There are two significant Holy Spirit lists in the New Testament: the list of the Gifts of the Spirit and the list of the Fruit of the Spirit.
The fruit of the Spirit are character qualities that are developed in Christians over time. They are found in Galatians 5 and include things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. All Christians are supposed to grow all of these things all of the time.
The gifts of the Spirit are special talents and abilities which the Spirit gives to us individually. There are lots of spiritual gifts referenced in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 12 mentions a dozen: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues, interpretation, administration, teaching, and apostleship. We don't get all of these gifts; each of us only gets a few.
The problem in Corinth was that people were very gifted, but not very loving. They had great gifts of the Spirit, but were not demonstrating much fruit. They had lots of talent, but not much character.
In the passage today Paul declares that character is more important than talent. You might have amazing ability to preach, sing, teach, pray, give, communicate, discern, or whatever; but if you do not have love you are nothing.
This leads to three implications:
1. Character development trumps talent development
2. Character development will involves spiritual disciplines
3. How we get along is critical to church life
I encourage everyone to fully develop your talents. But more importantly: fully develop your character.
Related passages: 1 John 3.4-20, 1 John 4.19-21, 1 Thessalonians 3.12, Colossians 3.12-14
I try very hard to help our children with developing their character. It is challenging because outside of church often it is not modeled, or valued for our young people by their peers, media and sometimes even adults.
ReplyDeleteWe must remember our children learn most by the example we live by.