Are spiritual gifts the highest mark of spiritual maturity?
Paul answers this question in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, “If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.”
Paul could not be more clear…The gifts of the Spirit are nothing without the fruit of the Spirit. The very first Christ-like character quality the Holy Spirit wants to produce in our lives according to Galatians 5:22 is love. Christians are to love because they belong to God, and according to 1 John 4:8 “God is love.” So Paul’s answer is a resounding “No! Spiritual gifts are not the highest mark of spiritual maturity!”
When raising money to start New Day, I met with a number of pastors and church boards to pitch my idea for a non-traditional church in traditional New England. I’ll never forgot how one board member at a very prominent church responded to me. He was so unfriendly. I was blown away. I couldn’t believe it. People may be impressed with his gift of leadership and administration and that he sits on a board of directors at a large church, but God is not impressed with a person like that.
If you want people to be impressed with you, practice your spiritual gifts publicly. If you want God to be impressed with you be patient and kind with others, which is God’s definition of love. 1 Corinthians 13:4 says “Love is patient and love is kind…” When you are patient and kind with your spouse, your children, your neighbors, your co-workers and your friends – you are practicing biblical love – and this pleases God very much. But if you aren’t patient and kind towards others, even if you practice every single spiritual gift mentioned in the Bible – the gifts mean nothing because they are being practice apart from love. In Bible college I was taught that 1 Corinthians 12 lists the gifts, that 1 Corinthians 14 lays out the rules for the gifts and that 1 Corinthians 13 gives the motivation for the gifts. The motivation of course being love.
Now the reason we are to place a greater emphasis on the the fruit of the Spirit (namely “love”) than the gifts of the Spirit is because love will last forever, while the gifts of prophecy, tongues and special knowledge will all disappear. When v.8 says “love never fails” that means that love is permanent. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:13, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”