God has set some in the assembly: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracle workers, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, and various kinds of languages.
Parallel Translations
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God has set some in the assembly: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracle workers, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, and various kinds of languages.
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And God hath also ordeyned in the congregacion fyrst the Apostels secondarely prophetes thyrdly teachers then the that do miracles: after that the gyftes of healynge helpers governers diversite of tonges.
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And God hath ordained some in the Church: as first Apostles, secondly Prophetes, thirdly teachers, then them that doe miracles: after that, the giftes of healing, helpers, gouernours, diuersitie of tongues.
Cross-references (12)
Passages linked to 1 Corinthians 12:28 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Ephesians 4:11-13 He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, shepherds and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
- Romans 12:6-8 having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us: if prophecy, let’s prophesy according to the proportion of our faith; or service, let’s give ourselves to service; or he who teaches, to his teaching; or he who exhorts, to his exhorting; he who gives, let him do it with generosity; he who rules, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
- 1 Corinthians 12:18 But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body, just as he desired.
- 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the profit of all. For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, and to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; to another faith, by the same Spirit; and to another gifts of healings, by the same Spirit; and to another workings of miracles; and to another prophecy; and to another discerning of spirits; to another different kinds of languages; and to another the interpretation of languages. But the one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing to each one separately as he desires.
- 1 Timothy 5:17 Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and in teaching.
- Ephesians 2:20 being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone;
- Ephesians 3:5 which in other generations was not made known to the children of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit,
- Hebrews 13:24 Greet all of your leaders and all the saints. The Italians greet you.
- Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they watch on behalf of your souls, as those who will give account, that they may do this with joy, and not with groaning, for that would be unprofitable for you.
- Numbers 11:17 I will come down and talk with you there. I will take of the Spirit which is on you, and will put it on them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you don’t bear it yourself alone.
- Acts 20:28 Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood.
- 1 Peter 5:1-4 Therefore I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and who will also share in the glory that will be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, not for dishonest gain, but willingly; not as lording it over those entrusted to you, but making yourselves examples to the flock. When the chief Shepherd is revealed, you will receive the crown of glory that doesn’t fade away.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain He has in the beginning of the chapter spoken…
He has in the beginning of the chapter spoken of gifts: now he begins to treat of offices, and this order it is proper that we should carefully observe. For the Lord did not appoint ministers, without first endowing them with the requisite gifts, and qualifying them for discharging their duty. Hence we must infer, that those are fanatics, and actuated by an evil spirit, who intrude themselves into the Church, while destitute of the necessary qualifications, as many boast that they are under the influence of the Spirit, and glory in a secret call from God, while in the meantime they are unlearned and utterly ignorant. The natural order, on the other hand, is this — that gifts come before the office to be discharged. As, then, he has taught above, that everything that an individual has received from God, should be made subservient to the common good, so now he declares that offices are distributed in such a manner, that all may together, by united efforts, edify the Church, and each individual according to his measure.
28. First, Apostles He does not enumerate all the particular kinds, and there was no need of this, for he merely intended to bring forward some examples. In the fourth Chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, (Ephesians 4:11,) there is a fuller enumeration of the offices, that are required for the continued government of the Church. The reason of this I shall assign there, if the Lord shall permit me to advance so far, though even there he does not make mention of them all. As to the passage before us, we must observe, that of the offices which Paul makes mention of, some are perpetual, others temporary. Those that are perpetual, are such as are necessary for the government of the Church; those that are temporary, are such as were appointed at the beginning for the founding of the Church, and the raising up of Christ’s kingdom; and these, in a short time afterwards, ceased.
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To the first class belongs the office of Teacher, to the second the office of Apostle; for the Lord created the Apostles, that they might spread the gospel throughout the whole world, and he did not assign to each of them certain limits or parishes, but would have them, wherever they went, to discharge the office of ambassadors among all nations and languages. In this respect there is a difference between them and Pastors, who are, in a manner, tied to their particular churches. For the Pastor has not a commission to preach the gospel over the whole world, but to take care of the Church that has been committed to his charge. In his Epistle to the Ephesians he places Evangelists after the Apostles, but here he passes them over; for from the highest order, he passes immediately to Prophets
By this term he means, (in my opinion,) not those who were endowed with the gift of prophesying, but those who were endowed with a peculiar gift, not merely for interpreting Scripture, but also for applying it wisely for present use. My reason for thinking so is this, that he prefers prophecy to all other gifts, on the ground of its yielding more edification — a commendation that would not be applicable to the predicting of future events. Farther, when he describes the office of Prophet, or at least treats of what he ought principally to do, he says that he must devote himself to consolation, exhortation, and doctrine. Now these are things that are distinct from prophesyings. Let us, then, by Prophets in this passage understand, first of all, eminent interpreters of Scripture, and farther, persons who are endowed with no common wisdom and dexterity in taking a right view of the present necessity of the Church, that they may speak suitably to it, and in this way be, in a manner, ambassadors to communicate the divine will.
Between them and Teachers this difference may be pointed out, that the office of Teacher consists in taking care that sound doctrines be maintained and propagated, in order that the purity of religion may be kept up in the Church. At the same time, even this term is taken in different senses, and here perhaps it is used rather in the sense of Pastor, unless you prefer, it may be, to take it in a general way for all that are endowed with the gift of teaching, as in Acts 13:1, where also Luke conjoins them with Prophets. My reason for not agreeing with those who make the whole of the office of Prophet consist in the interpretation of Scripture, is this — that Paul restricts the number of those who ought to speak, to two or three; (1 Corinthians 14:29,) which would not accord with a bare interpretation of Scripture. In fine, my opinion is this — that the Prophets here spoken of are those who make known the will of God, by applying with dexterity and skill prophecies, threatenings, promises, and the whole doctrine of Scripture, to the present use of the Church. If any one is of a different opinion, I have no objection to his being so, and will not raise any quarrel on that account. For it is difficult to form a judgment as to gifts and offices of which the Church has been so long deprived, excepting only that there are some traces, or shadows of them still to be seen.
As to powers and gift of healings, I have spoken when commenting on the 12th Chapter of the Romans. Only it must be observed that here he makes mention, not so much of the gifts themselves, as of the administration of them. As the Apostle is here enumerating offices, I do not approve of what Chrysostom says, that ἀντιλήψεις, that is, helps or aids, consist in supporting the weak. What is it then? Undoubtedly, it is either an office, as well as gift, that was exercised in ancient times, but of which we have at this day no knowledge whatever; or it is connected with the office of Deacon, or in other words, the care of the poor; and this latter idea pleases me better. In Romans 12:7, he makes mention of two kinds of deacons. Of these I have treated when commenting upon that passage.
By Governments I understand Elders, who had the charge of discipline. For the primitive Church had its Senate, for the purpose of keeping the people in propriety of deportment, as Paul shows elsewhere, when he makes mention of two kinds of Presbyters. (1 Timothy 5:17.) Hence government consisted of those Presbyters who excelled others in gravity, experience, and authority.
Under different kinds of tongues he comprehends both the knowledge of languages, and the gift of interpretation. They were, however, two distinct gifts; because in some cases an individual spoke in different languages, and yet did not understand the language of the Church with which he had to do. This defect was supplied by interpreters.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He setteth forth the order of Elders, which were…
He setteth forth the order of Elders, which were the maintainers of the Church’s discipline.
The offices of Deacons.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 28 And God hath set some in the church,…
28 And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.
Ver. 28. Diversities of tongues] This comes in last, either to bid check to their pride, who gloried so much in their many languages; or because he meant to say more to it in the words following.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The apostle, Eph 4:11, seemeth to make a different…
The apostle, Eph 4:11, seemeth to make a different enumeration; there he saith: And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers. He mentioneth here only three of those there mentioned, viz. apostles, prophets, teachers. He reckoneth up there evangelists, whom be doth not here mention. He here first mentioneth apostles, by whom he meaneth those servants of God who were sent out by Christ to lay the first foundations of the gospel church, and upon whom a universal care lay over all the churches of Christ, having not only a power in all places to preach and administer the sacraments, but to give rules of order, and direct in matters of government; though particular churches had a power of government within themselves, otherwise the apostle would not have blamed this church for not casting out the incestuous person.
Prophets signify persons (as I have before noted) that revealed the mind and will of God to people, whether it were by an extraordinary impulse and revelations or in an ordinary course of teaching; whether they revealed things to come, or opened the mind and will of God already revealed. But in this text, and in Eph 4:11, prophets seem to signify, either such as from the Spirit of God foretold future contingencies, (such was Agabus, of whom we read in the Acts of the Apostles, and others in the primitive church), or else such as interpreted Scripture by extraordinary and immediate revelation. Some think that prophets signify the ordinary pastors of churches; but they seem rather to be comprehended under the next term of teachers, unless we had better grounds than we have to distinguish between pastors and teachers, making the work of the teacher to speak by way of doctrine and explication, and the work of the pastor to speak practically.
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Thirdly teachers: some by these understand governors of schools; others, such ministers whose work was only to expound the Scriptures, or the mysteries of salvation: but the apostle, in this enumeration, (which is the largest we have in Scripture), not mentioning pastors, it seemeth to me that he means the fixed and ordinary ministers of churches, or the elders, whom the apostles left in every city, which by their ministry had received the gospel.
After that miracles; after that such as he empowered to work miraculous operations, and those of more remarkable nature, for otherwise the healings next mentioned come under that notion also.
Then gifts of healings; then such persons as he gave a power to in an extraordinary way to heal the sick. Who the apostle means by helps, and by governments, is very hard to determine. Certain it is, that he doth not mean the civil magistrates; for the time was not yet come for kings to be nursing fathers, and queens nursing mothers to the gospel church. But whether he meaneth deacons, or widows, elsewhere mentioned, as helpful in the case of the poor, or some that assisted the pastors in the government of the church, or some that were extraordinary helps to the apostles in the first plantation of the church, is very hard to determine.
Diversities of tongues; such as spake with divers tongues, that faculty being a gift, as we heard before, not given to all, but to some in the primitive church. The apostle, by this enumeration, showeth what he meant by those diversities of gifts, differences of administrations, and diversities of operations, of which he spake in 1Co 12:4-6.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Our apostle having in the beginning of the chapter…
Our apostle having in the beginning of the chapter reckoned up the divers gifts which God had variously bestowed upon the church, here in the close of the chapter he reckons up the particular officers that he thought fit to place in his church.
1. Apostles; persons sent forth immediately by Christ, to lay the foundation of Christian churches, and upon whom the care of all the churches lay.
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2. Prophets; or persons immediately inspired with the knowledge of future things.
