And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Paul has just told the church in Corinth that if they could speak with the tongues of men and angels but didn’t have love, they were as useless as a noisy and clanging symbol. In this section he is attempting to correct this particular church regarding their bad use of spiritual gifts. Remember, this church is not a great example of a church walking in the Spirit. Although saved and sanctified by the Spirit, their walk was less than an example then in should be. They had open sin in the church. They were using the communion table for excess binging. They were not faithful in many of the things Paul had taught them. There were even picking sides on who to follow. In this section he is now correcting their bad use of spiritual gifts. In chapter twelve he tells them that every gift is special and every gift in the Body of Christ is essential to compliment the other gift. Like our human bodies, we are not to think one part of the body is more important than the other. Try running without your toes! These Corinthians have started to promote one gift over the other. Paul wants to correct that. He does so by telling them that the most important thing, even above which spiritual gift they have, is that none of the gifts are important and useful unless they are used in agape type love. You can have prayer as a gift and be able to move mountains with your prayer, but if you can’t love your fellow member of the Body in love, you are useless. If you have all spiritual knowledge and can interpret deep spiritual truth but have no love, you are useless. This is so powerful. We are not to think of our spiritual walk only in the capacity of what we bring to the Body by way of the spiritual gifts given to us by the Holy Spirit. We are to also think of them in the way we use those gifts in the Holy Spirit’s fruit of love. Remember, love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. So we can’t use a spiritual gift from the Holy Spirit without using that gift in the fruit of love by the Holy Spirit. If you do, you have gained nothing. Nor has the Church, the Body of Christ.
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