Raising the Bar Within the Church

1 Corinthians 12:27-31

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

Raising the Standard for Church Life

The point of these closing verses in 1 Corinthians 12 is that the Apostle Paul is setting the stage for raising the bar within the church. He instructs the Corinthian church to progress and advance in the way they do church. The two primary issues in Corinth were disunity and spiritual immaturity. These funnel all the other problems in the church back to the fact that they were not centered in the gospel.

Paul calls them to move beyond spiritual immaturity into maturity and to become more unified as the body of Christ. He raises the standard for how they behave toward one another, minister to one another, function within the church, and operate as the church. There is a greater degree of functionality and a more excellent way for Christians to function.

Paul gives specific application to the body illustration. Not everyone is an apostle, prophet, or teacher, just as not everyone is a foot, hand, eye, or ear. Not being an apostle does not mean you lack impact or are less essential to the church's proper function and spiritual health. Apostles served their foundational role, but everyone has a part to play in building the body of Christ.

1. Embrace Your Membership

Now you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. If you are a Christian, you are a member of the body of Christ. You have a role, a function, and a contribution to the health and well-being of the body.

If everyone was just a foot, the church would be a grotesque, dysfunctional image—a detached foot, disgusting and dismembered. If only certain members function, the body of Christ appears paralytic or like couch potatoes, misrepresenting Jesus as inactive. Ministry is not the pastor's duty alone; it is every Christian functioning as God intends.

You may not know your spiritual gift yet, but you can produce spiritual fruit like love. Apathy won't reveal your gift. Spiritual gifts are sovereignly distributed by the Holy Spirit. You discover them by being active, trusting God in service as you did in salvation.

Consider a child's growth: babies move involuntarily, hands flail, legs learn by activity. My daughter didn't learn to walk from a lecture but through consistent effort, falls, and persistence. Each body part contributed to her functioning. Similarly, spiritual maturity comes through activity, not perfection.

Your initial ministry steps may not match great preachers like John Piper or John MacArthur—those roles are already filled in the body. What we need are people in this room functioning uniquely. Weaker members are indispensable. Embrace your membership and individuality to grow in unity and maturity.

Importance isn't mere attendance or giving money, though those matter. You have unique gifts essential to the church's function. If ministry is left to pastors or deacons alone, the church will be deficient.

Every person is a member, but not the head—Jesus Christ is the head. Equality in importance exists, yet there is priority in certain offices.

2. Embrace Your Mentors

God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers. These offices have numerical ordering and priority. Apostles are first in the church age, foundational as in Acts, providing infallible New Testament teaching that interprets prophets and gives new revelation. Prophets gave revelation; teachers expound what has been revealed.

This ordering relates to "earnestly desire the greater gifts." Prōtos means preeminent, first in priority. Paul lists the greater gifts: apostles, prophets, teachers.

He does not mean desire to become apostles, prophets, or teachers, since not all are and gifts are sovereignly given. "Desire" means devote yourself to what these gifts accomplish: revealing, interpreting, and applying God's mysteries.

Embrace these "mentors"—the greater gifts of apostolic teaching, prophetic revelation, and teaching. Even in debates over cessationism, Paul prioritizes these over miracles, healings, or tongues. Teaching the Word is greater than healing cancer or speaking unknown languages.

Apostles and prophets laid the foundation with Christ as cornerstone. Now build upon it. Devote yourself to these greater gifts.

3. Embrace the More Excellent Way

Even desiring greater gifts, there is a still more excellent way. Spiritual gifts exist by the Holy Spirit's power, but there is a superior way to function in the church.

Healing, tongues, miracles are lesser. The more excellent way surpasses them. If your church emphasizes lesser gifts, it is immature or divided, lacking New Testament unity.

Do you want your church to function in the more excellent way? Are you contributing? Don't jump ship; contribute biblically to raise the bar, progressing past lesser gifts.

The goal is not perpetual healings or tongues services. Speaking unintelligibly in an English congregation is pointless—why not speak understandably?

We are individually (ek merous, "out-parts") members, aiming for full integration and unity. Strive for maturity where the church functions in the more excellent way.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 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.

Love is the more excellent way. It surpasses tongues of angels, prophecy, knowledge, mountain-moving faith. Choose love over healing—it's possible to love in a children's hospital even if you can't heal. Love has greater, ongoing impact.

Be an example in love, as Paul told Timothy. Love is how we demonstrate the more excellent way within the church.