No. 58 I want to pick up on Nick�s line of questioning. How does a pastor connect the teaching on the gifts of the Spirit or related practices (e.g., spiritual inventories and the like) to the person of the Holy Spirit, the means of grace, and the fruit of the Spirit? >>DR. LEOPALDO SANCHEZ M.: Well, Eric, you are right in seeing all of these pieces as part of the puzzle here. They should all come together somehow. So to do so I would like to propose a hierarchy of priority that subordinates the individual gifts of the Spirit, whatever this might be, to the fruit of the Spirit, then to the means of grace and finally to the person of the Spirit. We have already said that the Spirit decides what gifts he will give his church for her work in the world. What gifts the Spirit will give each individual member of the body of Christ. In this way all gifts are in a sense subordinated to their source. That is to say to the Holy Spirit. In fact, the Spirit may choose to give one a certain gift for life or another a number of various gifts over time. Again, when it comes to gifts, the Spirit giveth and taketh away as he wills. One of the problems with the spiritual gift inventories is that they seem to decide in advance what gifts the Spirit can give to the church. And that could be seen as a form of domesticating in the Spirit. So I would be careful with that. It may take away the element of surprise, of the freedom of the Spirit, to give the church what she needs. The lesson to be learned here is that whenever we decide in advance what our gifts of the Spirit should be or should not be, the Spirit is not behind such decisions. The gifts of the Spirit are also subordinated to the fruit of the Spirit because love must guide their use. Recall that love is the first thing mentioned of the fruit of the Spirit. It describes the character of the Christian life. Love in this sense surpasses any single gift and also brings all diverse gifts together under their common purpose for the sake of building up the body of Christ. In fact, gifts actually come and go. But love always remains. The lesson to be learned from this is that whenever gifts are not used in accordance with love like the gift of tongues in the Corinthian congregation, the Spirit is not behind these manifestations. The gifts of the Spirit are also subordinated to the Spirit's work through the means of grace. Above all we may say that baptism gives every believer equal dignity before God and one another. Therefore, every member of the congregation and not only a privileged group of gifted individuals may be called charismatic in the sense that he or she has drunk of one Spirit in baptism and received the Spirit fully and the Spirit's gift. Paul writes: For just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into the one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free. All were made to drink of one Spirit. The lesson to be learned here is that wherever gifts create divisions within the body of the baptized, the Spirit is not behind such manifestations. Now, our sheer baptismal dignity also allows the notion for a priority of love and honor towards the members of the body who seem dispensable and less honorable. Saint Paul puts it this way: The parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable. And those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor. "But God has so adjusted the body" continues Paul "given the greater honor to the inferior part. There may be no discord in the body. But that the members may have the same care for one another." Do you want to see the Spirit at work in the church? Look at the parts of the body which seems to be weaker and less honorable. These people often teach us to care for one another in amazing ways in their own subtle almost behind the scenes way of serving actually bring unity to the body of Christ. Think of the lady who cooks the meals at church. Without her there would be no church fellowship. So the lesson to learn here is: Wherever gifts are against honoring the seemingly weaker parts of the body, the Spirit is not behind such manifestations. Finally, subordinating the gifts of the Spirit to the means of grace also allows the church to give a greater priority to these gifts of the Spirit that are most closely linked to the proclamation of Christ. This is at a fundamental level what Paul is getting at in I Corinthians 14 when he places greater importance on the prophetic gifts than on the gift of tongues. The lesson to be learned from this is that wherever certain gifts eclipse or take over the Spirit's work through the Gospel, the Spirit is not behind such manifestations.