#STRask - Is 1 Corinthians 12:3 a Black-and-White Tool for Discernment?

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

Questions about whether the claim in 1 Corinthians that “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit” is a black-and-white tool for discernment, and how to have a better relationship with Jesus when reading the Bible feels like a chore and you can’t remember to pray.   Since First Corinthians 12:3 says that “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit,” if TV evangelists who seem to preach another gospel and act overtly un-Christlike claim Jesus is Lord, is that evidence the Holy Spirit dwells in them? Is this a black-and-white tool for discernment? How can I have a better relationship with Jesus when reading the Bible feels like a chore and I can never remember to pray? I feel like I don’t know him at all.

Welcome back to the hashtag S-A-R-Ask podcast, and I say welcome back, but maybe this is your first time. And if it is, go listen to our whole other ones. I will say, I mean, every once in a while we repeat something. Usually I wait a couple years before we do, unless it's something. we get asked a lot. But there are a lot of basic questions we've already answered, and they're all on our website at STR.org. So I recommend you go back and you listen.

And I know on our podcast app and anywhere you would get a podcast, you'll only see a year. But we go all the way back. Now, when did you start with Melinda? It was probably 2016 or so that you started this show. Right, right, yeah. So we've got almost 10 years of this show and so many questions online. And I think aren't the questions keyed to our search feature, so if they search on an issue, they'll get maybe pieces that we've written or segments of shows where we discuss that. Is that how that works?

I don't go to our website that open. You can search for things. You can search for particular questions and find them on our website, yes. Or you can just go through and just start looking at all the little summaries and go back in time and see what we've had to say. Smorgantford. All right. We're going to start with a question from Chris. First Corinthians 12, 3 states, no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. How do we understand some TV evangelists slash preachers who seem to preach another gospel and act overtly on Christ-like and yet claim Jesus is Lord?

Is there a statement evidence the Holy Spirit dwells in them? Is this a black and white tool for discernment? Yeah, I just read this passage before we started, portions of it. I want to start from the top. This is Chapter 12 of 1st Corinthians, which is a passage that focuses on the Spirit, in particular, the way the Spirit gives gifts so that the body can function well. And just as an aside, God does not distribute ministry through calling. That is not a biblical motif. He distributes it through gifting, and 1 Corinthians 12 is one example of that.

he had just been finished talking about the Lord's Supper. Now, it changes here topics in chapter 12 verse 1. Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to the mute idols however you were led. Now, there's a contrast coming up here. Notice that. You were led astray by mute idols. They couldn't talk, obviously.

They had lips that couldn't speak ears, they couldn't hear, eyes, they couldn't see, the prophets mentioned. Therefore, I made known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And then he goes into his explanation of gifts. And, well, it certainly seems obvious that, anybody who says Jesus is a cursed is at odds with the spirit who gives gifts for the body of Christ, the body of Jesus, as it were, the mystical body.

So that's just off the map. I mean, duh, you don't need Paul to tell you that. Anybody who says Jesus is a cursed. I don't know if there's any historical backdrop to that particular point, but notice the contrast with pagans. Because certainly pagans today might say Jesus is a cursed, although characteristically nowadays, as a cultural phenomenon, most people like Jesus. And this is why we have the water friend that have a Jesus tactic in the book that Alan calls, let Jesus take the heat. You know, we just put it all on Jesus because people like him and see what he has to say. This other phrase here is a little more mysterious, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy See.

Spirit. Now, I think, oh, let me put it in the negative. I don't think Paul is saying that no one can get these words out of their mouth unless it's the Holy Spirit that is providing that conviction. I don't think that's, I mean, look, you can have an atheist read those words. Jesus is Lord. Well, they're not proclaiming his lordship, but no one could proclaim his lordship, except that the Holy Spirit has been involved in helping them to see that Jesus is the Lord. Now, just for your information, Jesus, the Lord is the very first standard characterization of Jesus in the early church. We find it all over the epistles and a standard part of the conversation.

In fact, in 1st Corinthians 7, Paul is talking about marriage. And he says, well, the Lord says this. And then he says, oh, not the Lord, but I. And he's just talking about Jesus teaching in his earthly ministry. Well, Jesus did speak to that. Now, he didn't speak to this, but I'm going to speak to it, you know. He's not saying he's not inspired. He's saying that Jesus himself didn't do that.

But how does he characterize Jesus, the Lord? And there's only one Lord. So the phrase the Lord is a characterization of divinity. Jesus' divinity. He's the Lord. Okay. Mark chapter one, what, first two, the voice crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord. Now, in the context there, the prophet is talking about Yahweh. But in this application, it's John the Baptist, who is the one crying into wilderness, that's pointing, there he is, and it's Jesus.

