Edify

When you read the Bible through, you see things you don't notice a piece at a time. For example. in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, he follows the end of the Love Chapter ( ". . . the greatest of these is love.") with this from the start of chapter 14: "Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit. But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort."

After his great essay on love, Paul turns to spiritual gifts by saying, "You should want spiritual gifts because they will help you follow the way of love." If I want to be all those things Paul says love is in chapter 13, it will be easier for me if I have a spiritual gift. I need to think about that, because I'm one of those Calvinists who gets a little skittish at overt displays of the Spirit's power.

Then, it's interesting to note that Paul seems to be saying that prophecy is a better gift to have than speaking in tongues. I'm glad; speaking in tongues is exactly the kind of thing that makes me uneasy, although I can't dismiss it because he does say (v5), "I would like every one of you to speak in tongues . . ." 

Paul's reason is very simple: Prophesying helps everyone. Speaking in tongues (unless translated) is just between God and the speaker. 

The reason we have spiritual gifts is to edify (lift up, help, educate) fellow Christians. That makes sense if they're to help us love, because love is focused on others, not ourselves. 

That means a couple of things. First, since the purpose of our gifts is to edify the body, we have an obligation to use them whether we feel like it or not. Second, since the purpose of our gifts is to edify the body, there may be times the body doesn't need them, and our role is to be silent.

Both of those things can be hard, at times. That's probably why Paul spent so much ink explaining love to us before he got into it. Otherwise we might think the purpose of our gifts is to gain glory for ourselves. Or maybe I'm the only one who does that.