The Holy Spirit and the Believer – Part Two: Spiritual Gifts

We have been studying the person and work of the Holy Spirit. We have seen that he is a fully personal member of the Trinity. He is the member who comes to make his dwelling place in your life the moment you become a follower of Christ.

And when he comes in, he makes some radical changes in order that you might live this radical new lifestyle that God wants you to live. We looked at some of these changes last week.

This week we want to look at how the Holy Spirit equips us to live as members of the Body of Christ. As Christians, we are not isolated individuals, the Holy Spirit has placed us into the Body of Christ – the church – and he wants us to have a ministry to one another. And the way we have this ministry is through spiritual gifts.

There are five passages in the NT where the main focus is on spiritual gifts:

Romans 12:6-8
1 Cor. 12:7-10
1 Cor. 12:28
Ephesians 4:11-13
1 Peter 4:10-11

We’re going to look at each of these passages to discover what we can learn about spiritual gifts…

Romans 12:6-8 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

Paul says: We have “different” gifts. What does he mean by that? Well, in the preceding verses, he has been talking about the church as the Body of Christ. He says in v.4-5…

Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

He is talking about the various roles that people have in the church: some are prophets, some are servers, some are teachers, and so on. And we have these gifts, not due to some natural talent or ability, but according to the grace that is given to us. The Greek word for “gift” is charismata; the Greek word for grace is “charis”. These special roles are given to us by God so that we might serve the body.

And the way that we use our gift, as Paul says in verse 6, should be “in proportion to our faith”; that is, in total dependence on God. And that phrase applies to each gift in the list.

This is important to remember, because it may be that the spiritual gift God gives us is quite similar to one of the natural abilities or talents that we might have. (For example, I have a natural ability in public speaking – I was chosen back in Grade 5 to represent my school in a speech contest.) But that doesn’t mean that I can just rely on my own natural ability in the use of my spiritual gift of speaking or preaching; I must rely on the Holy Spirit, or nothing good will come of it. No blessing will happen.

Let’s look at the next passage on spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians 12 is about the church, the Body of Christ. Paul says in verse 1…

Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant.

Then in verse 4, he says…

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:7-10 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues.

What does Paul mean when he talks about the “manifestation” of the Spirit? The word “manifestation” means “disclosure”; to make something known. The manifestation of the Spirit is one of the ways that the Holy Spirit makes known the fact that he is in your life—that He is living in you and working through you. The spiritual gifts that he lists here are manifestations of the Spirit – the gift of wisdom, the gift of knowledge, the gift of faith, and so on. As you exercise these gifts, the HS has the freedom to work through your life to bring blessing to the Body, because as it says in verse 7, these gifts are given for the common good.

In other words, spiritual gifts are not for private consumption. The HS doesn’t give you a spiritual gift just to edify you—your gift is for the good of the whole Body of Christ. I say that because I have met Christians who claim to have the gift of tongues, but they only use it in their own private devotional life. Paul actually rebukes the church of Corinth for abusing the gift of tongues that way. He says, “Rather than using the gift of tongues for your own private edification, you should seek a spiritual gift with which you can edify the church.

Let’s go to the next listing of spiritual gifts, which is in the same chapter…

1 Corinthians 12:28 And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.

You will notice that in this list, there is a new wrinkle: the gifts are listed in some sort of hierarchical order: first, apostles; second prophets; third teachers. Many Bible scholars feel that God is giving us a listing of the spiritual gifts in their order of importance to the NT church, and this is borne out in other NT references.

The most important people in the founding of the church were the apostles. They were men who had been with Jesus, who had heard his teachings and seen his miracles, and who had witnessed his resurrection from the dead. Jesus appointed 12 apostles. One apostle (Judas Iscariot) was lost. He was replaced by a man named Matthias. And then Jesus specially commissioned Saul of Tarsus, who is better known to us as the Apostle Paul, to be the apostle to the Gentiles.