Who's Jesus? The Lord. Okay. So I think the point here minimally is that no one can generally. I genuinely acknowledge the Lordship, capital L, the divine nature of Jesus, except for the Holy Spirit, show them, not just say that as the case. People could say, look, I don't believe any of this junk, but it does teach Jesus as God, let's be fair. Well, that's not a, how does he put it here, saying Jesus is Lord in the sense that I mean it, this is acknowledging Jesus' Lord. That's what Paul is getting at here in this verse. No one can acknowledge the full divinity of Jesus except for by the Holy Spirit. Now, what happens you've got false teachers? Well, they can say whatever they want.

I don't, the question is whether they are acknowledging the full divinity of Christ. And if they are acknowledging in whatever they're teaching, the full divinity of Christ, then at that point, they are taught by the Spirit. Now, the full divinity of Christ is a sine quaan. That is a that without which. You remove the divinity of Christ and you don't have Christianity anymore. But Christianity is more than one sine qua non. There's a number of things that are essential to Christianity, and these are things that I focused on in the story of reality.

And just because you affirm one aspect of the truth that Jesus is Lord, in the sense that Paul means it in 1 Corinthians 12, it doesn't mean the rest of your teaching is sound. You've got to keep listening. That's a good start, and no one can genuinely say that Jesus is divine, the divine Lord, Emmanuel, God with us, God come down, except the Holy Spirit reveals that. That's what I take away from this, but it isn't saying anything else about the subsequent teaching of a person who acknowledges Jesus as Lord. Now, I just had this thought. I mentioned it before we started, and you looked at me quizzically because I didn't cash it out. So I'll cash it out now.

Remove the confusion. And that is, it just struck me the way this is written now, as I'm looking at it, that people who become Christian trust in Jesus, they do not have often a very deep theology. They may have a very shallow theology. It's not a criticism. It's just the nature of being a young Christian. Paul talks about that in Galatians, what, two or three, he says, hey, you're like babies in Christ, you're fleshly, you know, you're just like, you know, babies, dirty diapers, okay, but it is the case that people who become Christian, even without a lot of

education, theoretically, still believe that Jesus is God. How is that? Because now they have the Holy Spirit, and it turns out to be a clarification, I think, that the Holy Spirit gives, later substantiated by the written word, but there's just this deep sense. I've encountered God in the person of Jesus. And I think that's all we have to do with that verse to understand Paul's point, but at the same time, not give credibility to teachers who might say this genuinely, but have bad teaching in other areas. Yeah, I don't think this is intended to help us figure out who to follow and who not to follow. I don't think this is.

This is a blanket endorsement of anyone who says these words or even anyone who means these words. And I can say that because what came to mind for me, if we look at Philippians, which is also written by Paul, so he's aware of this. In the first chapter, he talks about, let's see, some to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from goodwill. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. the former proclaimed Christ out of selfish ambition, rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. But listen to what he says next. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice.

So in that case, someone was preaching Jesus is Lord, which was the true message, even though they were not someone to be trusted. So it seems to me this is probably more about. about recognizing the true message, then just using it as a blanket discernment for who to trust. Okay, Greg, let's go to a question from Tanya. She says she's 14 years old. Oh, Tanya, welcome to the show. I'm Christian and have accepted Jesus as my Savior, but I feel like I don't know him at all. I want to have a better relationship with him, but reading the Bible feels like a chore,

and when I start to plan, it lasts five days. And I can never remember to pray. How do I have a relationship with him? Well, it's very practical, obviously. And Tanya, thank you for asking this question. And I am very impressed that a 14-year-old is concerned about this. That's great because you understand what is important. And you want to pursue the important thing and nurture your relationship with God.

So I have a couple of thoughts. I think that Amy probably has more things to say about this than I do. But one of the things I would say is, and I taught this to my daughter a couple of times, I don't know if it's sunk in or not, but everyone starts at the beginning. That's what I was thinking too. It's like, that's so profound. I'm going to cry. Everybody starts at the beginning.

It's just a basic observation. And so when you're starting with your relationship with God, you are starting at the beginning. And you don't have the kind of skills relationally that you will have as time goes on if you seek to develop those interpersonal kind of skills with God. This is true of any relationship. I mean, you know, you have friends, teachers, you have people that you're in relationship with Tanya. and these new relationships and new kinds of relationships at 14, you're going to start 15, 16, 17, 18, developing a whole set of new kind of relationships. It's going to seem weird, and you're not going to know how to do it because you're a beginner.

And everybody starts at the beginning. And so it just takes time to work through those things. So that's the first thing. Everybody starts at the beginning, but starting is important. Don't give up. because it's odd or difficult or seems unnatural in some ways. I have said in the past, and here's two more little principles you might use, add two. Everyone starts at the beginning, and with regards to prayer, the first rule of prayer is to pray.

