Dr. John Hartmann

Our teacher here offers a brief exhortation to seek for and stir up the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Note the following verses:

1 Cor 12:7: the manifestation of the Spirit (in and through and the various members of the Body of Christ) is given for the common good. Every gift is important and given to bring edification to the church, that people of God might grow into maturity and fulfill the mission God has given us in the work of the gospel.

1 Cor 12:31 Paul commands the Corinthians, who come behind lacking in no gift (1:4-7; cf 2 Cor 8:6) to earnestly desire the greater gifts. We should be continually asking for the gifts in all their fullness to be manifested in the Church. Jesus ascended on high in order that He might fill all things (Eph 4:10) and the church is to become a full-grown Man, who bears the measure of stature that belongs to the fullness of Christ (4:13). Remember “you have not, because you ask not” (James 4:2), so ask, and do so with right heart motives. Our goal in all of this is to see the church built up and God glorified in the full manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

1 Cor 14:1 Make love your aim, as laid out in 1 Cor 13. Love is the perfect bond of unity (Col 3:14), and the mark of true maturity, for if we have all the gifts and have not love we are nothing (1 Cor 13). When we walk in love, we walk as true sons of God (Eph 5:1-2). It is within such a context that the gifts have real effect and power. So again, as we make love our aim, we should also earnestly desire the full manifestation of the Spirit in the Body for the common good.

1 Tim 4:14 Don’t neglect the gift of God that is in you.

2 Tim 1:6 Kindle afresh the gift of God that is in you.

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