Main news for 5 October 2006

King James Version (en)

1 Corinthians, Chapter 12, verse 13

¹² that by the like proportion, as the members of a natural body

¹³For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

NOTES

Here is the answer to the question: how is it that people, so different from one another, can still be one in the Church? "By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body," says the apostle Paul. From a human point of view, it appears that...

Reflecting on the Church, Paul turns to the idea traditional for his time of God's people as a...

Reflecting on the Church, Paul turns to the idea traditional for his time of God's people as a single spiritual body, and applies it to the Church, in which the apostle sees the new people of God. According to these traditional ideas, the Jewish people were sanctified through the presence of God that dwelt in the place chosen by God, and, being sanctified, became one spiritual whole. As a result, no one among the people, even if he lived in a diaspora community far from Jerusalem, felt useless or rejected. And the place of God's presence was the Jerusalem Temple, from which the whole people were sanctified, even those who physically could not be present in Jerusalem. Paul, however, speaks of the new people of God, who are sanctified not simply by the presence of God, as before, but by the whole fullness of that breath of God that permeates the Kingdom brought into the world by the Savior.

For Paul the Church is the spiritual body of Christ Himself, living with Him the one life of the Kingdom (vv. 12-13). And each member of the Church is, in the spiritual sense, part of this one body of Christ (v. 27). And the apostle, apparently not by chance, pays special attention to the fact that everyone in the Church has his own place and his own ministry, so that speaking of anyone in the Church as more or less needed is as strange as speaking of whether one or another part of the body is needed or not needed (vv. 14-18).

Evidently, among the Corinthian Christians there were frequent conversations about "high" and "spiritual" ministries in the Church, or, on the contrary, "low" and "unimportant" ones, as well as about "strong" and "weak" brothers. That is probably why Paul had to remind his readers that all ministries are important for the Church, just as all the organs of which the body consists are important for the body, and also that in the body it is precisely the weakest and most vulnerable parts that require special attention (vv. 19-26). And the matter was not only that contempt for certain members of the Church, or for certain ministries, destroyed the church community. The matter was, above all, the Church itself, those who made up its body: for its normal functioning, which allowed all members of the church community to live a full spiritual life, was possible only if it had not been spiritually crippled by contempt for concrete people or concrete ministries. Such contempt destroys the body of the Church, not only depriving the destroyers themselves of the fullness of the life of the Kingdom, but also preventing the other members of the church community from living by it.

Continuing the conversation about ministries and gifts, Paul turns to the image of the Church as the body of Christ, an image he often uses in his letters. The origin of this image is connected with traditional Jewish ideas about the Jewish people as one spiritual body sanctified by God's presence dwelling in the Jerusalem Temple. The apostle transfers this idea to the Church as the messianic remnant of the people of God, sanctified in the same way by the presence of the risen Christ in church gatherings.

And everyone who belongs to the Church is part of the body of Christ, a spiritual unity that allows the Kingdom to remain in our world and transform it. But in that case the Church cannot simply function the way various organizations function in our world, including religious organizations. The Church's only task is to remain in the world and reveal the Kingdom to the world, and all church activity is only the forms and means of solving this main task.

That is why the significance of each member of the Church cannot be measured by the function he performs in the sense of external activity. The logic of this world suggests that in every organization the most important and most valuable people are those who perform the most important tasks. The director is more important than the cleaning woman, though at times a scientist may prove more important than the director.

However that may be, the cleaning woman in any case cannot claim the most important place. For the Church, such logic is unacceptable. It is unacceptable for two reasons. First, the fullness of life in the Kingdom of a concrete person is, as a rule, little connected with the function he performs in this world.

It may very well turn out that the cleaning woman is ahead of the director in this regard: her spiritual life may be fuller and more intense, and the work of cleaning rooms cannot in any way hinder such fullness. Then it will turn out that for the Church and its witness the cleaning woman does more than the director. And second, every person is absolutely important for the Church.

After all, the Church's only goal is to open the way into the Kingdom to as many people as possible. What ministry they will carry out in the Church once they enter it is a secondary question. In the end, ministry for a Christian is only a way and form of expressing his own spiritual life. The main thing is that life itself. And here no one can be told that the Church does not need him or that he is not important. If a person is faithful to Christ and lives the life of the Kingdom, then the Church needs him, and without him the Church will be incomplete. This, in fact, is what Paul reminds us of.

