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SERIES C - COMPLEX OR CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES.
THREE
C3 SPIRITUAL GIFTS
C3.1 TOOLS FOR THE TASK.
A Prayer for Spiritual Gifts.
“Lord, please give one of us whatever gift is necessary to handle this situation. If that one is to be me, I am available. If it is to be someone else, that will do just as well.”
Spiritual gifts are tools for the task. There is no need for a healing unless someone is ill. Only when God has something to say to people is there any need for a prophecy.
To meet the needs of His community, and to enable it to meet the needs of others, the Holy Spirit gives different abilities or powers to individuals.
Three Bible passages describe God’s gifts to His church. All three are in St Paul’s letters and all three are in the context of Unity and Maturity in the church. Paraphrases of these passages follow (remember a paraphrase is partly commentary as well as partly translation; so check them with other translations.) Once you have gone through them carefully you will know as much about what the Bible says on the subject as it is possible to know. It will then only be necessary to seek the Holy Spirit’s illumination in applying scripture to experience. (There are other Bible references to occasions when various gifts were used. The three passages quoted are the only references to “gifts” as such.)
The passage in Romans is especially concerned to warn people not to go beyond the gift the Holy Spirit actually gives them.
In Corinthians Paul’s main concern was that people were treating gifts as a status symbol and valuing them for their own sake.
In Ephesians it is the people themselves who are the gifts to the church from its Lord.
All the gifts, whether the spiritual abilities given to individuals or the individuals themselves given to the church, are given to bring God’s people to Maturity and Unity and to enable them to fulfil their task. Grow and Go.
C3.2 THE GIFTS - ROMANS.
Romans 12:3-9
Now, let me say this as gently as I can, stop thinking too much of yourselves. Make a balanced realistic assessment of your own abilities according to the faith God has allocated to you.
A body has many parts, all with different functions. We are one body in Christ - all part of each other. God has given us different gifts (free gifts, we did nothing to merit them). Use them.
If God gives you Prophecy (telling people what God has to say to them) then use it but without going beyond what has been allocated to you. Say only what you can trust God for.
The same applies to every service. If yours is Teaching, don’t teach because you think you know it all - only teach what you can trust God for as you do it.
The same applies to exhortation. Don’t try to persuade people to do what you believe is right, limit your exhortation to what you can trust God for as you say it.
When it comes to giving money, remember the right to do it is God’s gift to you. So give simply - undesignated, without strings, without holding the receiver accountable. Just give.
If God has given you the role of a leader, work hard at it, and if your gift is showing kindness, do it cheerfully.
C3.3 CORINTHIANS.
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Brothers and sisters, I don’t want you ignorant about spiritual gifts - but first get this straight - being gentiles and coming as you do from the worship of dumb idols as you were led, you now call Jesus Lord - and that is something no-one could do except by the Holy Spirit, and no-one speaking by God’s Spirit can speak against Jesus. (So you need not doubt that you really do have the Holy Spirit - the fact that you own the Lordship of Christ proves it, whether you have any spiritual gifts or not.)
Different people can have different gifts but all by the same Spirit. There are different jobs to do but the same Lord. There are different ways in which His energy comes through, but one God who energises everything in everyone.
To each, then, is given something that demonstrates the Spirit - always for a useful purpose.
C3.4. EXAMPLES OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS
1 Corinthians 12:8.
WISE WORDS. (Spoken or unspoken.) To one is given the Word of Wisdom - to see things clearly, put them in perspective, sort out priorities, resolve difficulties, reconcile opposing views and guide actions in the right way. This gift comes from the Holy Spirit.
KNOWLEDGEABLE WORDS. (Spoken or unspoken.) To someone else the same Spirit gives the Word of knowledge - a realisation of facts beyond what could be known otherwise.
FAITH. Some have special faith to trust for exceptional situations - given by the same Spirit.
HEALINGS. Some are healed, every healing is a gift of the same Spirit,
MIRACLES, others do mighty works by God’s power,
PROPHECY, others communicate what God has to say to people,
DISCERNMENT OF SPIRITS, others can perceive what is going on in the spiritual realm,
TONGUES AND INTERPRETATION, others can speak in different kinds of language (ie languages of a different species or genus - spiritual languages) and yet others can interpret them.
In all these gifts, one Spirit operates, allocating to each as He wills.