3. Teachers; such as labour in the word and doctrine, either as itinerary preachers, going from place to place, or as settled, fixed ministers in the church, expounding the scriptures to the people.
4. Miracles; that is, some persons endued with an extraordinary power to work miracles, for convincing infidels, and comfirming believers.
5. Gifts of healing; such persons as had a power conferred upon them to heal diseases, without the help of physic, in an extraordinary way.
6. Helps; deacons which took care of the poor, and assisted the church in the distribution of her charity; and also assisted in holy things, particularly in baptizing, and administering the Lord’s supper.
7. Governments; the rulers of the church and spiritual guides.
8. Diversities of tongues; that is, persons enabled to speak divers languages, in order to the farther spreading of the gospel without the help of study.
Behold here the wisdom of God in this various distribution of gifts and offices in his church: all which, as they are designed by him, so ought they to be managed by her, for the general good of the whole, without either pride or haughtiness on the one hand, or envy and emulation on the other.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And God hath set some in the church,.... As…
And God hath set some in the church,.... As before the apostle gives an account of the various different gifts of the Spirit, qualifying men for service in the church of Christ, here he enumerates the several offices and officers:
first apostles; as were the twelve disciples, and Paul the apostle; men that were immediately sent by Christ himself, and had their commission and doctrine directly from him; and a power of working miracles, to confirm the truth of their mission and ministry; they were sent into all the world to preach the Gospel, to plant churches everywhere, and to ordain officers in them; they were not confined to any particular church, but had power and authority in all the churches, to preach the word, administer ordinances, advise, counsel, direct, reprove, and censure:
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secondarily, prophets; who either had the gift of foretelling things to come, as Agabus and others; or who had a peculiar gift, by divine revelation, of explaining the prophecies of the sacred writings, and of preaching the Gospel:
thirdly, teachers; the same with pastors, elders, and overseers; the ordinary ministers of the word, who have a gift of expounding the Scriptures; not by extraordinary revelation, but by the ordinary gift of the Spirit, in the use of means, as reading, meditation, and prayer; and whose work is to preach the word, administer ordinances, feed and govern particular churches, over whom they are set: after that miracles; which is to be understood, not of some persons, as distinct from apostles, prophets, and teachers, who also had the power of working miracles; but from persons and officers in the church, the principal of which the apostle had mentioned, he passes to things, which belonged at least to some of them; unless it can be thought that there were in those times private Christians, who were neither apostles nor prophets, nor teachers, and yet had a power of doing miracles:
then gifts of healing; the sick, by anointing them with oil, which was only one species of doing miracles; and which was sometimes performed, not only by apostles, and such like extraordinary persons, but by the common elders and ordinary officers of the church:
helps: meaning either the ministers of the word in common, who are helpers of the faith and joy of the saints, and are means of increasing their knowledge and spiritual experience, and of establishing them in the truth; see Act 18:27 or else such evangelists and ministers of the word as were assistants to the apostles, such as Mark, and Timothy, and Titus; or rather the deacons of churches, whose business it is to take care of tables; the Lord's table, the minister's, and the poor's, and all the secular affairs of the church; and so are helps to the minister, relieve him, and free him from all worldly concerns, that he may the better attend to prayer, and the ministry of the word. These, whether one or the other, are so called, in allusion to the priests and Levites, who were "helps", or assistants to the high priest, in the burning of the red heifer, and in other things (h):
governments; some by these understand the same with pastors and elders, who have the rule and government of the church; others lay elders, a sort of ruling elders in the church, as distinct from pastors. Dr. Lightfoot thinks such are intended, who had the gift of discerning spirits. I rather think with De Dieu, that the word designs counsellors; see the Septuagint in Pro 11:14 and here intends such as are men of wisdom and prudence, who are very proper persons to be consulted and advised with, by the pastor, elder, or overseer, in matters of moment and importance in the church:
diversities of tongues; such as have the gift of speaking with divers tongues; or of interpreting them, or both. The Vulgate Latin version and some copies add, "interpretations of tongues".
(h) Misn. Middot, c. 1. sect. 3. & Parah, c. 3. sect. 6.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain First apostles - Who plant the gospel in the…
First apostles - Who plant the gospel in the heathen nations. Secondly prophets - Who either foretel things to come, or speak by extra-ordinary inspiration, for the edification of the church. Thirdly teachers - Who precede even those that work miracles. Under prophets and teachers are comprised evangelists and pastors, Eph. iv, 11. Helps, governments - It does not appear that these mean distinct offices: rather, any persons might be called helps, from a peculiar dexterity in helping the distressed; and governments, from a peculiar talent for governing or presiding in assemblies.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 28. God hath set some in the Church]…
Verse 28. God hath set some in the Church] As God has made evident distinctions among the members of the human body, so that some occupy a more eminent place than others, so has he in the Church. And to prove this, the apostle numerates the principal offices, and in the order in which they should stand.
First, apostles] αποστολους, from απο from, and στελλο I send; to send from one person to another, and from one place to another. Persons immediately designated by Christ, and sent by him to preach the Gospel to all mankind.
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Secondarily, prophets] προφητας, from προ, before, and φημι, I speak; a person who, under Divine inspiration, predicts future events; but the word is often applied to these who preach the Gospel. See note on 1Co 12:8.
Thirdly, teachers] διδασκαλους, from διδασκω, I teach; persons whose chief business it was to instruct the people in the elements of the Christian religion, and their duty to each other. See Clarke on Ro 8:8.
Miracles] δυναμεις. Persons endued with miraculous gifts, such as those mentioned Mar 16:17, Mar 16:18; casting out devils, speaking with new tongues, c. See note on 1Co 12:8, and at the end of the chapter. 1Co 12:31 (note)
Gifts of healings] χαρισματα ιαματων. Such as laying hands upon the sick, and healing them, Mr 16:18 which, as being one of the most beneficent miraculous powers, was most frequently conceded. See note on 1Co 12:8.
Helps] αντιληψεις. Dr. Lightfoot conjectures that these were the apostles' helpers; persons who accompanied them, baptized those who were converted by them, and were sent by them to such places as they could not attend to, being otherwise employed.
The Levites are termed by the Talmudists helps of the priests. The word occurs Lu 1:54; Ro 8:26.
Governments] κυβερνησεις. Dr. Lightfoot contends that this word does not refer to the power of ruling, but to the case of a person endued with a deep and comprehensive mind, who is profoundly wise and prudent; and he thinks that it implies the same as discernment of spirits, 1Co 12:8, where see the note. He has given several proofs of this use of the word in the Septuagint.
Diversities of tongues.] γενη γλωσσων. Kinds of tongues; that is, different kinds. The power to speak, on all necessary occasions, languages which they had not learned. See note on 1Co 12:8.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 1Co 12:28-31. And God hath set in the church…
1Co 12:28-31. And God hath set in the church first apostles — Who planted the gospel in the heathen nations, being honoured with an office of the highest distinction, and furnished with endowments peculiar to themselves; secondly, prophets — Who either foretold things to come, or spake by extraordinary inspiration for the edification of the church; thirdly, teachers — Of an inferior class. Under prophets and teachers, are comprised evangelists and pastors. After that, miracles — Persons endowed on some particular occasions with miraculous powers; then gifts of healing — Diseases, by anointing the sick with oil, and praying for their recovery: the expression denotes the persons who possessed these gifts. Helps — Or helpers, who, speaking by inspiration to the edification of the church, were fitted to assist the superior officers, and to help the faith and joy of others. Governments — Or governors, the thing performed, as in the former clause, being put for the persons who performed it. The word κυβερνησεις, is properly the steering of a ship with skill by a pilot; and seems to be put here metaphorically for persons directing or managing affairs with judgment. It does not appear, however, that these two last expressions were intended by the apostle to signify distinct offices. Rather any persons might be called helps or helpers, from a particular dexterity in helping the distressed; and governors or governments, from a peculiar talent for governing or presiding in assemblies. Are all the members or ministers of the church apostles, &c. — Seeing God has not given all sorts of gifts to one, but some to one, and others to another, that each one might stand in need of the others; therefore let none despise another, but all join together in employing their gifts for the common good of the church. But covet earnestly the best gifts — For they are well worth your desire and pursuit, though but few of you can attain them; and yet I show you a more excellent way — I point out unto you a more excellent gift than any or all of them, and one which all may, yea, must attain, or perish.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain And God hath set - That is, has appointed,…
And God hath set - That is, has appointed, constituted, ordained. He has established these various orders or ranks in the church. The apostle, having illustrated the main idea that God had conferred various endowments on the members of the church, proceeds here to specify particularly what he meant, and to refer more directly to the various ranks which existed in the church.
Some in the church - The word “some,” in this place ὅυς hous, seems to mean rather whom, “and whom God hath placed in the church,” or, they whom God hath constituted in the church in the manner above mentioned are, first, apostles, etc.
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First, apostles - In the first rank or order; or as superior in honor and in office. He has given them the highest authority in the church; he has more signally endowed them and qualified them than he has others.
Secondarily, prophets - As second in regard to endowments and importance. For the meaning of the word “prophets,” see the note on Rom 12:6.
Thirdly, teachers - As occupying the third station in point of importance and valuable endowments. On the meaning of this word, and the nature of this office, see the note on Rom 12:7.
After that, miracles - Power. (δυνάμεις dunameis). Those who had the power of working miracles; referred to in 1Co 12:10.
Then gifts of healing - The power of healing those who were sick; see note on 1Co 12:9; compare Jam 5:14-15.
Helps - (ἀντιλήμψεις antilēmpseis). This word occurs no where else in the New Testament. It is derived from ἀντιλαμβάνω antilambanō, and denotes properly, “aid, assistance, help;” and then those who render aid, assistance, or help; helpers. Who they were is not known. They might have been those to whom was entrusted the care of the poor, and the sick, and strangers, widows, and orphans, etc.; that is, those who performed the office of deacons. Or they may have been those who attended on the apostles to aid them in their work, such as Paul refers to in Rom 16:3. “Greet Priscilla, and Aquilla, my “helpers” in Christ Jesus;” and in 1Co 12:9,” Salute Urbane our helper in Christ;” see note on Rom 16:3. It is not possible, perhaps, to determine the precise meaning of the word, or the nature of the office which they discharged; but the word means, in general, those who in any way aided or rendered assistance in the church, and may refer to the temporal affairs of the church, to the care of the poor, the distribution of charity and alms, or to the instruction of the ignorant, or to aid rendered directly to the apostles. There is no evidence that it refers to a distinct and “permanent” office in the church; but may refer to aid rendered by any class in any way. Probably many persons were profitably and usefully employed in various ways as aids in promoting the temporal or spiritual welfare of the church.
