What did the gifted men in the early churches need to teach?

Les explains that when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, the greatest spiritual gift was to prophesy or speak forth the Word of God. At that time, no New Testament had been written; the Gospels were not yet written, and Paul’s own letters had not gone out as the Word of God. These early, primitive, apostolic churches were growing in the pagan world without the benefit of the written Word. Therefore, they had to depend on gifted men. Those men had to be gifted enough to teach people the Pauline doctrines and not that which was still coming out of the Old Testament, or there would have been pandemonium. Paul, by inspiration, recognized that the most important thing the local church could have was men who could proclaim the truth of God’s Word without having it in print. Later, that gift would fade away because the printed page would be available.