Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Corinthians · About this commentary
Desire the Greater Gifts
1 Corinthians 12:27-31
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. · WEB
A ranked list and a run of questions expecting no both make the same point — and the chapter ends by pointing past the gifts entirely.
Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually 1 Corinthians 12:27.
The application is made directly and without qualification: you are. Not like a body, not a body in the making — and members individually keeps the individual from disappearing into the collective. The letter has used body for the believer's own person, for the bread, and now for the congregation 1 Corinthians 6:19 1 Corinthians 10:16–17, and the three senses stay connected.
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 1 Corinthians 12:28.
Here, unlike the earlier list 1 Corinthians 12:8–10, there is an order, and it is numbered for the first three. What comes first is not the spectacular but the ministries of the word — apostles, prophets, teachers. Miracles and healings follow. Then two items easily overlooked: helps and governments, plain words for practical assistance and administration, sitting in a list of Spirit-given appointments. And various kinds of languages comes last, as it did before.
Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all miracle workers? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with various languages? Do all interpret? 1 Corinthians 12:29–30.
Seven questions, each expecting the answer no. The form is the argument: if the body needs variety 1 Corinthians 12:17, then the absence of a particular gift in a particular member is the design working, not a deficiency to be remedied. The last two questions are pointed at the one gift Corinth wanted everyone to have.
But earnestly desire the best gifts. Moreover, I show a most excellent way to you 1 Corinthians 12:31.
Two clauses that pull in different directions, and both are meant. Desire is not forbidden — they are told to earnestly desire the gifts that do the most good, which the ranking has just identified and which chapter fourteen will name as prophecy 1 Corinthians 14:1 1 Corinthians 14:5. So the appetite is legitimate and its object needs correcting.
And then the sentence that opens the next chapter. A most excellent way is not a further gift, higher up the same list; it is a different category, and the reader is about to be told that the whole list is worth nothing without it 1 Corinthians 13:1–3. Paul interrupts a discussion of gifts to say what the gifts are for, and then resumes 1 Corinthians 14:1 — an arrangement that puts love at the center of everything the three chapters say.
settled What this mark means