Governments - (κυβερνήσεις kubernēseis). This word is derived from κυβεριάω kuberiaō, “to govern;” and is usually applied to the government or “steering” of a ship. The word occurs no where else in the New Testament, though the word κυβερνήτης kubernētēs (“governor”) occurs in Act 27:11, rendered “master,” and in Rev 18:17, rendered “shipmaster.” It is not easy to determine what particular office or function is here intended. Doddridge, in accordance with Amyraut, supposes that distinct offices may not be here referred to, but that the same persons may be denoted in these expressions as being distinguished in various ways; that is, that the same persons were called helpers in reference to their skill in aiding those who were in distress, and governments in regard to their talent for doing business, and their ability in presiding in councils for deliberation, and in directing the affairs of the church.
There is no reason to think that the terms here used referred to permanent and established ranks and orders in the ministry and in the church; or in permanent offices which were to continue to all times as an essential part of its organization. It is certain that the “order” of “apostles” has ceased, and also the “order” of “miracles,” and the order of “healings,” and of “diversity of tongues.” And it is certain that in the use of these terms of office, the apostle does not affirm that they would be permanent, and essential to the very existence of the church; and from the passage before us, therefore, it cannot be argued that there was to be an order of men in the church who were to be called “helps,” or “governments.” The truth probably was, that the circumstances of the primitive churches required the aid of many persons in various capacities which might not be needful or proper in other times and circumstances.
Whether, therefore, this is to be regarded as a permanent arrangement that there should be “governments” in the church, or an order of men entrusted with the sole office of governing, is to be learned not from this passage, but from other parts of the New Testament. Lightfoot contends that the word which is used here and translated “governments” does not refer to the power of ruling, but to a person endued with a deep and comprehensive mind, one who is wise and prudent; and in this view Mesheim, Macknight, and Horsley coincide. Calvin refers it to the elders to whom the exercise of discipline was entrusted. Grotius understands it of the pastors Eph 4:1, or of the elders who presided over particular churches; Rom 12:8. Locke supposes that they were the same as those who had the power of discerning spirits. The simple idea, however, is that of ruling, or exercising government; but whether this refers to a permanent office, or to the fact that some were specially qualified by their wisdom and prudence, and in virtue of this usually regulated or directed the affairs of the church by giving counsel, etc., or whether they were “selected” and appointed for this purpose for a time; or whether it refers to the same persons who might also have exercised other functions, and this in addition, cannot be determined from the passage before us. All that is clear is, that there were those who administered government in the church. But the passage does not determine the form, or manner; nor does it prove - whatever may be true - that such an office was to be permanent in the church.
(There can be little doubt that the κυβερνησεις kubernēseis, or governments, refer to offices of rule and authority in the church. Two things, therefore, are plain from this text:
1. That in the primitive church there were rulers distinct from the people or church members, to whom these were bound to yield obedience.
2. That these rulers were appointed of God. “God set them in the church.” As to the question of “permanence,” on which our author thinks this passage affirms nothing: a distinction must be made between these offices which were obviously of an extraordinary kind, and which therefore must cease; and those of an ordinary kind, which are essential to the edification of the church in all ages. “The universal commission which the apostles received from their Master to make disciples of all nations, could not be permanent as to the extent of it, because it was their practice to ordain elders in every city, and because the course of human affairs required, that after Christianity was established, the teachers of it should officiate in particular places. The infallible guidance of the Spirit was not promised in the same measure to succeeding teachers. But being, in their case, vouched by the power of working miracles, it directed the Christians of their day, to submit implicitly to their injunctions and directions; and it warrants the Christian world, in all ages, to receive with entire confidence, that system of faith and morality which they were authorised to deliver in the name of Christ. But as all protestants hold that this system was completed when the canon of scripture was closed - it is admitted by them, that a great part of the apostolical powers ceased with those to whom Jesus first committed them.
Amongst the “ordinary” functions belonging to their office as teachers, are to be ranked not only preaching the word, and dispensing the sacraments, but also that rule and government over Christians as such, which is implied in the idea of the church as a society” - Hill’s Lectures, vol. ii, p. 479. Now, though these extraordinary offices and functions have ceased with the age of the apostles, and of miraculous influence; it by no means follows, that the ordinary offices of teaching and ruling have ceased also. What was plainly of a “peculiar kind,” and could not possibly be “imitated” after the withdrawment of miraculous power, is quite distinct from that which, not depending on such power, is suited to the condition of the church always. Proceeding on any other principle, we should find it impossible to argue at all on what ought to be the constitution of the church, from any hints we find in the New Testament. What is extraordinary cannot be permanent, but what is ordinary must be so. See the supplementary note on 1Co 5:4.)
Diversities of tongues - Those endowed with the power of speaking various languages; see the note on 1Co 12:10.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain First apostles, &c. Here he sets down these gifts…
First apostles, &c. Here he sets down these gifts or graces in their order of dignity. 1. The apostles, blessed above others with all kinds of graces. 2. Prophets, who had the gift of interpreting of prophecies, and of knowing things to come. 3. Doctors, or teachers of the gospel, preferred before those who had the gift of miracles, or of healing the infirm, and before the gifts of tongues, which they valued and esteemed so much, which he reckons in a manner in the last place, except that of interpreting, which is wanting in the present Greek copies. But as interpreting is found in all the Greek manuscripts (ver. 30.) we have reason to prefer the reading of the Latin Vulgate. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain set . . . in the church--as He has…
set . . . in the church--as He has "set the members . . . in the body" (Co1 12:18).
first apostles--above even the prophets. Not merely the Twelve, but others are so called, for example, Barnabas, &c. (Rom 16:7).
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teachers--who taught, for the most part, truths already revealed; whereas the prophets made new revelations and spoke all their prophesyings under the Spirit's influence. As the teachers had the "word of knowledge," so the prophets "the word of wisdom" (Co1 12:8). Under "teachers" are included "evangelists and pastors."
miracles--literally, "powers" (Co1 12:10): ranked below "teachers," as the function of teaching is more edifying, though less dazzling than working miracles.
helps, governments--lower and higher departments of "ministrations" (Co1 12:5); as instances of the former, deacons whose office it was to help in the relief of the poor, and in baptizing and preaching, subordinate to higher ministers (Act 6:1-10; Act 8:5-17); also, others who helped with their time and means, in the Lord's cause (compare Co1 13:13; Num 11:17). The Americans similarly use "helps" for "helpers." And, as instances of the latter, presbyters, or bishops, whose office it was to govern the Church (Ti1 5:17; Heb 13:17, Heb 13:24). These officers, though now ordinary and permanent, were originally specially endowed with the Spirit for their office, whence they are here classified with other functions of an inspired character. Government (literally, "guiding the helm" of affairs), as being occupied with external things, notwithstanding the outward status it gives, is ranked by the Spirit with the lower functions. Compare "He that giveth" (answering to "helps")--"he that ruleth" (answering to "governments") (Rom 12:8). Translate, literally, "Helpings, governings" [ALFORD].
diversities of tongues-- (Co1 12:10). "Divers kinds of tongues."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 28. God hath set—As all are inspired from one…
28. God hath set—As all are inspired from one Spirit, (1Co_12:1-13,) so all are set by God.
First—Paul traces the first three in order of rank, the remainder miscellaneously.
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Apostles—Men who had seen Christ, like the twelve (note on Luk_1:2) and like Paul, who were personally commissioned by him, and endowed with plenary powers.
Prophets— Note 1Co_5:10.
Teachers—Perhaps catechists. Note Luk_1:4. Persons, like Luke himself, profoundly interested in the Christian history, and qualified to educate the young Christian in its first principles. Notes on Luk_1:1-4.
Miracles—Paul now leaves the officials and takes up the gifts that were not confined to ranks but distributed miscellaneously.
Healings—Note on 1Co_12:9.
Helps— Assistants or aids to official men in the subordinate parts of their duties; as deacons and curates. Something like this Mark, Timothy, and Titus were to Paul in his travels.
Governments—Superintendents over any department; such are stewards and class leaders in John Wesley’s system.
Tongues— Though an order of rank is not, probably, extended through the whole list, yet as apostles are placed first, as if in honour, so tongues are placed last, probably as least.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 28. God hath set] Literally, placed, i.e. when He…
28. God hath set] Literally, placed, i.e. when He founded the Church. See 1Co_12:18, of which this is the application.
first apostles] The Apostles, the founders and rulers of the Church, were first placed in their responsible office. St Mat_10:1; St Mar_3:13-14; Mar_6:7; St Luk_9:1. The call of other disciples to a less responsible post is recorded in St Luk_10:1. Cf. also Eph_4:11.
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secondarily prophets] Secondarily, i.e. in the second rank in the Church. It may however be translated secondly. Prophets were those who by special gifts of inspiration (see ch. 1Co_14:1, and note) enlightened the Church on the mysteries of the faith.
thirdly teachers] Those who with more ordinary gifts, by the exercise of the reason and judgment, expounded the oracles of God. St Chrysostom remarks that they taught with less authority than the prophets, because what they said was more their own, and less directly from God.
miracles] Literally, powers, or faculties (virtutes, Vulgate). See note on ch. 1Co_1:18. Here it no doubt includes miracles. See ch. 1Co_4:19-20, 1Co_5:4 and notes.
helps] Helpyngis, Wiclif; helpers, Tyndale. The best commentators are agreed in explaining this to mean the assistance of various kinds which Christians are able to render to each other, such as succouring the needy, tending the sick, teaching the ignorant, and the like. See Act_20:35, where the verb from which this word is derived is rendered support (i.e. ‘the weak’). Stanley, however, would regard it as supplying the omission of words which occur in the similar list in 1Co_12:9-10, and refer it to the help given to him who speaks with tongues by interpretation. See 1Co_12:30.
governments] Governailis, Wiclif; governors, Tyndale; gubernationes, Vulgate. This would naturally mean the powers which fit a man for the higher positions in the Church. But Stanley (1) for the reason above assigned, as well as (2) from its position and (3) from the fact that it is employed in the Septuagint (Pro_1:5; Pro_11:14; Pro_20:18; Pro_24:6), as the rendering of a Hebrew word signifying wise foresight, would refer it to the discerning of spirits. But the Hebrew word is derived from a word signifying a rope, and the proper signification of the word, as of the word here used, is the steersman’s art, the art of guiding aright the vessel of Church or State.
diversities of tongues] See note on 1Co_12:10. “Seest thou where he hath set this gift, and how he everywhere assigns it the last rank?”—St Chrysostom.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Hath set; rather, appointed. First apostles. Apart from the…
Hath set; rather, appointed. First apostles. Apart from the twelve (Luk_6:13) and Paul and Barnabas, the name was in a lower sense extended to leading and eminent Christians, especially to those who had taken part in founding or ruling Churches. (Rom_16:7) Prophets. Wise spiritual preachers. It is instructive to note that St. Paul places the gifts of wisdom and knowledge which these preachers require above those which we are apt to regard as exclusively miraculous. The "wonders" stood in a lower, not in a higher, position when compared with the ordinary gifts of grace. Teachers. Those who have the minor gifts of instruction and exposition. (Act_13:1) Helps. All the services rendered by the power of active sympathy; by the work of deacons, sisters of mercy. (Act_6:3, Act_6:4) The word occurs in RAPC 2Ma 8:19; Ecc 11:12, and the corresponding verb in Act_20:35; 1Ti_6:2; Luk_1:54; see Rom_16:3. Governments. Powers of leading and organization. Diversities (kinds) of tongues. Ranked as last in value. They are emotional gifts, which had only a very subordinate part in the work of edification, and are, therefore, placed below the gifts of knowledge, of power, and of practical life, which sum up the previous enumeration.
