In my role at work, I have some authority. Today I have to review a person to give a second opinion as to him being under an Act: if must accept treatment, or if this person can be certified for a benefit or excused from work and other responsibilities. In addition, over the years I have built up some goodwill and influence.
And I have learnt that holding onto these things means that they slip through your fingers. You have to give them away. The reason you have power is to help others. Now, this has to be done properly — or as the sad case of Nick Smith shows, you can move into corrupt practice. Nick, quite properly, resigned this week). Paul moves from talking about the people who minister to the church and the temptations of power to what should be our real motivation.
27Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. 29Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
1If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Now, Calvin himself shows that the stereotype is wrong. He comments..
And if I should give up my body. He speaks, undoubtedly, of martyrdom, which is an act that is the most lovely and excellent of all; for what is more admirable than that invincible fortitude of mind, which makes a man not hesitate to pour out his life for the testimony of the gospel? Yet even this, too, God regards as nothing, if the mind is destitute of love. The kind of punishment that he makes mention of was not then so common among Christians; for we read that tyrants, at that time, set themselves to destroy the Church, rather by swords than by flames, except that Nero, in his rage, had recourse, also, to burning. The Spirit appears, however, to have predicted here, by Paul’s mouth, the persecutions that were coming. But this is a digression. The main truth in the passage is this — that as love is the only rule of our actions, and the only means of regulating the right use of the gifts of God, nothing, in the absence of it, is approved of by God, however magnificent it may be in the estimation of men. For where it is wanting, the beauty of all virtues is mere tinsel — is empty sound — is not worth a straw — nay more, is offensive and disgusting. As for the inference which Papists draw from this — that love is therefore of more avail for our justification than faith, we shall refute it afterwards. At present, we must proceed to notice what follows
There is no question that martyrdom occurs in this time. There is also no question that some of us will have power, either in the secular world or in the church. But that power is transient. Nick Smith went from being quite a powerful member of government, to a local MP, broken and in tears, in five days.
Power, Riches, Giftedness, should be seen as a set of tool thatwe can use to serve and love, not something to be proud of. For when we say we are rich, we and powerful and need nothing we forget we are poor, broken, and spiritually hungry. Power is suborrinate, among Christians, to love. For love will remain, Our positions on this earth are ephemeral.