Chapter # 12 Paragraph # 3 Study # 2
November 24, 2019
Humble, Texas
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Thesis:   The individual exercise of the "spiritual gifts" is to be both the result of a strong commitment to be used by God and the result of whatever the "measure of faith" happens to be possessed by the individual.

Introduction:   In our first look into this paragraph and its dominant thesis, we saw that the individual "grace gifts" that have been distributed to "each" of us are to be exercised, first, as the out-flow of the "body as a living sacrifice", and, second, as the outflow of our understanding that the "gifts" are the primary "stewardship" imposed upon us and used as the standard of evaluation at the judgment seat of Christ, and, third, as the outflow of whatever "measure of faith" has been granted to us by the Spirit of God.

Now, in our current study, we are going to look into the first of Paul's "examples" of faithful stewardship.

• I. "Prophecy" As A "Grace-Gift".
  • A. It is interesting (at least to me) that Paul begins with "prophecy" and does not even mention his own gift, "apostleship".
    • 1. Ephesians 2:20 makes the "gifts" of "apostle" and "prophet" the two foundational "gifts" for the establishment and development of the "Church".
    • 2. Additionally, 1 Corinthians 12:28 makes "apostleship" the primary one of the two.
    • 3. Thus, the question arises as to why Paul would not mention the primary "grace-gift".
      • a. Perhaps it is because he did not know of the presence of any "apostles" in the church in Rome; thus having no need to mention it in terms of "instruction for function".
        • 1) This is highly probable since Paul at least implies that there is a need for "apostolic function" in regard to this church (Romans 1:11).
        • 2) And, probable or not, it seems that the "gift" of "prophecy" was numerically more "available in the churches" than was the "gift" of "apostleship", thus indicating a greater need for instruction in regard to it.
      • b. Perhaps he also recognized that his own example would be sufficient "instruction" for the function of "apostle".
  • B. It is also interesting to me that Paul, in the various texts regarding "grace-gifts" never gave a comprehensive listing of all of the gifts to any particular church.
    • 1. This indicates that it was his habit to simply address those specific "gifts" that needed more explanation for the particular church involved (1 Corinthians 14; the entire chapter, is an example).
    • 2. This also clearly means that there are other "gifts" in the members of the Body of Christ than have been named in inspired scripture.
      • a. This indicates that the "unnamed" gifts must be discerned by their presence-in-function.
      • b. To discern this, we must understand that, at the heart of the concept is a "special enablement of the Spirit" to "manifest Himself" (1 Corinthians 12:7) as the Fundamental Provider for the needs of the Church.
      • c. These "manifestations" are not "natural talents" which exist in those not empowered by the Spirit; they are special abilities that are rooted in the Spirit as Provider.
      • d. But, since the fundamental requirement of the functions of these gifts is "the body as a living sacrifice", it stands to reason that "natural talents" may be instruments of the expression of the "grace gifts" (one naturally talented in mechanical abilities may well use those talents in the expression of, for example, the gift of "helps", as also the natural talent of singing skills may be used in the expression of the gift of "exhortation", etc.).
• II. The Function of "Prophecy".
  • A. Paul expresses this "function" in terms of a given "standard" (kata plus an accusative).
    • 1. This "standard" has two elements.
      • a. The word in the accusative is never found anywhere else in the New Testament, making it a bit more difficult to grasp because of the absence of other texts/contexts.
        • 1) The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains says the root issue of this word is "isomorphic relationship", and that phrase is defined as "a relation of proportion".
        • 2) A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature says the word indicates "a right relationship to something else, or in agreement with something else, or in proportion to something else".
        • 3) The Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell and Scott has an extended treatment of the term under the verb, analegeo, "to be analogous". One of the "definitions" is "mathematical proportion".
        • 4) The etymology is ana and logia and signals a kind of repetition of a prior statement.
        • 5) It seems that Paul meant something along the lines of "according to a proportion" that he then identified in terms of "the faith".
      • b. The second element is this identification: the faith.
        • 1) Since his "big" issue in this text/context is that of "humility" by reason of a divine measure in terms of how much "faith" any given person might have, it seems that he is actually saying that "prophecy" is tied to this "measure".
        • 2) The straightforward implication is that "prophecies" limited by measure must both be generally "accepted" but always "evaluated" (primarily by others with the same gift: 1 Corinthians 14:32) as he instructs the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5:20.
    • 2. This "standard", once stated in respect to this "gift", is, then, extended to all of the following "gifts": everyone must be functioning "in measure".
  • B. As a "primary gift" (in terms of importance in respect to the Church), this "gift", at least for the early Church in history without a "canon" of guidance, was particularly significant and needed to be encouraged by Paul with the understanding that it was "in measure".

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This is article #026.
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