1 Corinthians 12:29 - Printer Friendly

ESV: Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?

NIV: Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?

NASB: All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they?

CSB: Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all do miracles?

NLT: Are we all apostles? Are we all prophets? Are we all teachers? Do we all have the power to do miracles?

KJV: Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles?

NKJV: Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles?

In this and following verses, Paul is driving home his main point. This is that all spiritual gifts are needed and should be honored in the church, which is the body of Christ. Some may seem more desirable. Others may seem less interesting. Those are only perception, however. All are needed and vital to the proper function of the church.

As he does often, Paul asks a series of rhetorical questions: statements which assume a particular answer. Is everyone in the church an apostle or a prophet or a teacher? Of course not. Can everyone work miracles? No, only those given the gift of the ability to work miracles by the Holy Spirit can work miracles. This applies the body analogy Paul used earlier (1 Corinthians 12:17), pointing out that the whole body cannot be made up of identical copies of the same organ.

Paul continues these questions in the following verse.

First Corinthians 12:12–31 continues Paul's teaching on the spiritual gifts as they cooperate to empower God's will for the church. The Christian church is like a human body. It is one individual organism made up of many different parts that serve a wide variety of functions. All those functions matter. Nobody should decide they don't like their gift or their role in the church and try to quit. The body needs each member to do its part in order to work properly. We must respect and value each other for the vital roles we serve in the church.

Apparently in response to further questions from Corinth, Paul describes what spiritual gifts are, who receives them, and what they are for. His emphasis is that particular spiritual gifts do not make believers spiritual. Every believer is spiritual because every Christian has God's Spirit with him or her. In addition, the Spirit gives one or more spiritual gifts to each believer to be used to serve the church. The church is like a body, in which every part is needed, and all the parts exist to serve one another. Every believer must discover how they are gifted by the Spirit and value the function they serve in Christ's body.

After tackling the issues of head coverings for women and the Lord's Supper in the previous chapter, Paul moves to the issue of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. Paul insists that the display of spiritual gifts does not make one believer more spiritual or important than another. Every believer in Jesus has the Spirit, and the Spirit gives to every believer one or more spiritual gifts. The gifts are given for the common good, and the church is like a human body. Each gifted function in the church represents a body part, and all the parts are essential. This sets up a description of love, as defined from a Christian viewpoint, and famously recorded in chapter 13.

First Corinthians is one of the more practical books of the New Testament. Paul writes to a church immersed in a city associated with trade, but also with corruption and immorality. These believers are struggling to properly apply spiritual gifts and to resist the ungodly practices of the surrounding culture. Paul's letter gives instructions for real-life concerns such as marriage and spirituality. He also deals with the importance of unity and gives one of the Bible's more well-known descriptions of love in chapter 13.

Accessed 5/3/2024 1:00:59 PM