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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJames Hastings Dictionary of the NT: Governments
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In each of the five lists of spiritual gifts or of gifted persons which St. Paul places in his Epistles (1Co_12:8-10; 1Co_12:28-30, Rom_12:6-8, Eph_4:11) there are at least two items which are not found in any other list. In 1Co_12:28 we have ‘helps’ or ‘helpings’ ( ἀíôéëÞìøåéò ) and ‘governments’ or ‘governings’ ( êõâåñíÞóåéò ). In 1Co_12:23 ‘gifts of healings’ are followed by ‘helpings’ and ‘governings.’ These two form a pair, and refer to management and direction in things external. ‘Governings’ is a word which comes from the idea of a êõâåñíÞôçò , a shipmaster (Act_27:11, Rev_18:17) or pilot (Eze_27:8; Eze_27:27-28), directing the course of a ship. The word occurs nowhere else in the NT, but in the Septuagint we have it in the sense of ‘wise guidance’ in peace or war (Pro_11:14; Pro_24:6). St. Paul probably uses it of those who superintended the externals of organization. It would therefore denote those who are over the rest, and rule them, the ðñïúóôÜìåíïé of 1Th_5:12, Rom_12:8 and the ἡãïýìåíïé of Heb_13:7; Heb_13:17; Heb_13:24, Act_15:22. The ‘governors’ are directors and organizers, not teachers; still less are they ‘discerners of spirits,’ as Stanley suggests. They are persons with a gift for management. It is possible that they afterwards developed into a class of officials as ‘elders’ or ‘bishops,’ but that stage had not been reached when 1 Cor. was written. See Helps and Church Government.
A. Plummer.