First apostles.
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There are degrees of eminence, not only in the state, but in the Church. In the hierarchy which Heaven has appointed, the highest station was occupied by a class of men, few in number, eminent in qualifications, and honourable in office. Their functions were special, being in some particulars incapable of transmission to successors. In what did this preeminence consist? The answer to this question may serve to increase the reverence with which we receive their teaching and submit to their authority.
I THE PRE-EMINENCE OF THE APOSTLES IS OWING TO THE DIGNITY AND MAJESTY OF THE LORD WHO GAVE AND SENT THEM. Christ himself was sent, and came forth from God. He had "all power in heaven and in earth," and he had consequently authority to commission the twelve and those associated with them. There was an authority in his word sending them forth, which they at once recognized and obeyed.
II TO THE PURPOSES FOR WHICH THEY WERE SENT. Their mission was to preach Christ, to make converts, to gather those converts together into societies, to govern and administer the affairs of the congregations, to provide instruction in doctrine by speech and by writing, and to make provision for the permanent welfare of the whole Church. Such a mission was in many respects peculiar and unique; those entrusted with it could not but come first in the hierarchy.
III TO THE POWERS WITH WHICH THEY WERE ENTRUSTED. To their natural gifts spiritual endowments were added; and over and above these were the supernatural possessions and trusts peculiar to their age, such as the gifts of tongues, of miracles, of healing, etc. Above all there was Divine inspiration, displayed in their supernatural wisdom both in doctrine and in government. From the day of Pentecost these men were entrusted with every high and sacred qualification which could tend to the suitable discharge of the honourable and responsible duties of the apostolate.
IV TO THE BREADTH OF THEIR COMMISSION. Though so few, they may be said to have portioned the world among them. They were sent to neighbours and to strangers, to Jews and to Gentiles, to cities and to villages, to the civilized and to barbarians. To a commission so vast and extensive there attached honour altogether special and unrivalled.
V TO THE WONDERFUL RESULTS OF THEIR APOSTOLIC LABOURS. The immediate and rapid spread of the gospel was such as could not have been anticipated by human wisdom, and such as has not been paralleled in after ages. They laid the foundations upon which the toilers and builders of after ages have reared a glorious superstructure.
APPLICATION.
1. Let hearers of the gospel consider the claims upon them of such a message as that communicated by ambassadors so gloriously authenticated as were the apostles of the Lord.
2. Let those who labour for Christ feel the summons which is addressed to them by the spirit and the example of predecessors so illustrious and so efficient. T.
Vers. 28-30.
The order of offices in the Christian Church.
are set in the first place or rank, because they were called to their office by the Lord Jesus Christ himself; they had immediate personal knowledge of his life and character and teachings; and they were the actual founders and practical rulers and referees of the Church. Next come the "prophets," who were not persons merely endowed with the power of foretelling future events, but persons to whom direct revelations and communications from God came, and so were empowered to enlighten the Church upon the mysteries of the faith and upon the claims of duty. Compare the older Jewish prophets as directly inspired teachers. Then "teachers," regarded as those with ordinary powers of intellect, and the natural gifts of instructing others, who educated and trained the Church in Christian doctrine. After that "miracles," or the power of working miracles. This is set on a new and lower range, perhaps, because only exercised occasionally, and so not comparing with the more regular and orderly arrangements for the Church"s culture. "Miracles" are distinguished from" gifts of healings," which we are to suppose were traceable to personal power on nervous systems, of which there seem to be modern instances. "Helps" may refer to such minor services as succouring the needy, tending the sick, etc. What the apostle meant by "governments" is very difficult to decide. Stanley thinks that reference is intended to the faculty otherwise known as "discerning of spirits." The word used, however, means "guiding the helm of affairs," and reference may be to those officers who managed, or ruled, the temporal affairs of the Church, and answered, in some measure, to the elders, or rulers, of the synagogue. "Tongues" St. Paul puts last; for, from other passages, we know that he did not greatly value the mere power to express Christian feeling in ecstatic and incomprehensible language, or in some foreign and unknown tongue. He thought that it could bear a very feeble relation to the Church"s edification unless it were properly interpreted. St. Paul constantly urges the variety of the gifts entrusted to the Church, and the common honourableness of them all; but he as earnestly impresses upon us that, from the human standpoint, and in view of the preservation of order and efficiency in Church relations, the gifts must set men in different positions, and bring on them different forms and degrees of responsibility. Three things may be unfolded.
I SOME GIFTS NECESSITATE POSITIONS OF AUTHORITY. The man of gifts, as an apostle or as a ruler, can only use his gifts in offices of authority. So now a man may have the gift of organizing or of managing men, or the gift of mastership and business; then such men we must all be willing to set in the high places.
II OTHER GIFTS AS TRULY NECESSITATE POSITIONS OF DEPENDENCE. They are gifts of dependence and service. They can only be put to use in lowly places. Those having them can only be faithful in what men may call lesser places. Ambition in men is limited by their gifts. A right ambition leads a man to press for the position in which he can use his gifts. A wrong ambition sets a man upon seeking offices and positions for which he has no gifts.
III EVERY MAN IN THE CHURCH OF CHRIST SHOULD HAVE HIS OFFICE BY VIRTUE OF HIS GIFTS, AND NOT OF HIS CLAIMS OR OF HIS AMBITIONS, The true idea of selection for office is the discovery of the men among us with the gifts related to the office. The injury of the Church comes by the pressing of men into offices upon other than this ground. God provides the fitted ones; we too often fail to wait on him for the right men, and foolishly fill Church offices on other than Divine grounds. The inquiry for each one to put to himself is first this: "What are the gifts entrusted to me?" And then this: "What is the sphere in which I may find exercise for these gifts?" The most honourable place that any man can occupy is that which is precisely fitted to his gifts, whether to man"s view it seem to be lowly or seem to be high. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain And God hath set some in the Church, first…
1Co_12:28-31
And God hath set some in the Church, first apostles.
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Help-work
The words which I have taken as my text occupy, you will remember, a somewhat exceptional position. They occur in the midst of what seems at first a systematic classification of gifts in the apostolic Church and the functions resting on those gifts: they come in between gifts of healing and diversities of tongues. The two terms do not meet us elsewhere in the writings of the New Testament. It is open to us, under the view of interpreters, to identify them respectively with the offices of the deacons, and bishops, and elders of the Church; but it is also open to us to believe that the terms occur to St. Pauls mind as covering, each of them, a special class of supernatural gifts, or of natural gifts purified and illumined by the higher gifts, of the course of which the diaconate and presbyterate were indeed the representative exponents, but which were to be found also in those who are not called to either of those special functions. Every member of that Church which the Eternal Spirit governs and sanctifies has a vocation. The history of the word which we render helps sufficiently explains its meaning--to lay hold as with a firm and loving hand on one who totters and stumbles and is on the point of falling. That is its sense as I find it in an old lexicon. In that sense it meets us in the words St. Paul addressed to the ministers of Ephesus when he bids them so minister that they may support the weak, a sufficient proof, I take it, that we may not limit the word to the function of the diaconate, As in every grace, so in this; what from one point of view is a special gift of God is from another the development of a natural capacity, and with the capacity there is a natural delight in its exercise. The wild flower, which on the wayside might have been withered by the parching winds or degenerated into a weed, is transplanted into the paradise of the great Gardener, and watered by the dew of His blessing and fostered by the warmth of the eternal sunshine of His love it becomes a goodly flower, bright in its varied hues and fragrant as the spices of Lebanon. The observer of the child nature will tell you, from experience well confirmed, that there are few children in whom this desire to help is not, in a greater or less measure, a motive spring of action. They delight in their little gifts: little ministries and services to parents, to brothers, sisters, friends, and teachers. All they seek is a recognition by Word or look, by loving glance or smile, that their service is appreciated. Their labour of love, however small it may be, is its own exceeding great reward. The next stage of life to most men is for the most part less favourable to the growth of the ministering spirit. The life of the public school, with its struggle for existence, its inevitable self-assertion, its competitive exercise. The boy has to learn to make a just estimate of his powers of body and mind, to assert his own rights, sometimes also to uphold the rights of others by fighting for them. It is well on the whole it should be so. To be weak is miserable, and strength of body, brain, and will, cannot be secured without collision. When these early years are over, and the boy passes into the man, it is at once right and wise to form a distinct plan. To yield to the passing impulse of the moment is to drift he knows not whither. What forms of help-work, then, are possible for those living, as you live, in the midst of tasks and duties? Of that which has seemed to some the chief, if not the exclusive meaning of the helps St. Paul speaks of, supporting the weak, in the sense of ministering to the sick, I do not suppose you have much experience or opportunities. That gift belongs more, on the whole, to women than to men, and your efforts at direct nursing might perhaps be clumsy and inefficient. For those who are without that special call for ministration, it may not be a bad training of their capacity for service to visit sometimes the wards of the hospital to read to the patients there, or talk with them, or better still, as meeting what is often a real want with the disabled poor, write letters for them to their friends. A more familiar and easy form of help given to the weak is found, I need hardly say, in the work of teaching the young. And then among the functions of true friendship there is that of helping the weak, not in body, but in mind and will. You may know one who has been dear to you as a brother, companion in sports or studies, who is infirm of purpose, drifting on the impulse of sin, on the waves of doubt. I know all too well the difficulty of that form of helping, the hindrances of shyness, reserve, self-distrust, which check the utterance of the faithful words that may avert the threatened evil. You fear to make matters worse, to lose your hold on affections which are as yet unstable only. Among the means of work those of helping those whom we call the poor hold, of course, a permanent place. Their lot is in the nature of the case for the most part a hard one, even if they have fallen in the struggle for existence through no fault of their own. More often, it may be, their lot is all the worse because it is made harder by their faults. Help in this case calls for the higher gift of government. Happily, in this instance, the guidance is not far to seek. Work in subordination to others, to the minister of a parish or to the society which by its very title undertakes to organise charity, supplies the missing link. To love all you can and to help all you can is the true way to the highest culture, and works out a higher spiritual completeness than any forms of aestheticism, asceticism, and shall I say athleticism, in which, according to mens character and temper, they too often seek for that completeness. I have dwelt chiefly upon the manifestation of the gift--the ἀντιλήψεις of which I have spoken. I must say something as to the source from which it springs, the source which is the secret of its permanence. One hears much of the religion of Humanity, of the altruism which they oppose alike to the ordinary self-consciousness of mankind and to the loving charity of the mind of Christ. That religion, it is said, supplies us with a sufficient motive for the love of sacrifice, if not what that sacrifice implies, the sacrifice of self. I believe no striving to serve is without its fruit, that in this life or in the life to come he who seeks shall find, that a man may learn faith by virtue, and that in due time faith may ripen with knowledge. I reverence the saints, even of Buddhism or of Islam, and still more those of the dark ages of Christendom, in whom I find that likeness of the future of Christianity. All the same, I hold it to be capable of proof that that likeness has never been so vivid and distinct as when it hath been a conscious reproduction of the Divine original, a true Imitatio Christi. (Dean Plumtre, D.D.)
