In all the heat and excitement that is often generated over spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, I can’t help but notice the oft overlooked first three verses to that chapter. They are as follows:
Now concerning spiritual gifts: brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be unaware. You know that when you were pagans, you used to be enticed and led astray by mute idols. Therefore I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus is cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’, except by the Holy Spirit. — 1 Corinthians 12:1-3 (CSB)
The word translated spiritual gifts (Gk. πνευματικῶν, pneumatikōn) is literally spirituals i.e. ‘Now concerning spirituals… I do not want you to be unaware’. The issue with ‘spirituals’ is, as Bill Mounce helpfully outlines here, spiritual what? The CSB footnotes highlight this could be ‘spiritual gifts’, ‘spiritual people’ or ‘spiritual things’. Given what immediately follows in vv2-3, I think spiritual gifts (the most commonly inserted term in the main body of most versions) is the least likely of the three options.
As I read these three verses, it seems that before Paul gets to speaking specifically about spiritual gifts (contra Schreiner), he wants to say something about what it is to be spiritual. In the background is the Corinthians high view of themselves as particularly spiritual people because of all their showy spiritual gifts and apparent spiritual experiences. By spirituals I think ‘spiritual ones’ is probably the best rendering (per Garland, who puts it as ‘the spiritual ones’ i.e. those who are truly spiritual) given that Paul goes on to immediately outline what does and doesn’t make for a spiritual person (vv2-3) before moving onto his broader discussion of spiritual gifts that are not the essence of being spiritual in and of themselves.1
What Paul wants the Corinthians to be aware of specifically is outlined in vv2-3. The first issue in v2 addresses the Corinthians high view of themselves in light of their spiritual gifts and experiences. Paul’s reminder that they ‘used to be enticed and led astray by mute idols’ is a word of caution about citing experience and feelings as evidence of being spiritual. In other words, remember that you used to have “spirituals” when you worshipped lumps of wood and metal. Despite your experiences, you now recognise you weren’t being very spiritual then and that should give you pause before you insist your experiences and showy gifts are necessarily signs of great spirituality now. As Tom Schreiner puts it, ‘spiritual experiences are not self-validating and self-authenticating. Pagans have spiritual experiences as well, but they are to be rejected’ (1 Corinthians, TNTC, p.253).
Instead, in v3, Paul insists true spirituality is based on a response to the Lord Jesus. Rejecting Jesus is not the work of the Holy Spirit and a proper recognition that Jesus is Lord can only happen by a work of God’s Spirit. The reference to Jesus as Lord is almost certainly rooted in the Jewish shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) and is to apply the tetragrammaton to Jesus himself. That is to say, the mark of being a spiritual person is to recognise Jesus as Lord and God with all its implications because that is a work of the Holy Spirit.
Those who reject Jesus as Lord and God are rejecting him and prove they’re not spiritual. Those who affirm Jesus as Lord, and respond to him as God and saviour, are truly spiritual. In short, it’s not about whatever experiences you might have. Pagans worshipping statues have experiences. Other religions have experiences. True spirituality is about your response to Jesus which evidences a work of the Holy Spirit. Do you acknowledge him as Lord, God and saviour or not? If you do, you are a spiritual person with the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. After that, you can let the experiences and gifts fall where they may.
- I think Ciampa & Rosner’s ‘spiritual things’ comes close to the meaning here too. The two verses that follow could be taken as practices that do not convey spirituality (v2) and then the people who are and are not spiritual (v3). A broader rendering of ‘spiritual things’ would cover the two topics. However, I marginally prefer ↩︎
That’s an interesting insight to those three verses that I’ve never come across before, and I find it pretty convincing – thanks. It just goes to show how the insertion of epexegetical words into a translation (in this instance ‘gifts’) can lead the reader astray in understanding. (Possibly the worst translation for doing this is the NIV(!); also why Robert Alter entitles the first section of his introduction to The Hebrew Bible : Translation and Commentary ‘The Bible in English and the Heresy of Explanation’.)
Yes, I fully understand why translations add “for clarity”. In the end, translators have to decide what the text means and then translate it accordingly. But it inevitably leads to the occasional interesting bit like this – no perfect translations and all that
Thanks for this. I like your take on this and am a little concerned with myself for not knowing this particular translation decision. I keep discovering such things ever since I encountered the ESV’s “translation” of Genesis 3:16, which they have thankfully chosen to change. I am sure that the task of translating is much more difficult and challenging than I know, but it seems to me that translations are more and more willing to do the work of hermeneutics than they should be comfortable with. Translate the text! Let scholars and pastors wrestle with meaning and possibilities.
I am much more sympathetic to translators on this. It is in the nature of translation work to understand the text and then translate the meaning into English. This is impossible to do without some interpretation. If they don’t do this, we would end up with the English being word-for-word. Read any interlinear Bible and see how the English goes. You will see what little sense it makes. It simply isn’t possible to do a word-for-word translation and meaningfully call it a translation. Even then, they have to make choices about each individual word that all have a semantic range, so the bare words on their own don’t help understanding either.
So translators try to balance a formal equivalence of the words in English with intelligibility and readability. All translations lean harder in one or other direction and that then tells in their translation work. But they are usually very upfront about it in the opening introduction and notes.
In the end, there are no perfect translations. But if that is a particular concern to us, we all must learn greek and Hebrew and insist, as Muslims do, the only way to read the text is in the original language. Everything else is just wrong.
Alternatively, we can say with most Christians throughout the millenia, God will preserve his meaning even in translation because scripture is perspicuous and though the odd word here or there might cloud things a bit, the fundamental meaning is evident.
Even in the example I give here, what do we actually lose in translating it spirituals, spiritual gifts, spiritual people or spiritual things? In my view, nothing really because what follows is evident enough in the next two verses. Most of the cloudiness in any modern translation is of this order.