability to understand and absorb the profound knowledge of the Word of God and to impart it to others.
We become Christians by exercising faith. Yet some people have a special gift of faith. It has been described as "the special facility which the Spirit of God gives to some Christians by which they are able to see (vision) with remarkable assurance strategies of ministry related to the purposes of God and to trust him until the vision is realised" (27 Spiritual Gifts, p. 95).
Paul has been writing about gifts from God – gifts the Holy Spirit gives – yet he goes on to say, "I may have the gift of inspired preaching (prophecy); I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains—but if I have no love, I am nothing" (v. 2).
For many their real and valued spiritual gifts are in the area of service. For some the words of Jesus have moved them very deeply – "I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me" Mt. 25.35-36). That speaks to all of us, yet some have a particularly strong passion to care for people, whoever they are. Yet Paul writes, "I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burnt— but if I have no love, this does me no good" (v. 3).
The authentic spiritual gift always springs from the heart of the divine Giver and reaches out in love. That is the mark of authenticity.
A group of children were asked to define love. Jill, aged 8, wrote, "Love is when you are sad and your dog comes along and licks you." Virginia, aged 9, said, "Love is comforting your puppy when there is a big storm outside and he is full of slobber." One little girl, however, came closer to capturing the true meaning of love, "When my little brother bites me, I don't bite him back. And that's what love means to me".
Paul writes that this is what authentic love is like: "Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up; and its faith, hope, and patience never fail" (vv. 4-7).
Listen to what John wrote in this first letter. (It is actually 1 John 3.16, which may make it easier to remember). "This is how we know what love is: Christ gave his life for us. We too, then, ought to give our lives for our brothers and sisters!"
True love is giving, sacrificial – reaching out with commitment and action for the sake of others.
A young man sent a love letter to his girlfriend. It read: "Darling, I'd climb the highest mountain, sail the widest ocean, cross the hottest desert just to see you. P.S. I'll be over on Saturday night if it doesn't rain." Something rather fickle about that love!
The spiritual gifts the Corinthian Christians valued so highly were for a purpose – for building up the Body of Christ. In God's time they would set aside, of no further value. The final enduring quality would be love.
God is love. He is the source, the origin of authentic love. Throughout the world, we see a quest for true love. That is because God has made us with a need and a hunger for love. He made us that way so that we could respond in love to him, and from that loving relationship love would flow out to other people.
This self-giving love that Paul writes about is no humanly-achievable ideal. It is the nature of God. It comes from God. It begins to be expressed through us as we come to him and receive the self-giving of his sacrifice for us in the cross of his Son Jesus Christ. That becomes the release-point of love to others about us.
It is for very good reason that Jesus said to us that the first commandment is that we "Love God…" It is in the love of God (his love for us and our responding love to him) that we are enabled truly to "Love our neighbour…" (Mt 22.37-40).