Helps
1. It has been thought that these were assistant-ministers, or assistant-deacons, or deaconesses, or attendants, who took care that strangers were accommodated, and managed various details. But whoever they were, they were thought worthy to be mentioned with apostles, teachers, etc. Probably they had no official standing, but were the sort of brethren who can always stop a gap, and who are only too glad to make themselves serviceable in any capacity.
2. Bunyan has described that part of their work, which is most valuable. He describes Help as coming to Christian when he was in the Slough of Despond. When we were going through a pass in Northern Italy, we saw, some three or four miles from the top, a man with a spade, who came down and saluted us. By and by we came to deep snow, and the man cleared a footway, and when we came to a very ugly piece of road, he carried some of the party on his back. Ere long came one of his companions with refreshments. These men were helps, who spent their lives where their services would be requisite. They would have been worth nothing down in the plains. Helps are of no use to a man when he can help himself. And just as the Royal Humane Society keep their men along the borders of the lakes in the parks when the ice is forming, so a little knot of Christian people should always be ready in every church, to give assistance wherever it may be required. Let me--
I. Give a few directions to these helps. When you meet sinners in the Slough of Despond--
1. Get them to state their case. When Help went to Christian he said first, What are you doing there? How did you get there? I have found that the mere act of stating a difficulty has been the very means of at once removing it.
2. Enter, as much as lieth in you, into their case. Sympathy is a great power.
3. Comfort them with the promises. Help told Christian that there were good steps all the way through the mire. Now, you can point these poor sinking ones to the steps.
4. Instruct them more fully in the plan of salvation.
5. Tell them your own experience. Many have been able to get out of the Slough in this way. We have gone along the same road, and it would be very hard if we could not describe it.
6. Pray with them. When you cannot tell the sinner what you want to say, you can sometimes tell it to God in the sinners hearing. As certainly as the electric fluid bears the message from one place to another, and the laws of gravitation move the spheres, so certainly is prayer a mysterious but real power.
II. Describe those who can help. A true help must have--
1. A tender heart. There are some people who seem to be prepared by Divine grace on purpose to be soul-winners, just as there are some people who seem to be born nurses..
2. A quick eye. There is a way of getting the eye sensitively acute with regard to sinners.
3. Quick ears. When they have these they listen, and by and by they hear a splash, and though it may be very dark and misty, they go to the rescue.
4. Rapid feet.
5. A loving face. Cheerfulness commends itself, especially to a troubled heart.
6. A firm foot. If I have to pull a brother out of the Slough, I must know how to stand fast myself, or I may fall in. Full assurance is not necessary to salvation, but it is very necessary to your success as a helper of others.
7. A strong hand.
8. A bending back. You cannot pull them out if you stand bolt upright. It is said that the sermons of Augustine are in bad Latin, not because Augustine was not a good scholar, but because the dog-Latin of the day suited his turn best to get hold of men. That preaching is best which fisherwomen understand. But the dignity of the pulpit! says one. Well, the dignity of a war-chariot lies in the captives dragged at its wheels, and the dignity of the pulpit lies in the number of souls converted to God. You must condescend to men of low estate.
III. Incite helps to greater earnestness.
1. Souls want help. Is not that enough? The cry of misery is a sufficient argument for mercy.
2. Remember how you were helped yourselves when you were in a like condition. Repay the obligation.
3. Christ deserves it. The lost lamb out there is His lamb; will you not care for it? That sinner is your Saviours blood-bought one; he is a prodigal, but he is your Fathers son, and consequently your own brother.
4. You would not want any other argument, did you know how blessed the work is in itself. Would you acquire knowledge? grow in grace? shake off despondency? help others.
5. You are called to this work. Your Master has hired you; it is not for you to pick and choose. To-night, then, try to do some practical service for your Master. If you do not, you will probably get the rod for correction.
6. We are getting nearer heaven, and sinners are getting nearer hell. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Governments
The second of the two words which I have taken as including a large portion of the activities of human life for the good of others is even more directly figurative than the first. The seafaring life of the Greeks taught a race more gifted than most others with the power of interpreting the troubles of the world around them, and led them to see in the work of piloting the ship that which had its counterpart in the duties of those who were called to be rulers of mankind. Probably no similitude has taken so vast a hold on the minds of men as that which we find in the Republic of Plato, and in which he compares the democracy of his own time to an untrained crew in which every one thought that without any previous discipline he was competent to take the helm. He pictures the confusion which must ensue when men undertook that work without any knowledge of seas or sky, of stars or wind; how the man truly gifted with the power of steering would be despised and rejected as the demos of Athens despised and rejected the teachers of wisdom who gave them true counsels for their good. The thought of the word passed from Greece to Rome. The figurative meaning almost superseded the literal, and so became the Gubernator to Western Europe. I can scarcely doubt that one with St. Pauls experiences of perils by water, thrice shipwrecked, able to give wise counsel to master and mariners out of his own experience, would use the word with a full sense of the similitude under which it would be present in his thoughts. It was as familiar to him as the soldiers armour or the conflict for the prize and the training of the athlete. He paints Hymenaeus and Alexander as having made shipwreck concerning the faith. He warns men not to be carried about by every blast of false doctrine. Some men seem born with an innate capacity for this form of government in its most literal sense. They have the watchful eye, the ready hand, the sagacious forecast, which, working together, bring them to the haven where they would be. They need only to teach and to practise, and they rapidly become proficient. And passing from the literal to the figurative meaning, he saw that here also there was a gift of steersmanship, governments, as well as a governing power, which showed itself in helps. Discerning schoolmasters soon learn to see what boys are likely to take the lead among their fellows. They recognise in him one firm in purpose, ready to accept suggestions when they are reasonable, not shrinking from using his power when occasion calls for it. To most of you, of course, who are yet in the probationary stage of manhood, the opportunities of governing are few and far between. The influence of the young is for the most part, as I said, that of ministration. But not seldom, as your own experience or the history of the past may tell you, the one gift grows out of the other. The good subject ripens into the good ruler. Help leads to insight of character, and rubs off the angularities of temperament and self-assertion which impair the capacity for governing. That discipline where the capacity for ruling exists leads men on to the likeness of the ideal king, who reigns not for his own good but for that of his people, while without it the gift itself may degenerate into the pattern of the mob-ruling tyrant. We find this in the limits and the walks of duty which lie within your immediate reach. The teacher in the Sunday school develops into a professor of theology, or, as in two familiar instances, into the holder of one of our highest offices of state. The manager of the boys guild may become a faithful and wise steward in some wider organisation, in which he will give to every man his portion of meat in due season. You will stand face to face with some at least of the great problems of our times, the relations of capital and labour, the question of land tenure and the equitable division of its profits, the organisation of charity so that it may tend to elevate and not degrade, the problem how best to bridge over the chasm which yawns between the classes and the masses; these and other kindred inquiries can scarcely fail to meet you. It is easy, fatally easy, to ignore these problems, to follow the impulses of pleasure seeking, or of working for your own success. But England expects better things from you. You need to learn how to steer, to know the forces which are working around you, the currents and the drifts of thought which are sweeping over mens minds, the time when to spread your sails to the wind of public opinion and when to reef them, to discern the signs of the times, to free yourselves from the delusion of an unreal optimism or an equally unreal and far more perilous pessimism. And in close connection with these views of the gift of government there is a wide sphere of yet vaster questionings, which make the thinker, who is led to speculate, ponder on the course of the worlds history, the mystery of mans life and of Gods covenant, the wonders of our being, the origin of the evil which leaves its serpent trail alike in our individual lives and in the collective experience of mankind, the manner of the final victory over that evil. Here, also, the gift of steersmanship is needed. It is no voyage upon the summer sea on which the frail barque of the weak or untrained intellect may lightly launch. The thought comes to our minds that it is safer to stand on the shore and watch the surging waves from a position of security. The warnings may be unheeded, the impulses that sway the mind to look before and aft and muse upon many things are not easily repressed. All that we can attempt, with any hope of success, is to put before the inquirer the conditions of safe sailing in that vast sea of thought. We may tell him that there must be the temper of love and purity, for now as ever it is true that into a malicious soul peace will not enter, nor dwell in the body that is subject unto sin. There must be a recognition at once of the capacity and limitations of mans knowledge. The questioner must restrain himself to keep within the boundaries of the known or knowable. There must be reverence for the past in its strivings and aspirations and successes, the recognition of the increasing purposes which works throughout the ages, of the education of mankind in many varied manners and many different measures. The system of speculative thought in which the man thought to win his fellows to reach the desired haven may prove unseaworthy and founder in sight of shore. There may be with them in the ship, as in that night in the Adria, one whose prayer is mighty to prevail, to whom God has given the lives of his companions. Here, too, the highest form of the gift of government is that which has been rightly disciplined by the exercise of the earlier gifts of helps. Helps, governments. I return to the two words from which I started as embracing wide reasons of all human activity. Each of you, as you look within the depths of your own personality, or in the environment in which you live, may find in yourselves the germs of one of those--ἀντιλήψεις, κυβερνήσ--possibly not seldom of both of these germs. It is yours to quicken them into life, to train by exercise the talents which you have to keep, as those who shall give an account to the Master who has bestowed them upon you. For the faithful exercise of those gifts there is a sure reward of ever-widening opportunities. With the will to do that which is indeed Gods will, there will come a power sooner or later in this life, or behind the veil, to know the doctrine of the Christ, whether it be of God. (Dean Plumptre, D.D.)
Covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet show I unto you a more excellent way.
Holy covetousness
I. All Gods blessings are valuable. Amongst all His gifts there is nothing worthless. A breath of air, a drop of water, a beam of light, a crust of bread are incalculably valuable. Circumstances often occur in mens history when they feel their priceless worth.
II. Some of these blessings are more valuable than others.
1. Intellectual than material.
2. Moral than intellectual. Paul says without charity--love--we are nothing.
III. The most valuable of these blessings should be earnestly sought. To covet some of the minor blessings is a sin. But we are justified in coveting these best things, because--
1. There is no monopoly of them. Material good is limited. The more one has of it the less remains for others. But spiritual gifts are as free as air, as vast as immensity, as infinite as God.
2. The more one has of them the more generous he becomes. When a man gets into him this love, it burns up his selfishness and melts him into sympathy with the universe.
3. The more one has of them the more useful to the universe he becomes. The more he reflects God, the more light and happiness he pours forth on the creation. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
The best gifts to be coveted
Consider--
I. What some of the best gifts are.
1. Negatively.
(1) They are not those which are external to the souls nature, such as money, power, or reputation. A Christian man is not forbidden to seek these in the right way, and when gained they may be employed for high ends. Yet neither Paul nor his Master would number them among the best gifts.
(2) Nor are they all the gifts that touch our inward nature. Intellectual ability, taste, and culture are very precious, and Paul was far from despising them, yet he would be far from describing them as the best.
2. Positively. He points us to those gifts with which love is connected.
(1) In regard to God, reverence, humility, and trustfulness.
(2) In regard to man, candid and generous judgment, and sympathy.
(3) As regards ourselves, patience, contentment, courage, and fortitude.
(4) As to things around, temperance of chastened desire.
3. That we may be convinced of their superiority, let us see how these differ from others. They--
(1) Enter deepest into our nature. The outer things of the world can scarcely be said to enter into our nature at all, except when their abuse corrupts it. Intellect, culture, and ambition may go deeper, but can they reach the centre? If the spiritual nature is left uncared for, the mind is a very cheerless home for happiness. The value of the gifts of love in the soul is that they reach the centre where happiness lies. As they go deepest, they become the ruling power, and make all else that a man possesses a blessing to himself and others.
(2) Are the most lasting. We know how very quickly outward possessions may take their leave. And intellectual gains are not over secure. The stores of knowledge are in the keeping of a treacherous memory. More melancholy than the loss of empire is the saying of poor Swift, when reading one of his own works, What a glorious mind I had when I wrote that! But let a man have the gifts of a loving, patient, self-renouncing heart, and the rule is that they grow richer and mellower as life advances.
(3) Are most God-like. It is in a small degree that we can share Gods wisdom; in a still smaller degree His power. But he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him!
II. The frame of mind we are to cherish towards these gifts.
1. We are to covet them earnestly. The Corinthians were coveting each others place, honour, and talent. If, says Paul, you would only set your hearts on the right things, you may both desire and appropriate what belongs to your neighbour. Covet if you will, but let it be the gifts of charity and self-denial. Here the word ceases to have any sin in it. If we covet our neighbours material possessions, we shall desire to dispossess him. If we covet his intellectual gifts, there will be envy. But if we covet his loving spirit, we are yielding to him our deepest affection and reverence. We are not so much taking from as rendering to him, lighting our taper at his fire, and adding it to the flame. The word of prohibition in the law thus becomes a word of command in the gospel.
2. We are to covet these gifts earnestly, making growth in them a constant and supreme desire.
(1) Try to discover what is best in those around you and to rejoice in it. This is one way of making what is good in them your own without taking anything from them. It is a blessed work to go through the world trying to put men and things in the best light.
(2) You should mingle much with those who have it in large degree. It is very difficult to live long among selfish people without becoming like them. But there is an unselfish world: live in that.
Conclusion: In coveting earnestly the best gifts--
1. We can never harm any one, neither ourselves nor others. Is there aught else of which this can he said?
2. We are sure to gain them. Of what else can this be affirmed? (J. Ker, D.D.)
The Christian estimate of gifts
I. In themselves. The gifts of the Church of Corinth were bestowed according to Gods pleasure: they were divided to every man severally as He willed. They were profitable to others. They were not the highest perfection of human nature, for a man might have them and yet perish. So it is with ours. Consider--
1. What a gift is. It is that in which our main strength lies. One man is remarkable for intellectual, and another for moral qualifications. One is highly sensitive, and another unimpressionable. One has exquisite taste, and another, like the English, persevering and able to improve inventions. All Gods gifts are not sublime. You would all acknowledge prophecy to be a gift, but St. Paul says the humblest faculties are also gifts.
2. All these are gifts, sometimes we fancy they are not, because sad moralists remind us that these things are vain. Beauty is fleeting; strength is soon but labour and sorrow; the path of glory leads but to the grave. True, all these are transient; and because so, we are forbidden to set our hearts upon them; but still men covet them, and the apostle says it is right: God gave them: do you honour Him by despising them? They are good so long as they are desired in subservience to the greater good, but evil if they are put in the place of this.
3. They are to be earnestly cultivated. The world makes very little of charity; and religious men, perceiving the transcendent excellence of this grace, make very little of talents. Now, on the contrary, St. Paul prays that the whole soul, the natural man as well as the spirit, may be preserved blameless till the coming of Christ.
4. He allows a distinction--the best gifts. The same apostle who so earnestly urged contentment with the gifts we have, bids us yet to aspire. And just as St. Peter said, Add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge, etc, so would St. Paul have said, Add to your nobility of rank, nobleness of mind; to your strong constitution, health by exercise; to you memory, judgment; to your power of imitating, invention.
II. In comparison with graces. He who treads the brilliant road of the highest accomplishments is, as a man, inferior to him who treads the path of Love. For in the spiritual world a man is measured not by his genius, but by his likeness to God. (F. W. Robertson, M.A.)
Commanding gifts
These which were so highly valued by the Corinthians are now no longer found in the Church, but there are other endowments to which all may lawfully aspire, so long as they are not substituted for the more excellent way.
I. The power of popular address--the faculty of arresting attention and of exciting at will emotions of fear, hope, trust, joy, is indeed a commanding quality.
II. The literary gift--the ability to inform the understanding, direct the judgment, by means of the press.
III. The influence of a winsome manner, We meet with some, chiefly, though not exclusively, of the gentler sex, who, by the exercise of peculiar tact, charm, and grace, obtain access to rude and rugged hearts, which refused to yield to all ordinary influences. Conclusion:
1. It may be said that these are natural gifts, and do not depend on cultivation. But here the rule holds good, to him that hath shall be given. The man of moderate powers, by diligence rises above the expectations of his friends, while the man of genius often disappoints them.
2. The precept directs us to form a due estimate of the value, of these gifts, and our responsibility for the use of them, and cautions us not to depreciate or exaggerate gifts of which we have a very limited portion.
3. These gifts are not the essential characteristics of Christs kingdom; however slender may be our pretensions to the possession of any of them, we may all pursue the more excellent way. (W. Webster, M.A.)
The gifts of civilisation
I. Since every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of Lights, etc., St. Pauls language may be applied to the universal interests of human society.
1. The contrast has often struck observers between civilisation and Christianity. It is true that both have worked together; but in their aims and nature they are distinct, and may be opposed. And minds strongly under the influence of the one are apt to fear or shrink from the other. But no Christian can feel difficulty in believing that they both come from Him who has made man for this world, as well as intended him for another.
2. The world easily suggests very awful views of its own condition; but it would be far more dreadful if we must not see in its civilisation the leading and guiding hand of God. Nor should we be deterred from this because of its use, by luxury and pride, for impurity and wrong. The gifts at Corinth were foolishly and wrongly used.
3. Civilisation has indeed its dark side; there is much that is dreary and forbidding in the history of its growth; and who can look without anxiety at the dangers of its future? But its irreligious tendencies are not to be combated by simply decrying them. Let us look at the world as those who were put here to refuse the evil and choose the good.
(1) Follow the history of a great people, and consider what it brings forth. Observe the progressive refinement of human nature; how, as time goes on, men gain in power; how great moral habits strike their roots deep in a society--the sense of justice as justice, self-devoting enterprise, patriotism and public spirit. If nations have characteristic faults, there grow up in them characteristic virtues. Civilisation to us means liberty, a peaceful life, growing honour for manliness, unselfishness, sincerity.
(2) And it has disclosed to us in the course of its development more and more of what is contained in human characters and capacities. We are, in this age, drawing forth with amazement discoveries which seem to be inexhaustible from the treasure-house of material nature. Think of the great forms of history, so diversified, so unlike one to another, so unexpected in their traits. Think of what fiction, with all its abuses, has done for us; multiplying and unfolding for the general knowledge types which would otherwise have been lost where they grew up; think of its world of ideal histories, revealing to man himself. Think again what has been bestowed on man in the perfecting of language. Think of the way in which new faculties, as it were, spring up in us of seeing and feeling; how, by art, by poetry, our eyes are more and more opened to discern in new ways the wonders of the physical universe and their meaning. Count over all our great possessions. Shall we venture to say that all this does not come from the Source of all beauty and all wisdom and all light? And what He gives, it is for us to accept and improve. Covet earnestly the greater, the better gifts. This is indeed one side of the matter. But there is another and a higher.
II. Covet earnestly what would be to be most desired and followed, even if mans part ended here, but remember that there is a yet more excellent way. Above Gods greatest gifts is charity; for God is love.
1. It would still be true, even if this world were all, that this perfection of character is the highest achievement of human nature.
2. But this world, with all its wonderful results, is not all; we have a place in something wider and more lasting. We are sharers together in a great disaster, and in a great recovery, even now begun God so loved the world, etc. That by which He makes us to understand and draw near to Him is His love for us. Henceforth the world knows Him if it knows Him at all, in the Cross. The world never can be the same after that, as it was before it. It has brought a new spirit into the world, with a Divine prerogative of excellence, to which all other things excellent and admirable must yield the first place.
