1 Corinthians 12:1

[To avoid confusion in our classification of the subjects handled, we have called this section a response, but it is such as to information received, rather than as to questions asked. In the early church the Spirit of God, fulfilling the predictions of prophecy (Joel 2:28 ff.; Acts 2:17-21), and the promise of the Lord (Mark 16:17-18; Acts 8:7), beginning on the day of Pentecost, endowed certain members with miraculous gifts. These were needful in that day: 1. They aided the evangelists and missionaries to propagate the faith in new fields with greater speed. 2. They assured weak converts that God was indeed in that church for which they had abandoned their former religions. 3. They edified the church, and gave it that body of perfect revealed truth which has been preserved and made permanent in the New Testament. But as different gifts were bestowed on different individuals, some of them became a source of pride and envy. Some who had showy gifts made a boastful display of them, and thus vaunted themselves as superior to those who had powers of a less dazzling nature; and those who had the humbler gifts envied the more richly endowed. To correct all this, Paul wrote the three Chapter s which follow.] Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.