The gift of aposteship is unique in that it was not only a spiritual gift; it was an office as well. From what we read in the book of Acts, many of the apostles possessed other spiritual gifts as well. Peter and John had the gift of healing. Matthew, John, and Paul all had the gift of prophecy – the ability to speak and write the words of God. Certainly they had the gifts of wisdom and knowledge.

Now some people say that the gift of apostle is still valid today. They say that the word “apostle” means literally “one who is sent”, so that anyone who is sent with the Gospel today would qualify as having the gift of apostleship. That would include all cross-cultural missionaries.

I am not comfortable with this interpretation of the gift of apostle. I believe that the gift was unique to the founding of the NT church, so that there were only the 12 Jesus chose, minus Judas, plus Matthias and Paul. When the last apostle died, generally believed to have been John in about 95 AD, the gift of apostle died too.

The gift of prophecy, which is ranked second in this list, is similar. It was a vital gift in the NT church. You have to remember that the ea rly church did not have the New Testament to serve as their guidebook. The NT was not completed until the end of the 1^(st) century, and then collected, and canonized by the end of the 4^(th) century.

There were many times that the early believers needed to hear a special word from God on an issue, such as the time when the church was wrestling with what to do with the Gentiles who were coming to Christ in larger and larger numbers. Should the Gentiles have to observe the Jewish law in order to become Christians?

The apostles held a council in Jerusalem to discuss the issue. They heard testimony from Barnabas and Paul as to what God was doing amongst the Gentiles. Following that, a man named James stood up. (This was not the apostle James the son of Zebedee – he had already been executed by that time. This was James, the half brother of Jesus – the very man whose ossuary is now on display at the Royal Ontario Museum.) James proposed a very wise and godly solution to the problem, so the apostles wrote a letter and sent it out to the church at Antioch, where so many of these Gentiles were coming to Christ.

I believe that James, the brother of Jesus, had the gift of prophecy. That’s what made him able at that crucial juncture in church history, to stand up and speak authoritatively a word from God. That’s what prophets are supposed to do!

They sent that letter with Paul and Barnabas, who had been working in that church, and accompanied by Judas and Silas.

Acts 15:32 Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers.

There were other people in the NT who had the gift of prophecy:

Acts 11:27During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, a man named Agabus, predicted a severe famine that would overtake the Roman Empire. Later, in Acts 21, Agabus came down from Judea to warn the apostle Paul of the hostile reception that was awaiting him in Jerusalem.
Acts 13:1 In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.
Acts 21:9 Philip, who had four unmarried daughters who prophesied

The gift of prophecy was necessary during the founding of the Church, and before the completion of the New Testament, to enable the people of God to hear the word of God when they needed to. That’s why I regard it as one of the foundational gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Writing to the church at Ephesus, Paul says:

Ephesians 2:19-20 You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household (he’s talking about the church) built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.

Those are NT prophets he means, not OT prophets. Some people believe that the gift of prophecy is still active today. I am not one of them.

That was a long digression! Getting back to 1 Corinthians 12:28, Paul mentions that the gift of teaching was third in order of importance. Here is a gift which was present in the NT church, and is obviously present in the church today. A person with the gift of teaching is someone who can take the Word of God and make it clear, make it understandable to people so that they know what God wants them to do with it.

Now you might be saying, “How could there be teachers in the early church, since there wasn’t a New Testament to teach?” The answer is simple. They taught the OT Scriptures. Jesus is the first example of this. Remember when he met the disciples on the road to Emmaus? It says that, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

The OT points to Jesus Christ. There were many teachers who taught the early Christians the significance of Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the OT prophesies; He was Israel’s Messiah. And then, as the teachings and reminiscences of the Apostles were written down and copied and distributed amongst the Christian community, the teachers began to teach that material also.

Let’s go on to our fourth passage on the spiritual gifts.

This passage is in Ephesians 4:11-13, but the context actually begins at v. 7…

Ephesians 4:7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.

Again there is this emphasis spiritual gifts having their origin in the grace of God, apportioned out to each of us. This time, however, Christ is the giver of the gifts. This shows the unity of the Trinity.

And it does say, “to each one of us grace has been given”. There is no such thing as a Christian who does not have at least one spiritual gift. Because there is no Christian on whom Christ has not poured out his grace.