3. There is something else to be thought of besides civilisation. We are not necessarily growing better men, though we may be doing a great work when we are dispersing Gods manifold gifts of knowledge or ability. And what we are here for is, if anything, to become good; and goodness now means that spirit of love which joins man to man and lifts him to God. Side by side with our brilliant successes and hopes abide the conditions of our state--pain, moral evil, death. When a man enters into his closet and is still, and by himself looks in the face his awful destiny, he can hardly help feeling that the gifts of God for this life are for this life; they cannot reach beyond; they cannot touch that which is to be. As St. Paul argues, they are incomplete, transitory, and, compared with what we are to look for, but the playthings and exercises of children; they share our doom of mortality. One thing only never faileth. In the next world, as in this, it is by love that creatures receive and show forth the likeness of their Maker. Conclusion: God has placed us to develope our full nature here; but He has placed us here, we believe, still more to become like Himself. So, while learning to understand, value, and use the greatest endowments which the course of things has unfolded in human society, remember that there is a way for you to walk in which carries you far beyond them, and opens to you even wider prospects, more awful thoughts, a deeper train of ideas and relations and duties which touch us in what is most inward, to the very quick. We are sinners who have been saved by a God who loved us. (Dean Church.)
The best gifts
We begin in order with the counsel or exhortation, Covet earnestly, etc. Wherein again we have three particulars more. Thus I say are all those abilities which any in any kind whatsoever, or to any purpose, are endowed withal. This it is thus far useful to us, as it serves to engender all meekness and humility in us. So likewise further it holds well for the improvement and exercise of these gifts which God hath given us, that we be no niggards or restrainers of them, but good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Freely ye have received, freely give. The dignity and excellency of them may be briefly laid forth unto us in three particulars: First, from their original and conveyance, when we shall consider how we come by them, and how they are indeed transmitted unto us. Now if there were no more but this in it, there were very good reason certainly why we should a little look after them. But secondly, thats not all, theres a further ground for our embracing them besides, and that is by considering them substantially, what they are in their own nature, and that impression which they leave upon the subject in which they are: these gifts if we do but consider them in themselves, they are very amiable and lovely, and so make those persons further to be who are endowed with them. They are special ornaments and beautifyings to them. Thirdly, and especially for their use and improvement and those gracious ends which they lead unto. So much therefore now for that, viz., the first particular considerable in this first general, and that is the object propounded, gifts. The second is the qualification of this object by way of comparison or distinction, and that is the best or better gifts. First, for that which is implied, there are some gifts which are better than others. Consider wherein this distinction does consist, namely, in what respect some gifts are said to be better than others. First, gifts sometimes are counted better as they are anything more rare and unusual. Those which can do somewhat which few else can do besides, they do from hence for the most part esteem themselves. Thus it is with some scholars, just as it is with some books which have a price set upon them more from their scarcity than from the matter of them or any intrinsical worth which is in them. But this is not such a betterness as the apostle does intend in this place. Secondly, gifts are sometimes counted better as they are more glorious and conspicuous in the eyes of the world; thus there are some which are especially more than others, which have a greater lustre upon them. It is neither those gifts always which are most rare and unusual, nor yet which are most conspicuous and plausible, which are truly the better gifts. Therefore thirdly, to speak home to the point, there are two things especially which the apostle does here mention to us. And gifts may be said to be better in a twofold respect. First, gifts are said to be better intrinsically and materially as considered within their own compass and sphere. But then secondly, gifts are said to be better extrinsically, or extensively in their effects, as they do more communicate and enlarge themselves beyond the subject, in which they are to the good of other men. Thus those are the best gifts which do tend best to edification. The second is that which is expressed, that if there be any gifts which are better than others, those are they which we for our particulars of all others are to apply ourselves to, Covet earnestly the best gifts. This the apostle here requires, and he does it but upon reasonable considerations. First, that common and general inclination which is in all men in everything else; there is nothing else in any kind whatsoever, which men do at any time desire or look after, but they would have the best of it as near as they can; even there sometimes where worse might serve their turn, and might be good enough for them, their mouths water after that. The best garments, the best houses, the best provisions, the best preferments. Wouldst thou have that which is good, and be the worst of all thyself? What an incongruous and unsuitable thing is this! Secondly, the consideration of the nature of the soul itself, that calls for as much from us. The better the soul is considered in its own substance and essence, the better would those things be which should qualify it, and which it would be endued withal. The better gifts do best become the better part. Thirdly, in reference also to practice and execution; therefore the better gifts, that we may accomplish the better performances and may do the most good. The operations are answerable to the principles; those which have but mean gifts, they can consequently do but mean services. This does therefore justly come home to the consciences of many persons in the world; there are some which look after none of these gifts at all; like Gallio they care for none of these things. If they may have but so much as to subsist on and to thrive in their temporal condition, that is all they take care for or trouble themselves withal. Give them but the livings, and let others go away with the gifts. Again, there are others which any gifts will very well please them, and serve their turn; which many times want judgment to discern of the better gifts, which they should give themselves unto. That this may be further rightly unfolded, we must add these following limitations by way of explication. First, that these words here of the apostle, they are not to be taken exclusively, but only emphatically. Not as denying us a liberty to look after other gifts, but as carrying us more especially to these which are of higher consideration. It is lawful and also commendable to covet meaner gifts likewise, such as knowledge and learning. This will be easily cleared unto us upon this account. First, because it is that which does bring us into a nearer likeness and similitude to God Himself; that is undoubtedly the most excellent way which does make us most conformable to Him who is the chiefest excellency. Now this we are not so much by our gifts and parts as we are by the work of grace in our hearts. Indeed it is true that we are made like unto God in some sort, in the natural faculties of our soul, our reason, understanding, etc. But this is not all, nor the chiefest; no, but so far forth as we are new created and made over again by the sanctifying work of Gods Spirit in us. Secondly, grace is the more excellent way and such as is beyond common gifts, as the end is better than the means which are ordained and appointed thereunto. Thirdly, it is more excellent also in regard of the effects and consequents of it. For it gives peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost. We are not saved as we have greater parts than others, more knowledge and enlightening in our understandings; but rather as we have more grace than others, and more love and flexibility in our affections. The consideration of this point may serve as a good rule unto us whereby to estimate both ourselves and other men; and that is not so much by the former as rather by the latter. Let us not think ourselves the better men so much by our wit and learning as rather by our piety and religious grace. And so much also for that second point: that grace and godliness is the most excellent way. The third is that which follows from this second, and that is this: that it is a duty which lies upon us to pursue the latter above the former, to covet the more excellent way, above the better gifts, grace before other accomplishments. And surely not without very good cause and ground for it. For first, we shall otherwise be defective in the most principal accomplishment of all. There is an argument in the very title which he gives it when he calls it the most excellent way. What a folly is it to mind things which are inferior! Secondly, we shall be otherwise able to do less good with such gifts as these are; where there are the better gifts without the more excellent way, there will not be that improvement of those gifts as it is fitting there should be to Gods glory, and the good of the Church or commonwealth in which a man is and whereunto he belongs. Take a man that has nothing but parts, and has not grace for the ordering of his parts, and he will do but very little or no good with them. Nay further, thirdly, such as these will oftentimes do so much the more hurt. St. Paul had very good reason, when he had made mention of the better gifts, to propound immediately upon it the more excellent way, because those without this are but so much the more hurtful and pernicious. Iniquity when it is armed with learning is so much the more dangerous. What does all this now come to, but so much the more strongly to enforce this present exhortation of the apostle, which we have here now before us, upon ourselves. To couple these two both together in our endeavour, which he does here together in his speech. And further, as we are to mind godliness and religion in the chiefest place, that also which is chief and most principal in it; there is the excellent way considerable in the excellent way, in opposition to that which is meaner and inferior in it. There is the form and outside of religion, and there is the power and efficacy of it. We should not be only formal Christians, but real; not only remiss Christians, but zealous; not only slight and superficial Christians, but sound and solid and substantial. Again still further, to explain this point of the excellent way a little more unto us, as we are to endeavour after this simply considered in itself; so likewise in reference to our several performances for the particular exercise and execution. There are some kind of actions and performances in religion, which as concerning the right and better discharge of them are mixed of parts and piety both. They require the better gifts, and they require the more excellent way for the doing of them. And we should not satisfy ourselves in the one without the other. Again yet further, we should be careful so to order and dispose of our gifts for the getting and improving of them, as that withal we do not prejudice our graces, and hinder and obstruct them; we should take heed of losing ourselves in our studies, as concerning the frame and temper of our hearts. Labour to advance in learning, but still remember to keep up in grace. Lastly, this excellent way, it does not only refer to the getting of grace ourselves, but likewise to the promoting of it in others. And this was that which the Apostle Paul in this place did seem especially to aim at in these Corinthians. Humility and thankfulness in the enjoyment of gifts, and charity and faithfulness in the improvement of gifts, is the most excellent way in order to the gifts themselves. The second is the proposition of it, that we have in this word, I Show it unto you. Show it? How did he show it? Two ways, as we may conceive more especially. First, he showed it in thesi; and secondly, he showed in hypothesi. He showed it in the practice. He showed it in his doctrine and ministry, First, he showed it them in his doctrine, and by way of simple proposition he published it and declared it unto them, And that at large here in this Epistle in the chapter immediately following. The apostle showed unto these Corinthians the most excellent way; and he showed it first of all in his doctrine. Here are divers things which from hence I might very pertinently insist upon; as--First, we see here that religion is capable of demonstration. It is such as may be clearly evidenced and demonstrated and made good to those who will not be peevish and refractory and perverse. Again secondly, in that the apostle here speaking of his preaching and writing and ministerial dispensation says, I show it unto you. We see here in what kind of way preaching and teaching is to be carried. In the demonstration of the Spirit and power (1Co_2:4). It is not enough for us simply to propound truths, but as near as we can to evidence them and demonstrate them. Therefore we are here especially to take heed of anything which may be any hindrance or prejudice hereunto. Secondly, he showed it also in his own practice and example. This we may gather from the next chapter, Though I should speak … without charity, etc. Though I should, is here as much as I do not, and this is another kind of showing, which does belong to all ministers else whosoever they be, without which the other showing will do little or no good at all. The Apostle Paul, as he was a sound teacher, so he was likewise a follower of that which himself did teach. This is requisite to be, thereby to make our doctrine more effectual and full of success. Who will believe our report when we do not believe it ourselves? (Thomas Horton, D.D.)
Grace and love beyond gifts
The Church of Corinth abounded most with spiritual gifts, and so they did most abuse them. All had not those spiritual gifts, some had those that had them despised those that had them not; and those that had them not envied those that had them. Paul, therefore, that he might heal this distemper, tells them that though the way of gifts be an excellent way, yet the way of grace and love is more excellent and most to be desired.