Oh, Kokel's being so profound today. And the first rule of Bible reading is to read. Oh, man, three in a row. They are so simple, though, when you think about it. And the point I'm making is don't look for some kind of, I don't know, secret, magical thing that if you just hit the right button, it all happens. It doesn't work that way. This is like any other relationship that develops over time, and you have to invest.

And so if you don't know the best way to pray in a satisfying way, just start praying. Think of things that you want to say to God personally and things you want to ask for and things you want to thank him for. Very basic categories. Share your heart. Ask him for things that are appropriate and thank him for things that he's given you. Very simple. Just start doing it. Well, which should I do first?

I don't care which one you do first. Just start talking to God and think in those terms, all right. Same thing with reading. You want to read one chapter a day, half a chapter a day, or half a chapter of Proverbs a day. How about that? That's what 14 verses, 14 to 20 verses, depending on the, you just, it's like you want, if you're, when you eat food, you eat every day. You may not eat a lot. You just want to eat every day.

That keeps you healthy. So the second thing is that I want to mention, the first one being everybody starts at the beginning and just start doing these things and be comfortable with yourself as a beginner and pursue the kinds of things that Christians for thousands of years have pursued to deepen their relationship with God. and the principally are prayer and time in the word. Don't make it too overwhelming. If you make it too overwhelming, you won't do it at all. Just make it within your capability, but do it regularly as regularly as possible. Second thing is, there are different people

are different temperaments, all right? Different people have different temperaments, which means that not everybody is going to experience God, in the same way. So for my sake, I mean, in my case, experiencing God, that took a long time to have a feeling of intimacy with God. I'm 52 years in Christ now. I'm kind of an old guy, and I've been doing this a long time, but I've just been staying in the harness just one day after another stepping forward, and God has helped me. Some people have very effusive personalities and seem to connect emotionally in relationship with God right out of the gate,

and it's very intense for them. That's not the way it's been for me. And so I have had to get used to my own personality and temperament before God, but still keep pressing forward doing those things that will help me, even though in that regard it seems like it's gone slower than with other people. So those are my two pieces of it. advice. Those are great, Greg, and I'm just going to add a few things onto that. The first thing I want to say is, you've got to remember that we are fighting a spiritual battle here. There are

forces that don't want us to pray, don't want us to read the Bible. And I'm convinced this is why sometimes it feels so hard just to start, so hard. And not just individually starting on a particular day, but I mean starting the habit. That's like almost overwhelming. And I don't think that's just us. I mean, we certainly have enough in our fallen nature to want to hide from God in a certain extent. But I think we're fighting more than that. And so what I think you need to do is, first of all, understand that it's God who opens our eyes to see Jesus as he is. And I think you should pray for that. I think you should be really specific every time you sit down to pray or read the Bible and just ask God to show you who Jesus is, to help you to see him more clearly, because the more clearly

that you see him, the more you're going to love him. Sometimes what helps us to see him more clearly is to see him through other people's eyes who have been through a lot more than we have. So maybe find some biographies of people who've been through things with Jesus like the hiding place, Corey Ten Boom. There's actually, on the Desiring God website, John Piper did a series of biographical lectures. There's, I don't know how many of them. Wilberforce is one of them. Wilberforce, Newton. There's just a bunch of different people, and it's really inspiring. And so sometimes it helps if you look at how other people are seeing him and what he's done in their life. And this is how we get to know, I mean, just think about when you, when you read a book and you see a character

interacting, that's how you get to know that person. So we get to know God by reading the Bible and how he interacts with people. We can get to know him by seeing how he's interacted with people since then. All of these things kind of help us as we're getting started reading the Bible. But here's the thing. Even though it's God who has to open our eyes and help us to see, when we make time for that, and we make a space for that, that's when God works. And this is why Paul says we discipline ourselves. Discipline is a good thing. And so I love what you said, Greg, about starting small, because what you want to do is develop the habit. You want to develop a habit so that it's less effort to start on any given day. And the way you do that is you have a

particular place and a particular time and a particular plan. And all of those things will help you to get started. And one thing that will help even further is you tie this to a habit you already have. So let's say you, it might be when you first get up. That might be the easiest thing. Nothing gets in the way. You set your alarm just 10 minutes early. Let's not go crazy. Ten minutes early, you get up. And the first thing you do, is you read the Bible, and I would say just make a very small commitment at first, half a chapter, even if it's two sentences, okay, and then you pray. And once you have that habit down, now you can increase the amount that you're reading and praying, but start small so that you get the win, and you have it connected, and you develop the habit. And then once you have that down, and it's just you don't have to think about it, it's automatic. Now you don't have to get through that huge push at the beginning of the day to get started.