FAQ

I have one question that troubles me. It is a question regarding "other tongues". Who can receive "other tongues"? What are "other tongues"? What are they for? Are there two types of "other tongues"?

The gift of "speaking in tongues", "praying in tongues", or simply the "gift of tongues", in Greek "glossolalia" — is one of the many gifts of the Holy Spirit, which is given for edification in the faith and the growth of the Church. In different eras and in different parts of the Church, this gift manifests itself in various ways; at times it may become unnoticeable or noticeably transformed. This is natural, for the gifts of the Holy Spirit are always given with a specific purpose — "for the edification of the Church". Nevertheless, it can be said that in one form or another, this gift is always present in the Church.

We know of at least three main varieties of this gift.

First, there is the gift of speaking in a language unknown to the speaker. This is how the apostles spoke on the day of Pentecost. This is how, quite often, preachers and missionaries speak, and their word reaches the hearts of the listeners. It is essential that this form of glossolalia occurs if and only if a person is speaking about Jesus Christ, His Cross, and Resurrection. At present, this gift is quite rare.

Second, glossolalia may be expressed when a person in prayer praises God in a language that does not exist among the nations of the Earth. This is usually called "tongues of angels". Love for God, reverence before Him, and adoration of Him encompass at this moment not only the person's heart, but also their mind and emotional sphere... And suddenly the prayer is poured out in words incomprehensible to the person themselves. According to the testimony of early Christians, the Holy Spirit simultaneously grants another person the gift of interpretation, so that "the church may receive edification". This gift is currently widespread enough to be a noticeable phenomenon in the Church.

However, in our time, the gift of interpretation is much less common. Perhaps this is related to the fact that the edification of the modern Church is carried out differently than in the ancient one. To understand this gift, it is important to keep a few points in mind. Speaking in tongues of angels is given, as a rule (though not always), through the prayer of other Christians — those who possess this gift. Furthermore, the speaker usually does not understand the meaning of their own words. They are aware only of a certain non-verbal sense of the prayer in which they began speaking in such a language. In different parts of the Church there is a certain continuity, so that by the way glossolalia manifests in a person's prayer, one can quite accurately discern in which Church they received this gift. The glossolalia of Pentecostals is not the same as that of Catholics, and the glossolalia of Lutherans differs from that of the Orthodox. Often, such glossolalia sounds like a language unknown to humanity. Most commonly, this glossolalia (across all denominations) is compared to ancient Hebrew or Aramaic. Perhaps the Holy Spirit engages some aspects of the person's personality that are unknown to us... It is fundamentally important that this form of glossolalia is given during prayer and for prayer, usually — for the glorification of God.

Third, there is another form of glossolalia closely connected to the previous one. This should rather be called non-verbal prayer. The Apostle Paul speaks of this, saying that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. This prayer differs from the previous form in that distinct speech elements (words, phrases) are not always discernible in it, and in that such a prayer is sung rather than spoken. Often it is born as a continuation (and intensification) of our usual prayer and psalmody. In this, the Holy Spirit allows our heart to break out beyond the limits of human language and turn to God in some other, highly personal, yet non-verbal way.

Since ancient times, this prayer-glossolalia predominantly occurred during divine services. It was such an ordinary occurrence that church liturgical rubrics of the second half of the first millennium even designate moments in the service when this gift of the Holy Spirit typically manifests in the community. Some Orthodox typicons, including Russian ones, retained such instructions right up until the end of the 15th century. Generally speaking, however, since the end of the first millennium, this form of glossolalia has largely transitioned into the realm of church musical creativity.

Since the end of the 19th century, in various parts of the Church, the Holy Spirit has begun to explicitly bestow these gifts anew, albeit in different ways. This is likely due to the fact that different Churches have "dried up" to varying degrees in theological theorizing and have lost the experience of a living connection with the Spirit. It is perhaps for our edification in this regard that the Lord renews these gifts of His within us.

It is important to note in conclusion that the only gift of the Holy Spirit that is absolutely indispensable for the life of the Church, without which She cannot exist, is the gift of love. All else is given as the need arises...

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