Fall is a busy time of year for our church. Two of our church-wide events—our Outreach Conference and our Fall Festival—happen within three weeks of each other. This year we recruited our faith family for a new project: assembling 10,000 copies of John and Romans for missionaries in Mexico. These organized NorthStone activities and events are worthy in that they are very directly gospel-related. Such things are also eternally valuable, for they bear fruit that lasts forever. Whether we, the believers who invested effort into the events and projects, are spiritual while we participate in them is another question.
That other question is this: What is the measure of spirituality? Is it acts of service in promoting gospel causes? A key position in outreach activities? Managing a polished program? A certain number of salvation decisions? The ability to operate confidently in “ministry moments”? Scripture doesn’t use any of these questions to measure spiritual maturity.
Consider how 1 Corinthians 13 opens. It is possible to have the ability to “speak with the tongues of men and angels,” yet that gift be useless noise. It is possible to have deep understanding, more faith than most other Christians have, and the gift of speaking with divine perception directly to individual situations, and yet to be spiritually insignificant. It is possible to willingly perform great sacrificial works, and yet it do no good in the Lord’s eyes. The key qualifier in verses 1-3, as we know, is that when I “have no charity” while performing, saying, and achieving great things, they count for nothing. The problem in the Corinthian church was not that they lacked the Spirit’s enabling; Paul told them they “come behind in no gift” (1 Cor. 1:7), and chapter 12 begins the discussion on this topic with the words “now concerning spiritual gifts.” Every tool was in place, and the spiritual gifting to wield the tool was also in place. What they lacked was an attribute that signals the presence of Spirit-led maturity: love.
Galatians 5:22-23 famously details the attributes that together compose the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. The first attribute, love, is the focus of 1 Corinthians 13. Some of the other attributes from Galatians 5 are also specifically named in the “love chapter.” Joy is present; it is an action: love “rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth” (v. 6). Love also exercises longsuffering through the action of suffering or bearing long (vv. 4, 7). The kindness of love in 13:4 is a related word to the gentleness found in the Galatians 5 list. In 1 Corinthians 13, faith is an action: love “believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” (v. 7). The other attributes of the fruit of the Spirit—peace, goodness, meekness, and temperance—are not mentioned by name. Temperance especially, though, leaves its fingerprints throughout the chapter; love controls itself so that it “is not easily provoked”; “vaunteth not itself”; and “thinketh no evil” (vv. 3-4).
The problem with the Corinthian church was not that the Spirit hadn’t given them sufficient gifts when they believed. The problem was that the presence of gifting is not the same as the presence of spiritual maturity. So it is for 21st century believers. A gifted preacher or teacher is not more spiritual for having the God-given ability to speak. A perceptive encourager, or an especially outspoken evangelist, is not necessarily more filled by the Spirit because the Lord has made them capable in that area. The true measure of spiritual significance is how those same people respond when they are cut off in traffic, or when they are bearing a prolonged health burden, or in the moment of temptation. Is the practitioner of mercy toward the saints patient and merciful to her own husband and children? Does the man who prays great prayers of faith make his household more joyful when he arrives, or do his wife and children endure his presence and feel pressure to accommodate his mood? Do those gifted believers have calmness in the face of a difficult health diagnosis?
True spirituality cannot be faked for a couple hours on Sunday, nor can it be substituted for ministry activity. Instead, it is lived in front of family and close friends, and it the kind of fullness of soul that others want for themselves. 1 Corinthians 13 points out that the fruit of the Spirit—with love chief among them—are all actions. “Charity suffering long and is kind; charity envieth not…is not easily provoked…rejoiceth in the truth…beareth all things.” Against the abrasion of circumstances, the filled are separated from the gifted, and the former will eventually be worn down. Don’t measure maturity by capability or busyness; measure it against the fruit of the Spirit.
The above article was written by Jonathan Kyser. He is a pastoral assistant at NorthStone Baptist Church in Pensacola, FL. To offer him your feedback, comment below or email us at strengthforlife461@gmail.com.
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