Ministry of Grace Church

that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge,

Truth to Learn

Christians are given spiritual gifts at the moment of salvation.

Behind the Words

The words “you were enriched” are translated from the Greek verb ploutidzō, which is derived from the noun ploutos, meaning “wealth” or “riches.” Therefore, ploutidzō means “to make wealthy” or “to make rich.” It is expressed here in the passive voice, indicating something done to the subject (you). It is also expressed in the aorist tense, indicating something that was done at a point in time in the past. So, we could translate this as “you were made rich.”

“Everything” is a neuter form of pas, meaning “all things” or “everything.” It expresses the totality of things.

The word “utterance” is from the Greek noun logos, which refers to “something said.” However, this word represents more than just the words themselves; it includes the thoughts behind the words.

Gnosis is the word translated “knowledge.” More specifically, it refers to the act of knowing something. It indicates more than just being aware of something. It indicates an acceptance and belief of some fact or facts.

Meaning Explained

You may recall that Paul is in the midst of a prayer for the Corinthian Christians, thanking God for blessings that they had already received from God. In yesterday’s verse he talked about the grace that they (and we) received that resulted in their salvation. Part of that grace includes the wealth that they (and we) received. We will see a few verses down the road that part of the riches that they received was spiritual gifts. The thing to note here is that these riches were bestowed at a point in time in the past. Since he is talking about these riches being part of God’s grace, it is clear that these things were given at the time of our salvation. In other words, we do not have to pray for any spiritual gift to be given to us because whatever gifts God bestows on us were given to us at the point in time that we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

It’s interesting that Paul couples together utterance and knowledge. Knowledge, the internalization or acceptance of facts, can only come as a result of something being communicated to us. Conversely, we can only declare that which we already know. So we see that utterance and knowledge are the tools that are used to pass along the glorious truth of salvation in Christ Jesus.

As we will see later in this letter, the church at Corinth was particularly blessed with spiritual gifts. However, the members of this church had placed inordinate value on some of the lesser gifts (like the gift of tongues, or languages) and much less value in some of the greater gifts (like the gift of prophesy, the proclamation of spiritual truths and doctrine). This problem is just as prevalent is some churches today where the sign gifts are considered more desirable than the edifying gifts.

Application

At the moment of your salvation (your spiritual birthday), you were given certain specific abilities (spiritual gifts) that are intended for the building up of the church. You don’t have to pray for them or wait for them. You already have them. Are you using them for God’s glory?