1 My Christian friends, you know that the Holy Spirit gives special power to Christians. I want to tell you more about that, so that you will understand it properly. 2 Remember this. Before you knew God, you listened to other people that didn’t know God, and you did what they did. You used to respect those statues that you thought were gods, but you know, they are just dumb statues, they can’t say anything. 3 Now listen, I want you to understand this. If God’s spirit is inside somebody, they can never say, “Jesus, get away from me.” And the only people that can really say, “Jesus is my leader,” are the people that have God’s spirit inside them.

4 You know, the Holy Spirit gives us special powers to do things. We call those powers the gifts that he gives us. There are different sorts of gifts, but they all come from the same Holy Spirit.[a] 5 We work for God in a lot of different ways, but all of us work for Jesus. 6 Different people can do different things, but it is the same God that gives each person the power to work for him.

7 It’s like this. The Holy Spirit works in each one of us. He gives us these gifts so we can help each other. 8 The Holy Spirit gives one person the power to say a wise message for somebody, and he gives another person the power to know something special. 9 The same Holy Spirit gives another person the power to believe God strongly for something. And he gives another person the power to make sick people better. 10 The same Holy Spirit gives another person the power to do great things. And he gives another person the power to tell messages straight from God. The same Holy Spirit gives another person the power to know if something comes from God’s spirit, or if it comes from bad spirits. He gives another person the power to talk in special languages, and he gives another person the power to say what those special language words mean. 11 It is the same Holy Spirit that does all those things. He gives gifts to each person, just the way he wants to.

12 You know, a body has a lot of parts. All those different parts make only one body. And it is like that with Jesus Christ too. We Christians are like his body.[b] 13 Some of us are Jews, and the rest of us are not Jews. Some of us are free, and some of us are like prisoners that have to work for no pay. But no matter what we are, God put his spirit into all of us, that is, he baptised us in his spirit. He did that to join us together into one body. Now we all have that same Holy Spirit in us.

14 And you know that a body doesn’t have just one part. It has a lot of different parts. 15 Suppose a foot thinks to itself, “I’m not a hand, so I don’t belong to this body.” That doesn’t change anything, it is still a part of the body. 16 Or suppose an ear thinks to itself, “I’m not an eye, so I don’t belong to this body.” But no matter what it thinks, it is still a part of the body. 17 Suppose the whole body was an eye, it wouldn’t hear anything. Or suppose the whole body was an ear, it wouldn’t smell anything. 18-19 Suppose each part of the body was the same, it wouldn’t really be a body. But, you see, God put all the different parts in the body just like he wanted them. In the same way, God put different Christians together to become the church. 20 Yes, a body has a lot of parts, but they make only one body. 21 And a body needs every part. Its eye can’t reckon, “I don’t need that hand.” And its head can’t reckon, “I don’t need those feet.” 22 A body needs every part, even the parts that we think are weak. In the same way, the church needs every sort of Christian.

23 There are some parts of our bodies that we think are not very nice, and we don’t want anyone to see them, so we carefully look after those parts and cover them up. 24 But we don’t need to cover the beautiful parts of our bodies. God has joined all those parts together to make one body. We might think some parts are not important, but God has made them really important. 25 So all the parts of our bodies live quietly together and help each other. 26 If one part of a body hurts, every other part hurts with it. Or if one part of a body is feeling good, every other part is happy with it.

27 You see, you are all like Jesus Christ’s body. Each of you Christians is a part of his body. 28 And God gives people different jobs in his church, and he gives them the power to do those jobs.

But there is another really good way, so now I will tell you about that way. It is the best way.

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