R.C. Sproul

If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith, or ministry, let us use it in our ministering.

He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness."

I think the first thing we need to see about this list of gifts that Paul gives here in Romans, which is not dissimilar from what he expounds in 1 Corinthians, I think the first thing we should see is that this list is not exhaustive, but it's representative.

It's kind of for example.

And the metaphor that he uses here for the church, as he does in 1 Corinthians, is that the church is one body, and that that one body has many members, and that there are various functions that are given to people within the church.

But that not only applies within the church, that applies within the world.

from the very beginning of creation when God made Adam and Eve and gave them the responsibility of dressing and tilling and keeping the earth.

and of being fruitful and multiplying.

When we see them bear children with Cain and Abel, for example, we learn that one of them raised livestock and the other one raised produce.

St.

Thomas Aquinas observed from this passage in Scripture that we see in the very beginning of creation a division of labor.

and that everybody is given a task to perform, not only for their own well-being, not only for their private profit, but for the well-being of mankind.

And when we're considering a vocation, we want to ask ourselves the question, how does my vocation contribute to the well-being of humanity?

Now maybe I love the outdoors, and I love being in the forest, and so I'd like to spend all my life as an outdoorsman and in the forest.

And I may say to myself, well, I'd like to be a professional lumberjack, and we see that I have the aptitude for it and the gifts necessary to be a good lumberjack, like the fellow

who applied for the job out in the great northwest to be a tree cutter, a lumberjack, and the foreman of the camp asked him if he had any experience in the work of lumberjacking, and he said, yes.

He said, I worked for ten years in the Sahara forest.

And the boss said, the Sahara forest?

He said, the Sahara is a desert.

And the applicant said, now?