Mark

Cheryl,

You ask good questions and very similar to what i have seen you ask in previous dialogues with people. You again slipped in the idea of ‘gifting’ which i think is a good topic that we should discuss at some point aswell. For example you asked who’s function is it to use their gift to teach? This is very broad and needs to be narrowed. After all there are many non christians who can stand up in front of a crowd and teach- should we assume the are using their spiritual gift. We need to be able to distinguish what is truly something given by the Spirit of God before claiming someone is just using their gift.

But again like i said to Kay, before we get to hypothetical on how these functions play out, let’s investigate if this is what the bible teaches first. If it is, then we can begin to see how to practically apply all these varius senario’s that you suggest.

Also before we begin trying to catalogue what constitutes a ‘function’ i think it is important to primarily focus on issues such as teaching, preaching, eldership… rather than trying to throw learning and things like this into the category to distort what i am saying.

I look forward to our discusions. Can i suggest we begin by looking at 1 Corinthians 11