Because I promise you you'll think of all sorts of reasons why you have to put it off. Right, right. I got to check my phone, and that's the worst thing you do. Do not open your phone. Don't open your phone. Let me add two thoughts very quickly. And one of us, one that was an encouragement to me, you mentioned John Newton. John Newton wrote Amazing Grace.

John Newton, I read one of his biographies, you know the author, there's a series of biographies of the same sort, and Newton was one of them, Remke-Rith. Oh, Renke, oh, Newton on the Christian Life, it's a Crossway series. Yes, it is. So anyway, if you want to read that, that would be a really good one, okay. But John Newton said, I think it was Newton who said, I am loath to go to prayer, and when I I am in prayer. I am loath to stay. That loath word means, I don't want to do it. I don't want to go to prayer. When I'm praying, I don't want to stay in prayer. Okay. So he's just a human being like we are. He was a great prayer warrior, a very influential man, but was willing to acknowledge prayer was a challenge, okay? And then the next thing I'd recommend is when you wake up in the morning, when you open your eyes and you're still under your covers, say good morning Lord just say good morning Lord start the first instant of your day with him nothing fancy

you can say more if you want I do but I always say good morning to the Lord why because he's there with me every second of every day of my life and I want to acknowledge that he's there and that just helps me think about him being with me all the time. The Latin is Coram Deu. I don't know if you're a homeschooled or not, but C-O-R-A-M-D-E-O, I think is the right spelling. My Latin's a little rusty. Corum-D-O, that means before the Lord. And if you start the morning by saying, Good morning, Lord, you put yourself before the Lord immediately at the beginning of the day. I have a couple more things to say about the Bible. And it's this. First of all, the more you read, and I will say this too, the more you read and the more you pray, the more you will enjoy it. And this, if you take a break, you've got to start again. It takes a while. But I promise you, it does get better. You just have to develop that habit and pray and read the Bible. But two reasons why the Bible might be boring to you. First, it might be because you don't understand it.

Nobody enjoys reading things they don't understand. Secondly, it might be boring because you're not reading enough at one time. So it's not really making sense. So now, this seems to go against what I just said. So this will be in the future. At first, when you're getting this habit going, don't put a huge pressure on yourself. But once you start reading more chapters at a time, it's going to make a lot more sense to you, and it will be a lot more interesting.

So you want to work up to reading chapters at a time eventually. But to get there, you also need to understand a framework for what you're reading. And so I have a couple recommendations for that. One is Greg's program Bible Fast Forward, which you can get in our store at STR.org. So if you can get that, that's the quickest way to get started. It's available to you right away. But another thing I always recommend is the walk through the Bible ministries because they have events where they will teach you the entire framework for the Old Testament or the entire framework for the New Testament and you will leave knowing exactly what went on. And it's fun.

Yeah, it's very animated. You're going through all these motions that you get involved with it and it helps you. I still remember Sarah, Abraham, Lott, and Tara, because it's the word salt, S-A-L-T from, you know, Genesis 10 or 11 or whatever that is, you know, and put the salt on your tongue, Sarah, Abraham, L-T-R-Tara, okay. So that's from the, it's just a little mnemonic memory device that helped. So if you go to their, yeah, if you go to their website, you can find an event or maybe you can get your church to sponsor an event, and then everyone can get this framework for the Bible. And once you have that framework, as you're reading the parts of it, you know what it means. Because I remember the first time I read through the Bible, I was reading such a small amount that I would get to the end of a book and I would not remember what happened at the beginning of the book. I got to the end of the Old Testament and did not know that the kingdom split and there was a civil war.

I had no idea because it was too slow. It didn't make sense. And I had no meaning out of it. Remember, it's not, you're not getting some kind of a magic, you know, by reading this word, you're not getting some kind of a magic boost. Yeah. You need the meaning, and the Holy Spirit works through the meaning. So I recommend you get this framework, but, and then start working towards developing the habit. And once you have the habit, start increasing to a reasonable amount.

And if, you know, just keep that within a reasonable time. and just have it, you know, just say, look, I am not going to go a day without reading a little bit of the Bible. And even if you make it to the end of the day and you have to read one verse, you just keep the habit going. And so hopefully all these things can help you get started, but I always want to end with something that Greg said at the beginning, and that is, I don't expect you to know much about Jesus at 14. I really don't. So don't feel discouraged by that. it's actually amazing. You have your whole life ahead of you to get to know them. And that's exciting. Yeah, I didn't start until nine years later. For me, that's what I started. Okay, so you're way ahead of me.

Tanya, you're way ahead of me. Good for you. All right. Well, thank you so much, Chris and Tanya. And if you have a question, you can send out on X with the hashtag STR Ask. Or if you go to our website at STR.org, just look for our hashtag SDRSk podcast page and you'll find a link there to send us your question. We really do look forward to hearing from you. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.