1 Corinthians 12:28

“And God hath set some in the Church...first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, kinds of tongues.”

The phrase ἔθετο ὁ θεός, God hath set, identical with that in 1 Corinthians 12:18, shows the correspondence between the idea of 1 Corinthians 12:28 and that of the passage 1 Corinthians 12:18-26. Edwards acutely observes, that if in Ephesians 4:11 Paul uses the word ἔδωκε, gave, it is because in that passage he wishes to bring out the wealth of Christ's gifts, while here he is rather thinking of the sovereignty of Divine power.

In beginning this proposition, the apostle had first in view a simple enumeration, in which all the functions about to follow should be placed on the same footing. Hence the οὓς μέν, some, which should have been followed by οὓς δέ, others; comp. Ephesians 4:11. But, on reaching the first term of the enumeration, his feeling of the inequality of these gifts and offices causes a modification in the expression of his thought, and instead of the simple term apostles, which was to have begun the enumeration, he suddenly introduces, by means of the adverb firstly, followed by secondly, thirdly, etc., the notion of subordination. The apostle had a special reason for reminding this Church, in which liberty was degenerating into licence, of the deference due to the apostolate, and then to the prophetic and teaching offices, those three excellent gifts, to which that of speaking in tongues was childishly preferred. It is from this modification introduced into the original thought that the inaccuracy pointed out has arisen. Hofmann has denied any change of construction. He makes of the whole 1 Corinthians 12:28 a parenthetical proposition, the principal being found in 1 Corinthians 12:29: “And those whom God has set as apostles, as prophets, as teachers...(1 Corinthians 12:29), are not however all apostles, all prophets, all teachers,” that is to say: “they do not however each combine all these offices.” But by this unnatural construction the μέν becomes superfluous, and the substitution of the idea of rank (firstly, etc.) for the simple enumeration becomes incomprehensible, not to speak of the strangeness of the question in itself. The apostle here returns to the general viewpoint of 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, where the gifts and offices were combined; he intermingles them in the following enumeration.

The regimen ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, in the Church, shows that the circle here embraced in the view of the apostle is larger than that referred to, 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, by the enumeration of the gifts prevailing at Corinth. The apostolate could not have figured in this narrow circle, either as an office, or still less as an office belonging to the Church universal. Now Paul, as we have just said, had good reasons for mentioning here the first rank assigned by God to the office of apostle, and hence he rises from the idea of the Corinthian community to that of the whole Christian community. The πρῶτον, firstly, combines the two notions of time and dignity, which are in this case closely connected; for the Church sprang, as it were, from the apostolate which founded it, and which remains to the end its highest guide. But the notion of superiority certainly outweighs that of anteriority, the secondly and thirdly which follow being incapable of application to time. Paul here includes in the apostolate the ministry of those men who, like James, Barnabas, Silas, took part in founding the Church, and even the evangelists or missionaries (Timothy, Titus, etc.) who are separately mentioned, Ephesians 4:11; comp. Acts 14:4; Acts 14:14; Romans 16:7. Is it not possible that in speaking in 1 Corinthians 12:21 of the head as a member of the body, the apostolate was already in his mind?

The prophets are those whose office it is to receive the new revelations which God thinks good to grant to the Church at certain times. We shall see, chap. 14, that every prophetic discourse rests on an immediate revelation, the contents of which are communicated at the moment to the Church. These revelations were intended to enlighten the faithful as to the gravity of the present and imminent situation of the Church, and to enkindle the courage and Christian hope of its members. The prophets of the first age, like the apostles, do not seem to have been permanently attached to a special Church. Like the apostolate, the ministry of the prophets had a universal character, though they might settle for a time in a particular Church (Acts 13:1; Acts 15:32). In several passages (Ephesians 2:20; Ephesians 3:5) they are almost identified with the apostles, with whom they shared the task of founding the Church. If all prophets were not apostles, on the other hand the prophetic gift seems to have been bound to the apostolate. In the Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, the prophets still exercise an itinerant ministry, going from Church to Church to edify the faithful.

The teachers, mentioned in the third place, were men who had the gift of calmly and consecutively expounding saving truth, and of applying it to the practical life of the Church. If the prophet may be compared to the traveller who discovers new countries, the teacher is like the geographer who combines the scattered results of these discoveries and gives a methodical statement of them. This ministry must have been more local than that of the prophets; for, Ephesians 4:11, it is closely connected with that of pastors, which was decidedly parochial (Acts 20:28). But we learn from this very passage that the two functions were not identical. It was only gradually, though already in the course of the apostolic age, that the ministry of teaching (doctorate, διδασκαλία) was combined and fused, as it were, with the care of souls (the pastorate, the ποιμήν). The passage 1 Timothy 5:17 indicates the beginning of this fusion; and the part taken by the angel in the Churches of the Apocalypse marks its completion. Hence it is that the latter is made responsible for the state of the Church. If the gift of prophecy still remains in our day in the lively view and powerful expression of the truths of salvation, the doctorate has its sphere in the complete and orderly teaching of these truths, religious or theological.

