And yet, if truth be told, the majority of Christians are quite ignorant about the spiritual gifts which God gave us for the very specific reason of making the church an effective organism for ministering to the needs of people.

We are told here that God (through Paul) doesn’t want us to be IGNORANT concerning spiritual gifts. If you continue reading through the rest of this chapter and into the next two chapters, we find out that without these spiritual gifts operating, a local congregation is severely handicapped.

And God’s perfect will is that His people are not handicapped in their ability to minister His power and love.

What does the word, “ignorant,” actually mean? It means, not knowing, not understanding, something that is completely unknown. But even more shocking, it means “to err or SIN through mistake,” and “to be WRONG.”

Paul is literally saying that he doesn’t want us to be wrong or sinning by mistake because of our ignorance concerning spiritual gifts.

Now this is shocking to me. And it ought to be shocking to you. Every congregation that is not seeing the operation of all of the supernatural gifts that get explained in this section of the letter are operating in sin.

It doesn’t matter if it’s intentional. Through their ignorance, they are shutting down the powerful ministry of the Holy Spirit for meeting the needs of His people. And this is a sinful action.

Now reading on, Paul compares the Church to a human body. The body is all one organism. But it is an organism that is made up of many parts that all have different functions. None of the parts can operate alone. And yet if one of the parts is unable to function, the entire body will suffer the effects of this handicap.

Now very few local church congregations function like this. Mostly, they are set up with one mouth and a whole bunch of ears. But none of the other parts of the body are represented.

It might be hard to imagine, but how weird would it be to see a human body that was only composed of a mouth and numerous ears? This would be a grotesque sight. And this body would be close to completely dysfunctional.

The traditional model used in most American churches is composed of a grotesque and dysfunctional body because most Christians are ignorant. But God doesn’t want us ignorant because everyone in the Church and in our communities suffer because of our handicaps.

Do you have a miracle worker in your church? No? Then you are handicapped. And the handicap has been produced by your ignorance and is causing the entire local congregation to operate in a sinful manner.

Do you have someone who operates in the gifts of healing? No? Then again, this handicapped condition has been produced through ignorance and it is sinful.

No local congregation can meet the needs of their people without these spiritual gifts in operation. And yet they are usually missing.

So what is the result? Lots of sick people. Lots of people in desperate need of a miracle that don’t get them. Lots of people who are being tormented by demons and can’t get free. And a community that is not changed because they don’t see the local congregation as the powerful resource that they are supposed to be.

God still loves His church. And He doesn’t condemn us for operating the way we operate. But we are leaving the majority of His blessing on the table.

What would happen if Christians weren’t so ignorant concerning spiritual gifts?

People in the world would come seek you out instead of ignoring you. Like they do now.