I. There is a way of gifts distinct from the way of grace, and vice versa. All the saints have grace, but all have not gifts. Grace is that excellency whereby we are made like to God in Christ; gifts, that whereby we are serviceable for God in the Church. A man may have a gift and yet no grace in prayer or in preaching, and may have the gift, and yet not the saving grace of faith.
II. But what excellency is there in the way of gifts?
1. They are useful. The sun is an excellent creature, because he doth good to others. Though there be excellent commodities in other countries, yet if you have no means of transport, you are no better for them; therefore there is a great use of shipping. So by these gifts, the grace that grows in one mans heart is transported into anothers (Eph_4:1-32.). If you cannot reach a book you take a stool, and then you are able to take it down; the stool are these gifts.
2. They add excellency to that which is the most excellent. Ordinarily, if a worse thing be added unto a better, the better is defiled, e.g., when lead is added to silver. But now grace is the greatest excellency in the world, yet add gifts to it, and grace itself is made the more excellent; for as the temple did sanctify the gold, but the gold did beautify the temple; so grace sanctifies gifts, and gifts beautify grace.
III. Wherein is grace and love most excellent.
1. Love--
(1) Is not an empty thing (1Co_13:1).
(2) It never fails.
(3) It is not easily provoked, etc.
2. Grace--
(1) Is the proper effect of the Spirit; gifts are, opus ad extra.
(2) Affords no hold for sin.
IV. Application:
1. To those that have gifts. It calls upon you all for to bless the Lord, and to seek the more excellent way. For gifts and grace differ--
(1) In their nature; the one are a dead grace, the other a living gift.
(2) In their disposition, for grace is contented with the simplicity of the gospel, gifts are not contented. The Corinthians, who excelled in gifts, adulterated the gospel with their swelling words: and the Galatians with false doctrine. A child in a cornfield is most taken with the coloured weeds and daisies; but the husbandman is taken with nothing but the corn. So a man that hath gifts only, when he comes to a sermon, or a prayer, is much taken with the fine expressions; but the man that hath grace looks at the spirituality and the power of those things that are there delivered.
(3) In their effects; grace hath a good hand at suffering as well as at doing; gifts have a very good hand at doing, but an ill hand at suffering.
(4) In their abatement and quenching: if a man have grace and fall into sin, that sin will hinder and quench the former actings of his grace; but if a man have gifts only, and he fall into sin, that sin hinders not his actings, he can pray as he did, etc. A candle painted upon a board, if put into water, is not quenched thereby; because it is a dead and not a living candle.
2. To those who have either no gifts at all, or very weak gifts. It calls upon you to be of good comfort. The way of gifts, indeed, is an excellent way; yet if God has led you in a more excellent way, have you any cause to complain? Will you complain for want of that, which if you had in abundance, you would have less time to tend your own souls? Or, will you complain for want of that, which if you had without grace, would be your undoing? (W. Bridge, M.A.)
A comparison, between gifts and graces
I. Graces are better than gifts. Gifts were necessary in the early ages of the Church; as outward illustrations of the new spiritual facts, as evidences of the Divine authority of the preachers of the gospel, and as fitting them to carry their message to all nations. And there are still gifts bestowed on the Church. We speak of a person having a gift for preaching or teaching, or praying or giving, etc. The Redeemers kingdom needs consecrated learning, eloquence, etc. But the apostle sets graces above gifts, a thing surely very remarkable in his case.
II. What graces and gifts have in common.
1. A Divine origin. What have we that we have not received? By the grace of God we are what we are.
2. A purpose to effect. Both are for the use of edifying. If we have gifts we are to use them in kindly and wise actions, helping our brothers to carry their burdens, or teaching them how best to lay stone upon stone. If we have graces, then we are enabled to exercise a holy influence, inspiring and inspiriting souls.
3. Both can grow and suffer loss.
III. What graces have that gifts have not.
1. Graces have the power to come to all, and enrich all. In any very large sense gifts can only be for the few.
2. Graces last for ever. The things which we have must one day drop out of our hands; the dead hand holds nothing. What we are in ourselves we must he for ever.
3. Graces have the power of working always. Gifts are dependent on mens wills, and those wills are often wholly self-ruled. We very seldom can get the full benefit of the gifts of the gifted. But if a man have a grace, he cannot help working for his fellow-men and for Christ. (R. Tuck, B.A.)
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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 28. And God hath set some in the church,…
28. And God hath set some in the church, first apostles. The various offices of the members are pointed out. Some had stations to which they were assigned by the spirit. Nine spiritual gifts have already been named; nine positions in the church are now given. Apostles. The twelve, Paul, and such evangelists as Barnabas and others; men sent by the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel. Prophets. See note on verse 10. Teachers. Men gifted by the spirit to teach in the church. Miracles. Those who had the power to work miracles. Gifts of healing. One division of miraculous powers granted. Helps. Spiritual aid granted to helpers, such as deacons. Governments. The administrative abilities of the presbytery. To each the Spirit granted the special gifts required.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain 28. “First, apostles.” It is a mistake to think…
MINISTERIAL ORDERS OF THE HOLY GHOST
28. “First, apostles.” It is a mistake to think we have no apostles at the present day. The Bible is finished, and the plenary inspiration necessary to reveal it is, of course, at an end, having finished its work. Apostle — apo, “from,” and stello, “send” simply means “one sent,” i. e., the pioneer into any field of labor, e. g., Bishop Taylor, the apostle of Africa, and Hudson Taylor, of interior China. “Secondly, prophets.” The prophet is properly the preacher. After the apostle has explored the field and opened it, then we need the Spirit-filled preachers to go and get the people saved.” Thirdly, teachers.” We can not teach dead men, since the resurrection must come before teaching, which is so indispensable to the establishment, after they have been converted and sanctified. “Then dynamites.” After the apostle has opened the field, the preachers have gotten a lot of the people converted and sanctified, and the teachers have thoroughly taught them the precious Word, then they are ready for the dynamite, that wonderful gift from the Holy Ghost which qualifies them to blow up the devil’s kingdom. These dynamiters are to go for all of the people in the community not yet saved and sanctified, and push the work on to a glorious victory, running Satan and his myrmidons out of the country. “Then gifts of healings.” As the body is subordinated to the soul, the gifts of healings are specified in this concatenation after the consummation of the spiritual work. First the apostles, i. e., the pioneers, must explore and open the field; secondly, the prophets, i. e., the preachers properly so called, e. g., the evangelists and pastors, must follow and get all of the elect saved. Then the dynamiters turn loose on the whole community, literally blowing it up with Holy Ghost powers, running the devil out, and rolling the revival tide over every opposition, being more than a match for Satan on all lines, as I have often seen in my circuit, when a member of the Kentucky Conference. We used to just about reach everybody with the revival dynamite, getting all the drunkards and saloonkeepers saved, running whisky out of my bailiwick, and voting local option throughout the county. After these mighty spiritual victories, the people are in good fix to receive Divine healing, well prepared to take hold of the Lord, for the body as well as the soul. So, wonderful miracles of healing ensue; God’s order is wonderfully beautiful, glory to His name! “Helps.” Amid these mighty works, God raises up hosts who are ready to do valuable service as helpers in soul-saving and bodily healing; so preachers have no trouble to command all the help they want to press a revival campaign anywhere. Oh! the infinite value of the humble gospel helpers! Thousands of people who have no gifts as leaders are number one helpers, and beat the preachers working in the audience and at the altar. How grandly revival work moves along when red-hot platoons of fire-baptized helpers crowd around God’s heroic leaders of the embattled host.
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“LEADERSHIPS”
Efficient leaders are indispensable in the Lord’s work. Though we can not do without them, yet we do not need many. We need a hundred flaming helpers to one revival leader. Hence the Lord gives us just about that proportion. If He makes you a leader of His embattled host, give Him glory; if you are only an humble helper, shout the louder, remembering that it was Jonathan’s armor-bearer who put to flight the Philistine army. The Holy Ghost is more humble than any of us, and He is our Armor-Bearer, verifying the office of the most humble helper on the battlefield. Lord, help us to accept His situation, and there abide, with the constant shout of gratitude!
“KINDS OF TONGUES”
See this beautiful concatenation of the Divine arrangement for the salvation of the world, as the Holy Ghost here specifies. In the first place, the apostles, i. e., pioneers, go, explore and open the field, like so many noble heroes are now exploring the dark jungles of Asia and Africa. Then follow the Spirit-filled prophets, evangelists and pastors who preach the living Word with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven. Then the people are ready for the extraordinary spiritual gifts, and God raises up dynamiters on all sides, to drill through and burst up all the devil’s rock in the whole country. Then Divine healing is everywhere preached, and since the Holy Ghost has come in and occupied many human bodies, it is pertinent that all of His temples be thoroughly repaired and fixed up in good order for His profitable occupancy. Finally in the catalogue we have the gift of tongues coming on the people. Now that salvation has flooded the community, and sanctification has rolled over them like a sea of glory, and God has raised up spiritual dynamiters on all sides, and bodily healing has so prevailed that the Lord’s saints have become physical as well as spiritual stalwarts, now is the time for a general aggressive movement into all the dark, destitute fields around about where the barbaric tribes speak dialects peculiar to themselves. Now, in order to expedite the work, what a wonderful auxiliary will be the Divine impartation of these different languages and dialects to those who propose to go among them as missionaries, and thus spread the gospel to the ends of the earth!
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain And God hath set some in the church, first…
And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of hearings, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues .
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 first apostles
first apostles
Possible meanings are 1) "the first gift I will mention is apostles" or 2) "the most important gift is apostles."
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those who provide helps
"those who provide help to other believers"
those who do the work of administration
"those who govern the church"
those who have various kinds of tongues
an individual who can speak in one or more foreign languages without having studied that language
Are all of them apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all do powerful deeds?
Paul is reminding his readers of what they already know. AT: "Only some of them are apostles. Only some of them are prophets. Only some of them are teachers. Only some of them do powerful deeds." (See: Rhetorical Question)
translationWords
appoint
church
apostle
prophet
teacher
cure
tongue
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 12:28-31 Paul lists some of the different individual roles…
12:28-31 Paul lists some of the different individual roles given to people in the church (see also the list in 12:8-10; cp. Rom 12:6-8; Eph 4:11).
12:28 Apostles are specially commissioned emissaries of Christ in the world (see also Eph 4:11). • Prophets speak a word from God (see 12:10 and corresponding study note; Eph 4:11; cp. Acts 13:1-2). • Teachers instruct others in the faith (Rom 12:7; Eph 4:11; cp. Acts 13:1). • those who speak in unknown languages: See study note on 12:10.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.