Spiritual People and Gifts in I Cor 12 (II)

I left off last essay by showing that Paul's emphasis on the Spirit earlier in I Cor. sets the context for his advice on spiritual matters or regarding spiritual people in ch. 12. Indeed, I argued further than Paul, in his linguistic zeal of I Cor. 2 might have unwittingly been undermining his own teaching. But there is a third reason to take I Cor. 12:1-3 as referring to spiritual people, and that is that v. 3 assumes that spiritual people are speaking. Whether or not there were actually people running around in Corinth claiming to be spiritual and saying "Jesus be cursed" (12:3) is debatable. In any case, Paul is thinking of a possible claim by spiritual people which actually leads others away from the teaching he has tried to inculcate. We only understand the extent of text spent on this problem (three chapters) if we realize that Paul is trying to mend a problem he has partially created. He had claimed that wisdom of a spiritual nature is imparted to the mature. Now he has to deal with those claiming to impart it.

III. On the Ambiguous Gifts of the Spirit--12:4-11

So he turns to the heart of this section, 12:4-11. Paul speaks here of the distribution of the Spirit's gifts to the people of God. He lists seven particular gifts here, but we have no way of telling either if this list is exhaustive from his perspective or what exactly some of them involve. Other biblical passages supplement this list, so Paul is probably only meaning to give examples. We also don't know, for example, what the gift of faith is, or what the difference between the utterance of wisdom and knowledge is, according to Paul. Oh, I am sure you can hear preachers in 2007 claiming to know exactly what Paul meant by every term, but they are making it up as they go along. Paul is such an effective and powerful rhetorician that he might simply have been creating a list without thinking through all the ways that the Spirit might manifest itself. Indeed, Paul might think that making such an exhaustive list would be trenching on the freedom of that same Spirit.

Let me give one other brief example of Paul's rhetorical flourish. In Rom. 8:31-39 Paul is giving a summary of his long section (5-8) on justification by faith and life in the Spirit. In summing it up, he gives a long list of the things which will not be able to separate us from the love of Christ. He says, "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us fromt he love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (8:38-39). If we were to try to define each element of this list separately from each other, we might founder quickly and, in any case, we would lose the cumulative power of the passage. So it is with the gifts of the Spirit. There certainly are many of them, according to Paul, but I don't believe that he is trying in I Cor 12 to explain their difference. Indeed, it is the fact of multiplicity that interests him and not the content of the gifts.

So, he speaks of the division of spiritual gifts to the people of God in 12:4-11. Each is given for the common good (v. 7) but, unfortunately, it seems that they are used in Corinth for division rather than upbuilding. But let's look more closely at the language of 12:4-11 and see the ambiguity of Paul's words regarding the Spirit's gifts.

Language Ambiguity in I Cor 12:4-11

Let me illustrate the point I am going to make by looking at the simple English word "translate." It is derived from the Latin word "transfero," which usually means "to carry across." Thus, a translation is something that is "carried across" from one location to another. But, "transfero" can also mean "to transfer allegiance" (see Oxford Latin Dictionary, def. 7) or, in fact, to betray. Thus, when you "translate" a passage from one language to another, you might not only be "carrying across" meaning to someone else but you might subtly be "betraying" meaning. You really can't help it, as any who know more than one language realize. Translation is clarity and betrayal at the same time.

This little digression aids in understanding Paul's vocabulary of distribution of gifts of the Spirit in I Cor. 12:4-11. The Greek word he uses is diairesis, which can be translated as "distribution" or "allotment" or "division." Indeed, it is one of the most interesting and variably-abled words in the Greek language. Examining it in the Liddell Scott dictionary shows that it has a philosophical meaning (to divide categories for discussion), a rhetorical significance (similar), a grammatical meaning (dividing syllables; indeed, we have the word "diaresis" in English--two dots over a vowel to signify not umlaut as in German but two syllables, such as the word naive), and a scientific significance. Indeed, Aristotle, that great classifier in antiquity, used the word as the basis for classification of plants and animals in the natural world.

But there is also a "darker" side to the word diaireo in Greek. Its sole other use as a verb in the NT illustrates its ambiguity and "darkness." Luke uses the word in the parable of the prodigal son. The prodigal tells the father to "divide" the inheritance falling to him so that he can, in fact, experience his father's death prospectively. This division of assets is, on the one hand, a "neutral" activity--it simply divides. But, in Luke's Gospel the word also suggests a severing of relationship.

Thus, the word "division," can mean a separation, a division in sentiment. That is, the ambiguity of gifts of the Spirit is that they are "divided" among the people. Divisions therefore emerge. There seems to be no unalloyed and pure gift of God, but they always have to be funneled through imperfect human intermediaries. What God allots, people divide. What God gives to provide a symphony of mutually reinforcing voices, we use to produce a cacophony of mutually destructive voices. The gifts of God prove to be dividers rather than uniters--they were so in Corinth.

Conclusion

And so I conclude with ambiguous words about the Apostle Paul. On the one hand, he was a most brilliant, energetic, passionate theologian and pastor. His eloquent and pointed words have reverberated through the centuries and still capture the literary, theological and faith imagination today. Yet, he, like Augustine four centuries later, was a rhetorical genius. He sweeps us all up in his passionate and dynamic rhetoric. While he is present he probably was utterly convincing and charming, able to sway by words, example and personality. But now, 2000 years later, we can dissect his words and realize how they contribute also to the problems that he was trying to quell. I think that is the legacy of a creative person. S/he defines an issue anew, gives parameters for its discussion, and then is removed from the scene. The rest of us are left to interpret. In I Cor. 12:1-11 there is a simple, calm, reasonable, way of reading it. We are given gifts by the Spirit. Let's use them for the common good. Then, however, there is a reading that goes right to the ambiguity of Paul's own language. I have tried to lay out the latter in these two essays. Which will you select?

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