These four graces are followed by a group of three, which may be regarded as being more private, as not pointing to permanent offices so much as to individual acts.  They are ‘giving,’ ‘ruling,’ ’showing pity,’ concerning which we need only note that the second of these can hardly be the ecclesiastical office, and that it stands between two which are closely related, as if it were of the same kind.  The gifts of money, or of direction, or of pity, are one in kind.  The right use of wealth comes from the gift of God’s grace; so does the right use of any sway which any of us have over any of our brethren; and so does the glow of compassion, the exercise of the natural human sympathy which belongs to all, and is deepened and made tenderer and intenser by the gift of the Spirit.  It would be a very different Church, and a very different world, if Christians, who were not conscious of possessing gifts which made them fit to be either prophets, or teachers, or exhorters, and were scarcely endowed even for any special form of ministry, felt that a gift from their hands, or a wave of pity from their hearts, was a true token of the movement of God’s Spirit on their spirits.  The fruit of the Spirit is to be found in the wide fields of everyday life, and the vine bears many clusters for the thirsty lips of wearied men who may little know what gives them their bloom and sweetness.  It would be better for both giver and receiver if Christian beneficence were more clearly recognised as one of the manifestations of spiritual life.

III.  The exercise of the graces.

There are some difficulties in reference to the grammatical construction of the words of our text, into which it is not necessary that we should enter here.  We may substantially follow the Authorised and Revised Versions in supplying verbs in the various clauses, so as to make of the text a series of exhortations.  The first of these is to ‘prophesy according to the proportion of faith’; a commandment which is best explained by remembering that in the preceding verse ‘the measure of faith’ has been stated as being the measure of the gifts.  The prophet then is to exercise his gifts in proportion to his faith.  He is to speak his convictions fully and openly, and to let his utterances be shaped by the indwelling life.  This exhortation may well sink into the heart of preachers in this day.  It is but the echo of Jeremiah’s strong words:  ’He that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.  What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord.  Is not my word like as fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?’ The ancient prophet’s woe falls with double weight on those who use their words as a veil to obscure their real beliefs, and who prophesy, not ’according to the proportion of faith,’ but according to the expectations of the hearers, whose faith is as vague as theirs.