Ephesians 4:11-13 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Notice the purpose of the gifts. It is:

to prepare God’s people for works of service
1. so that the body of Christ may be built up
  1. unity in the faith
  2. unity in the knowledge of the Son of God
  3. maturity
    1. attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ

A church in which people are using their spiritual gifts properly and fully is going to be a church that is:

active – nobody sitting on the sidelines
unified – everyone pulling together under one purpose
maturing in Christ-likeness

The last passage on spiritual gifts is 1 Peter 4:10-11…

1 Peter 4:10-11 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.

This passage, quite similar to the others, stresses that the gifts are not for our own benefit; they are to enable us to serve others and thereby to administer God’s grace to others. Peter adds that the ultimate purpose of spiritual gifts is that God may be praised through Jesus Christ. It is for God’s glory that we use our spiritual gifts!

So, after looking at these five key passages on spiritual gifts, can we come up with a definition of what a spiritual gift is?

A spiritual gift is a special ability that the Holy Spirit graciously gives to each Christian that enables us to serve others so that the Body of Christ will be built up and that God will be glorified.

What ARE the gifts that are listed in the NT?
Are these lists of gifts that we find in the NT exclusive, or could there be other gifts that are not on these lists? …such as hospitality, intercession, etc.
What’s the difference between a spiritual gift and a natural talent?
Are all spiritual gifts inwardly targeted, toward helping people in the church?
Are there other gifts that are “foundational” and not in use today?
How can I find out what my spiritual gift(s) are?

What ARE the gifts?

Well, as we have looked at these passages, we have covered a total of 21 gifts. And out of that total, I consider 6 of them to be foundational to the early church, and no longer in use today. I’ll mention which ones they are as we go along.

Administration: the ability to manage groups of people; to keep them all moving in the same direction toward the goals that have been set by the organization. (this is different from the gift of leadership) Think Bill Krestinski.
Apostle: we already talked about this one. This is a foundational gift.
Discerning: the ability to know whether an idea is of God, or whether it is a spiritual counterfeit. The ability to sense spiritual danger. Some of our modern apologists and authors would qualify.
Encouraging: the ability to come alongside someone who is down and minister comfort and encouragement to them so that they feel helped and uplifted. We have many people here at Erindale with this gift.
Evangelism: the ability and passion to share the Gospel with unbelievers in creative ways so that they become fully devoted followers of Christ. Think Billy Graham, Bill Bright.
Faith: the ability to confidently trust God for His will and purposes to be done in the church. You always need a couple of people like this on a finance committee, or a building committee!
Giving: the ability to raise and manage wealth so that God’s work and God’s workers are always generously supplied.
Healing: the ability to act as an intermediary through whom God can touch and heal people apart from the use of natural means. I believe that healing was a foundational gift in the sense that certain people were healers. I believe that God heals people supernaturally today.
Helping: the ability to “get things done” in a non-leadership role so as to increase the effectiveness of the Lord’s work. These people are the folks who love to serve behind the scenes - they make great team-members!
Interpretation: the ability to make known in the common language the message of one who speaks in tongues. Since it is related to the gift of tongues, I regard it as a foundational gift
Knowledge: the ability to discover, accumulate, analyze and clarify information and ideas which are relevant to the well-being of the Body of Christ. Great Bible scholars have the gift of knowledge. Think F.F. Bruce or D.A. Carson
Leadership: the ability to understand the biblical goals of the Church, to envision how they can be applied in the present situation, and to communicate this vision compellingly to others. Think Bill Hybels. BTW - good leaders always need good administrators to carry the plan through!
Mercy: the ability to feel genuine compassion and empathy for those who are suffering and to translate this compassion into works that alleviate the suffering with Christ’s love. Think Mother Teresa.
Miracles: the ability to be the human intermediary through whom God performs supernatural works that alter the ordinary course of nature. Foundational gift.
Pastoring: the ability to assume a long-term personal responsibility for the spiritual well-being of a local group of believers.
Prophecy: we already talked about this one. Another one of the foundational gifts
Serving: the ability to discern the unmet needs of a person or group and to assume personal responsibility for the meeting of those needs in order to further the Lord’s work. My administrative asst. Dorothy Cook has this gift.
Speaking: (also known as preaching) the ability to clearly and passionately communicate the truth of Scripture so that those who hear understand its meaning and are challenged to apply its message. Think Charles Stanley, David Jeremiah, Chuck Swindoll.
Teaching: the ability to help people to learn information and skills that are relevant to the health and ministry of the body of Christ. Think Bruce Wilkinson of Walk thru the Bible ministries
Tongues: already talked about this one last week. Another Foundational gift
Wisdom: the ability to know the mind of God and gain insight into how his truth might be applied to specific needs arising within the Body of Christ. Think Rick Warren, a leader who is noted for his practical common sense.

