singular

Tuesday January 21^st, 1^st Corinthians 1:  7-9 Just think—you don't need a thing, you've got it all! All God's gifts are right in front of you as you wait expectantly for our Master Jesus to arrive on the scene for the Finale.  Paul is talking to the church at Corinth.  They were hung up on spiritual gifts and who had what and which ones were more important on some ranking scale they had in their head.  Paul’s message is that each gift is important and that every gathering of the body of Christ has all the spiritual gifts needed for that particular body of Christ.  Our church has all the gifts needed for this time and place; your church has all the gifts needed for this time and place.  It is often a matter of coaxing these gifts out of those sitting in the pews.  After years of focusing on little screens before us, the problem is not a lack of spiritual gifts, it is the couch potato Christian mentality that tends to keep the people in the pews looking for, and being, entertained.  One of the destructive gifts from the current fundamentalists’ movement is the individuality that exists in any given congregation, exemplified by the question, “are you (singular) saved?  The question implies a singular answer which is where the problem lies. We are never really saved from, we are always saved for.  Paul was also dealing with this individuality in Corinth.  When the body sees itself as the “body,” rather than individual parts, that is when things start to hum.