<p>14:12 <i>So also you, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek to excel in edifying the church- </i>Paul seems to want to inculcate the spirit of ambition in preaching when he told Corinth that they should be ambitious to gain those Spirit gifts which would be most useful in public rather than private teaching of the word (1 Cor. 14:1,12). In similar vein Paul commends those who were ambitious (from the right motives) to be bishops (1 Tim. 3:1). Perhaps men like Jephthah (Jud. 11:9) and Samson (Jud. 14:4) were not wrong to <i>seek</i> to be the judges who delivered Israel from the Philistines. But we must note throughout this chapter that Paul has prefaced it all with 13:8-11, where he argues that the miraculous gifts are something to be discarded as immature. But he concedes to their weakness, and urges them to at least seek those gifts which can edify others. It was clear enough that their motive for desiring the gifts was probably in order to appear like the religious cults around them. But Paul doesn't specifically accuse them of the obvious; rather he seeks to redirect their self-proclaimed zeal to the great goal of love, which is articulated in terms of building up others.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>