Episode 1285: Unity Through Diversity

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,285 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:09] Jennifer Lazatto: I'm Jennifer Lozado, author of Inheriting Chaos with Compassion. I encourage you to find the ways to be loving with your family, both before and after you pass. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friends Scott.

[00:00:36] Scott Maderer: Identifying that there's some that may be flamboyant or obvious or big or loud, and others that are quiet, but they all come from one place. The goal to recognize diversity is our unity and that inner individual giftedness comes the. Of the community. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the [00:01:00] Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:01:02] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:29] In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk with you about First Corinthians chapter 12 verses one through 11. I share how this passage talks about the power of unity through recognizing diversity. I also share how we often end up thinking we have the most important gift of all or no gift at all, and both are wrong.

[00:01:50] One Corinthians chapter 12 verses one through 11. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You [00:02:00] know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking by the spirit of God ever says, let Jesus be cursed, and no one can say Lord, except by the holy.

[00:02:16] Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good. To one is given through the spirit, the utterance of wisdom, and to another, the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit, to another faith by the same spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one's spirit to another, the working of miracles to another, prophecy to another, the discernment of spirits to another various kinds of tongues and to another, the interpretation of tongue.

[00:02:54] All these are activated by one in the same spirit who allots to each one individually [00:03:00] just as the spirit chooses. Now this passage starts now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters. I do not want you to be uninformed. This epistle, this letter to the church at Corinth is what we're gonna spend a little bit of time on the next few episodes of this spiritual foundation.

[00:03:23] Process. These letters are useful because I think there's recognition in them in things that still apply today. The church at Koth and Koth at that time was like Sin City. It was Las Vegas. It was a metropolitan cosmopolitan place where people were there from all over and there was a lot of activity that.

[00:03:49] Many people would say was extreme in some way, shape or another, and it wasn't a place that it would probably be easier to be a follower [00:04:00] of Jesus. At that time or at any time, it would be hard to maintain purity. It would be hard to stay out of that dog eat dog competitive business of the surrounding community.

[00:04:12] It would be hard to stay set a set apart in some way, and so probably the. Surrounding communities, ideas and feelings and thoughts begin to leak into the church. I think, again, we can all recognize that's something that's not unique to that time. And there, these letters from Paul were written to address issues that were coming up in the church.

[00:04:42] It probably didn't cover all of the issues that were coming up, but it at least addressed the ones that Paul seems to think were central to what was going on. And I think it's starting to become clear even in this first one, this first beginning of the letter, that Paul is worried [00:05:00] about disunity.

[00:05:01] He's worried about infighting. And this will come up multiple times, and I think we can see this again in the church today and even in the wider society today. We have a tendency to try to make everything the same, but we do it sometimes by taking away the individual giftedness of people. We look at giftedness as creating separation.

[00:05:31] And Paul here is talking about gifting giftedness is a way of looking at and creating. Unity. There are varieties, but they're the same. That's the formula that's used over and over again. There's diversity, but it should be coming from unity. It should come from the spirit. It should come from. A place of greater faith.

[00:05:59] It [00:06:00] this isn't about the individual being subsumed into the hole or lessened in any way, but it's arguing that love as the motivating power of giftedness, that we seek to, to use our gifts, to build relationship, to serve others, to love others, to be in c. To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.

[00:06:25] It says discipleship should grow from relationship. And though even though we are all gifted in a wide variety of ways, the spirit is what unites all of us, and therefore we can be joined together to work together in community. It can lift us all. He talks about gifts and services and activities, and there may be a question, are these all the same thing, just with different names?

[00:06:53] But I think probably part of what he's pointing out is there were probably some folks in the church, and [00:07:00] maybe you've seen this happen in your life and in your organization that kind of felt a little superior to everyone else around them, these super Christians in some sort of way. They felt like their gift was more special than someone else.

[00:07:17] Or conversely, their sin was less than someone else's, and the gifts that they displayed set them apart and made them special in some way. And it seems to be that Paul is saying, wait a minute, all of these things provide service and connection and community and health, and we shouldn't try to put a hierarchy to these there, there aren't particular gifts that are somehow better than others and.

[00:07:44] In fact, things like activities, there may be some people that say, I don't even have a gift, but I'm able to do these activities, or I'm able to help in this way. And what they don't recognize is that is their gifting. That's just as powerful as something else that someone else [00:08:00] does there. There's the very beginning passage about the the pagan.

[00:08:05] Time that many people think. Was Paul also pointing out to some of these super Christians that when they started on their path, they probably stumbled? They probably came from a place where they didn't even recognize that it was the acting of the spirit in their life that was beginning to turn them round It.

[00:08:23] It wasn't them. They weren't doing it by their own power. We aren't doing things by our own power. We think we've wrestled this thing into place by our goodness, by our efforts, by our abilities. But he may be pointing out that, wait a minute, yes, you have to expend effort, but along the way, it's not really your effort that's doing it.

[00:08:47] It's plugging into something be bigger than that. He's also pointing out that anytime that you are using that gifting in a way that let [00:09:00] Jesus be cursed or that is calling out disunity, that's breaking down the power of the community that isn't serving and isn't helping and isn't being used in love, that is contrary to really what the gift is there.

[00:09:17] So Paul is identifying to everyone, these varieties of gifts, and he's identifying that there are some that may be flamboyant or obvious or big or loud, and others that are quiet, but they all come from one place. The goal to recognize diversity is our unity, and that inner individual giftedness comes the strength of the c.

[00:09:46] Thanks for listening.

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[00:10:35] Until next time, invest your. Your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.