Whew… that’s all of them! Or is it? Might there not be other gifts that are not in these lists?

Well, maybe. As I look at these lists, none of them looks complete. Some of them have overlaps, but the overlaps are not as much as you would think. Of the 21 gifts listed…

Only 7 are mentioned on more than one list
14 are exclusive, appearing on only one list
Only one gift – prophecy – appears on as many as 4 lists out of 5

I find that kind of surprising, and it leads me to believe that all of these lists are perhaps “samplers” of the kinds of spiritual gifts that are possible. For example, not one gift has anything specifically to do with prayer, yet I have known people who seem to have a supernatural ability to prevail in prayer. Might that not be a spiritual gift?

Are there patterns to the gifts? Can you group them into families of similar gifts?

The 6 foundational gifts – apostle, prophecy, healing, miracles, tongues, interpretation
Some gifts seem to center on the message of the church; clarifying it and communicating it – evangelism, discernment, knowledge, speaking, teaching
Some gifts seem to revolve around the leadership of the church as an organization – administration, faith, giving, leadership, pastoring, wisdom
Some of the gifts seem to be oriented to the interpersonal level of ministry – encouraging, helping, mercy, serving

Gifts often come in pairs within these groups – a gifted teacher might also have the gift of knowledge. One with the gift of leadership might also have the gift of faith. Someone with the gift of mercy may also have the gift of helping.

What about our natural abilities? Where do they come in?

A spiritual gift is an ability given by God the moment you accept Christ
A natural talent is an aptitude that you are born with, or are taught
Both can be honed and developed through training
A spiritual gift is always for the benefit of others; never for one’s own benefit. A spiritual gift ministers God’s grace to the recipient(s) and results in the strengthening of the church.

Spiritual gifts can often operate in tandem with a natural talent.

e.g. if you are talented teacher, you already have some of the skills you’ll need to be a spiritually gifted teacher. But don’t assume that just because you are a teacher in the secular realm, you have the spiritual gift of teaching.
I have often seen how a person’s spiritual gift can be expressed through their natural talent in a particular area – for example, music or the arts.

What about MY spiritual gift? How can I discover it?

Well, there are instruments called spiritual gift surveys that you might try. But they all operate under the assumption that these 21 gifts are the only gifts out there. What if there are more?

I think that the following questions might help you…

1. What are your spiritual interests, preferences, and tendencies?

- do you prefer to be a speaker or a listener?

- do you find yourself more comfortable in groups or one-on-one?

- do you empathize easily with others?

- do you readily grasp theological and doctrinal truth?

- do you enjoy leading people, or would you rather serve as a team member?

- do you find fulfillment helping out behind the scenes?

2. What do other Christians sense are your strengths and weaknesses?

- have you sought the counsel of wise and trusted Christian friends?

- does the church recognize special abilities in you?

3. What are the ways in which you have enabled people to grow, or be strengthened in their walk with Christ?

- have people found you to be a blessing in certain specific ways?

- have you been instrumental in bringing people to Christ?

- do people come to you for advice and counsel?

- are you an encourager?

God has given each one of us a spiritual gift. We are stewards of this gift. We need to use our gifts to serve one another in the Body of Christ, so that Erindale Bible Chapel can be strengthened and built up, and that God might be glorified.