In 3:1-9 we see that Paul regarded all the believers in Christ as plants which need growth. The most necessary thing for a plant is growth. The Corinthian believers were not lacking in the initial gifts in life—the eternal life and the Holy Spirit—but they were desperately short in the growth in life. The initial gifts were given for the purpose of growth and development.
Many Christians today do not realize that they have received the initial gifts in life and that they urgently need the growth in life. The matter most neglected among believers is the initial gifts for the growth in life. I hope that many among us, especially the young ones, will realize that they have the divine life and the Holy Spirit within them as the initial gifts and that these gifts need growth and development.
The Corinthian believers had received the initial gifts of life as the seed. This means that the seed had been sown into their being, and that their being was the earth in which the seed would grow. But although they had received the seed, they still needed the growth in life for the development of the gifts they had received.
Many Christians talk about gifts, but they do not pay attention to the initial gifts. The gifts in 1:7 are different from those in chapters twelve and fourteen. The gifts in these chapters are not the initial gifts. Rather, in chapters twelve and fourteen we have both miraculous gifts and mature gifts. Genuine tongues-speaking is a miraculous gift. For example, it certainly was a miracle for Balaam’s donkey to speak a human language. Although that may be called a gift, it certainly was not the initial gift in life. Believers may be amazed at the manifestation of a miraculous gift, but they may consider the initial gifts of eternal life and of the Holy Spirit very common and not worthy of much attention. However, even though the miraculous gifts have their source in God, they actually do not count as much as the initial gifts. No doubt, it was of God that Balaam’s donkey spoke in tongues. But this miraculous occurrence did not render either the donkey or Balaam very much help in life.
Many Christians today appreciate miraculous gifts more than the initial gifts. Some would be pleased if every believer spoke in tongues, even if the so-called tongues are not genuine. I can testify of this from experience. In 1963 I was invited to a certain Pentecostal group. After one of the meetings, the leader of this group and his wife tried to get a particular Chinese brother to speak in tongues. The wife told him not to speak either English or Chinese, but to make other sounds. The brother realized that in order to get out of that situation he had to say something. Remembering a few words in the Malay language, he uttered some words he remembered in that language. Immediately the leader of this Pentecostal group and his wife clapped their hands and rejoiced that this brother had spoken in tongues. The next day I pointed out to that couple what had actually happened and went on to question them about this practice.
Furthermore, in one of the meetings of this same Pentecostal group, a woman gave a short word in tongues. Then a young man gave a long interpretation of that word. Later the leader of the group admitted that the interpretation given by the young man was not genuine. I then asked him why he engaged in these practices when we have such a rich Christ to minister to others. He had nothing to say in response to my question.
Pentecostal believers ignore the initial gifts in favor of miraculous gifts, and many fundamental Christians pay their attention not to gifts but to doctrine. Thus, among both Pentecostalists and fundamentalists there is a serious neglect of the initial gifts, the gifts of the divine life and the Holy Spirit. How pitiful is the situation among so many Christians today! This causes me to be burdened to emphasize the crucial importance of the initial gifts. We all need to see that these gifts are the seed sown into us and that these gifts need to be developed and cultivated. In this Epistle Paul is seeking to develop and cultivate the initial gifts received by the Corinthian believers. He fully realized that the believers at Corinth were infants and desperately in need of growth. He could still feed them only with milk, but his desire was to supply them with solid food.