Now God has Placed…
Now, about spiritual matters… Verse 7: the Spirit manifests in each person with some supernatural power. One Spirit gives all the gifts, and that same Spirit gives a gift to each member of the body of Jesus. Perhaps the main point there is unity in diversity.
In verses 4 through 27, Paul wrote about what he called “the body.” In verse 28, he shifted from writing about unity in the body to work and preeminence in the ekklesia. “Now God has placed these in the ekklesia:” First, apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helping, administrating, speaking in tongues. He did not pause to explain why he mentioned those empowerments in that order. For anyone who says that they base their lives and ministries and theologies on the Bible, all of chapter 12 here was in present tense in Paul’s grammar, and he made no suggestion that people prepare for the absence of any of the gifts he listed. No other Scripture makes that suggestion, either.
To declare that these gifts are no longer needed by the ekklesia to do Kingdom business, or to teach that they have ceased, is to create doctrine from doubt and from failure to manifest the Holy Spirit, not from Scripture.
He placed those gifts in the ekklesia. He still wants to place those gifts and others in the ekklesia. They will make us able to offer the earth a supernatural government, ruled over by the King of Heaven and Earth.