The apostle began his discussion by clarifying the indicators that a person is under the control of the indwelling Spirit of God. With this approach, he set the Corinthians' former experience as idolaters in contrast to their present experience as Christians. "Inspired utterance"in itself does not identify what is truly "spiritual."The intelligible content of such an utterance does when the content is the basic confession that Jesus Christ is Lord.
12:1 The presence of the phrase peri de("Now concerning"or "Now about") plus the change in subject mark another matter about which the Corinthians had written Paul with a question (cf. 7:1; 8:1). It had to do with the gifts or abilities the Holy Spirit gives those believers He indwells.268This subject is the focus of all that Paul wrote in chapters 12-14 including the famous thirteenth chapter on love.
As in 10:1, Paul implied that what followed was instruction his readers needed. "Spiritual gifts"is literally "the spirituals"(Gr. ton pneumatikon).269This is a broader term than the gifts themselves, though it includes them. It appears to refer primarily to the people who are spiritual (cf. 2:15; 3:1). Evidently the Corinthians' question dealt with the marks of a spiritual Christian. A spiritual Christian is a believer under the control of the Holy Spirit compared with one under the control of his or her flesh (Gal. 5:16) or a demonic spirit (10:20-21).270
12:2 Many of the Corinthian believers had been pagans. Various influences had led them away from worship of the true God and into idolatry.
"Corinth was experience-oriented and self-oriented. Mystery religions and other pagan cults were in great abundance, from which cults many of the members at the Corinthian church received their initial religious instruction. After being converted they had failed to free themselves from pagan attitudes and they confused the true work of the Spirit of God with the former pneumatic and ecstatic experiences of the pagan religions, especially the Dionysian mystery or the religion of Apollo."271
Dumb idols are idols that do not speak in contrast with the living God who does speak. Paul previously said that demons are behind the worship of idols (10:20). He did not say that the prophecy or glossolalia (speaking in tongues) being spoken in the Corinthian church proceeded from demonic sources. He only reminded his readers that there are "inspired"utterances that come from sources other than the Holy Spirit. Probably some of them had spoken in tongues when they were pagans.
"In classical [Greek] literature, Apollo was particularly renowned as the source of ecstatic utterances, as on the lips of Cassandra of Troy, the priestess of Delphi or the Sibyl of Cumae (whose frenzy as she prophesied under the god's control is vividly described by Virgil); at a humbler level the fortune-telling slave-girl of Ac. 16.16 was dominated by the same kind of pythonic' spirit."272
12:3 Enthusiasm or ecstasy or "inspired"utterance do not necessarily indicate spirituality.273Paul's original readers needed to pay attention to what the person speaking in such a state said.
"Not the manner but the content of ecstatic speech determines its authenticity."274
What the person said about Jesus Christ was specially important. No one the Holy Spirit motivated would curse Jesus Christ. Probably no one in the Corinthian church had. Likewise no one would sincerely acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, Savior and or Sovereign, unless the Holy Spirit had some influence over him or her. This was true regardless of whether the person was speaking in an ecstatic condition or in plain speech. Paul was not enabling his readers to test the spirits to see if they were of God (cf. 1 John 4:1-3). His point was that "inspired"utterance as such does not indicate that the Holy Spirit is leading a person.
The Holy Spirit leads those under His control to glorify Jesus Christ, not dumb idols, with their speech (cf. 2:10-13).
"The ultimate criterion of the Spirit's activity is the exaltation of Jesus as Lord. Whatever takes away from that, even if they be legitimate expressions of the Spirit, begins to move away from Christ to a more pagan fascination with spiritual activity as an end in itself."275