The apostolate combines the two sides of gift and office, both raised to their highest power. In prophecy, the side of gift evidently outweighs that of office; in teaching the reverse. This is what has rendered the latter more suited to remain with the lapse of time as a regular function.

There follow two pairs of activities, in the first of which only the gift - element is found, while in the second there is little more than the element of office. And first the gift of miracles, literally: powers, then gifts of healing. For these two expressions we refer to 1 Corinthians 12:10, where the workings of miracles evidently correspond to our δυνάμεις, miraculous virtues. The persons on whom these gifts are bestowed, not having any importance in themselves, do not count, so to speak; this is why the abstract expressions powers and gifts of healing are substituted for those which denote the individuals themselves, used in the preceding grades. For the same reason the apostle now substitutes for the adverbs expressly indicating rank, which had been used at the beginning, the vaguer terms: after that, then..., till he ends with simple enumeration. The reading εἶτα, then, in the Byz. (before χαρίσματα), is certainly preferable to the ἔπειτα, after that, of the other two families; comp. 1 Corinthians 15:23-24. The εἶτα is a softened continuation of the preceding ἔπειτα; it distinguishes less forcibly than the latter. In proportion as we come down in the scale, the subordination becomes less distinct.

To this pair of gifts there succeeds a pair in which the notion of office is evidently the ruling one. For the offices in question are more or less external. The word ἀντιλήψεις, helps, comes from the verb ἀντιλαμβάνεσθαι, which strictly signifies: to take a burden on oneself (the middle) instead of another (ἀντι); comp. Acts 20:35; Romans 8:26. This term therefore denotes the various kinds of relief which the Church sought to procure for all sufferers, widows and orphans, the indigent, sick, strangers, travellers, etc. These various functions were afterwards united in the ecclesiastical diaconate, male and female. How could it enter the mind of some exegetes to apply the term to the interpretation of tongues! The κυβερνήσεις, governments or administrations, no doubt denote the various kinds of superintendence needed for the external good order of the assemblies and of the worship of the Church. It was necessary to find and furnish the places of meeting, etc....This all required what we should nowadays call committees, with their presidents. The various tasks were probably divided among the presbyters or elders, whose ministry was as yet distinct from that of the teachers. Only gradually was the function of teaching assigned to those who were already charged with such external management. Comp. the passage already quoted, 1 Timothy 5:17, as well as 1 Corinthians 3:2; and Titus 1:9, where Paul insists that the elder be capable of teaching and refuting those who oppose sound doctrine. We cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of quoting here M. Renan's beautiful remarks on this whole passage (Saint Paul, p. 410): “These functions: care of the suffering, the administration of the poor man's pence, mutual assistance, are enumerated by Paul in the last place, and as humble matters. But his piercing eye can here too see the truth: ‘Take note,' says he, ‘our least noble members are precisely the most honoured.' ‘Prophets, speakers of tongues, teachers, you shall pass away. Deacons, devoted widows, administrators of the goods of the Church, you shall remain; you build for eternity.'”

The apostle closes this enumeration with the gift of tongues, including in it here the gift of interpretation. On the expression: kinds of tongues, see on 1 Corinthians 12:10. The last place assigned to this gift in a list which, from the beginning, had taken a hierarchical character, can only have, whatever Meyer may say to the contrary, one object, viz. to reduce as far as possible the importance to be attached to it.

The apostle started from the highest ministry in which gift and office appear combined and in their highest potency. Thence he passed through the various grades of gradual disjunction of gifts and offices, to their widest separation, which appears in governments and administrations (as offices) on the one hand, and in speaking in tongues (as a gift) on the other. It is obvious that the classification in our passage has an ecclesiastical character, and is no longer taken, like that of 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, from the psychological viewpoint. This is the reason why prophecy here occupies a wholly different place from that which it has in the first list. As we have often said, there is nothing arbitrary in Paul's writings, even where he seems to enumerate at random. The principle of order which he follows here is that of the importance of the gifts and offices, not their intrinsic nature.

It is God, then, who has set in the Church all the different gifts and offices, and who has established among them a decreasing scale of value. The apostle does not state the conclusion from this fact, which was sufficiently apparent from what had been said in regard to the members set in the body by the hand of God. The result is this: No one should consider himself as useless, or be so considered by the Church, because he is less brilliantly endowed than this or that other. Now he passes to a new enumeration in the form of questions, to which the previous affirmation naturally gives rise: God Himself set these gifts in the Church. And how did He do it? Did He give them all to all? By no means, for that would have been to make every member a sort of whole body, consequently to render it independent of all the rest, and so destroy the body itself. God would not have individuals possessing all the gifts because He would not have any one in a position to be self-sufficient; He so ordered things that the brethren should all need one another. Thus are explained the following questions: