Even so you, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that you may excel to the edifying of the church.
Read Chapter 14
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
The soul is stirred and rejoices when it learns something more about the Scriptures. The more it tends in this direction, the more it abandons vices. It is for these reasons that Paul advises that one should make efforts to communicate clearly. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
Forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts. Since ye desire to have the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit enumerated in chap. xii, seek them from God abundantly, that ye may use them, not for ostentation, but for the perfecting of the Church.
Do you see his aim every where, how he looks to one thing continually and in all cases, the general utility, the profiting the Church; laying this down as a kind of rule? And he did not say, that you may obtain the gifts but, that you may abound, i.e., that you may even possess them in great plenitude. Thus, so far am I from wishing you not to possess them, that I even wish you to abound in them, only so that you handle them with a view to the common advantage. And how is this to be done?