C3.5. CHRIST IS ONE BODY
1 Corinthians 12:12.
A body is one united whole, made up of many different organs. It is the parts joined together that make it a body - so also is Christ.
We have all been enveloped in one Spirit who unites us to form one body - Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, all sharing the same Spirit.
One organ does not make a body. Imagine a foot complaining, “If only I were a hand I would really be part of the body” or an ear saying, “I’m no eye; so I’m not in the body,” - would that make them any less part of the body. If the whole were an eye, what about hearing. If there were only hearing, what about smelling.
The fact is, God has placed each different part just right. One organ does not make a body; so there are many. The eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you,” nor can the head say that to the feet. Weak and seemingly unimportant parts can prove to be vital. Clumsy and ungainly parts can be dressed up smartest of all.
God has balanced the body’s requirements so that each is dependent on the rest. Squabbling is nonsense when we need each other. If one toe suffers, the whole body feels it; so if one of us is suffering we are all affected, and if one is honoured we all share it.
You are Christ’s body. Each one is a distinctive part. In His community, God has placed first, apostles, then prophets, then teachers then miracles, healings, helpers, organisers, speakers in tongues.
Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Can all do miracles? Do all heal? Do all speak with tongues or interpret?
It is right to want the best gifts - but I will show you a more excellent way.
C3.6. A MORE EXCELLENT WAY
1 Corinthians 13
If I speak with the tongues of people or angels but without love, it is empty sound like hollow clanging brass. If I prophecy, know all mysteries, have all knowledge and faith to move mountains, without love I am nothing.
Love is determinedly persistent in kindness. Love does not envy or boast or think too much of itself. Love is well-mannered and does not try to have its own way. Love is good-tempered, does not count faults or gloat when others are in the wrong but delights in the truth. Love always protects, always trusts, never gives up hope and never runs out.
C3.7. PEOPLE CHRIST GIVES TO HIS CHURCH
Ephesians 4:4-16
You are one body and one Spirit, called to a common hope. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. The one God and Father of all is over all, through all and in you all.
Yet to each of us, the free gift of Christ is individually suited - made to measure.
Psalm 68 says, “He went up on high in a triumphant victory procession leading captives behind Him and distributing gifts to the people.” Captivity itself was His captured prisoner. Remember the One who went up had first gone down - into the depths of the Earth.
The gifts He distributed to people were themselves people: Apostles - church-planting pioneer missionaries to lead the way and break new ground; Prophets to tell people what God is saying; Evangelists to make known the Good News; Shepherds to care and Teachers to instruct.
The purpose of these gifts is to make God’s people ready for their task, build up the body of Christ, unite us in faith and knowledge of The Son of God, as full-grown adults matching the fullness of Christ. Then we shall no longer be infants, blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by cunning systematic falsehood. No, with Truth and Love on our lips, grow up! Let each part of Christ’s body fulfil its purpose and every fibre link the whole together.
Because the subject of spiritual gifts is widely and sometimes hotly discussed and debated, some statements follow which are highly controversial. They are viewpoints which are based on much Bible study over many years coupled with observation and experience, and the writer believes them to be authenticated by the Holy Spirit’s inner enlightenment too.
But do not accept them without ensuring that you are getting your own teaching from the Bible and the Holy Spirit who is the only one to “Guide you into all Truth.”
C3.8. SOME CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENTS.
1/ People may be filled with the Holy Spirit and may know Christ as Baptiser in the Holy Spirit, without necessarily having any of the gifts described. Usually, however, there is a need for spiritual gifts; so they are normally given to Spirit-filled people to meet that need.
2/ Having a gift does not prove that a person has the Holy Spirit. Caiaphas prophesied unwittingly while plotting Christ’s death (John 11:49-52). Balaam had words of knowledge and wisdom and turned them against God. A person who has never received the Holy Spirit or even Christ as Saviour may pray to be healed and the prayer may be answered, the healing is a gift and it may lead them to salvation but it does not mean they are already saved.
3/ Prophecy does not have to be spontaneous, in fact prophetic messages are normally well prepared, prayed through, checked with scripture and frequently discussed with others before being communicated to the church.
In fact prophesy is the broadest of the gifts and includes many of the others. It is what Moses did, and Elijah, Isaiah and supremely Christ Himself. Yet Moses and Christ were teachers, Isaiah wrote poetry. Any kind of communication, preaching, teaching, writing, conversation or dramatic declaration, if it comes from God through people, is prophecy.
4/ The terms Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Teacher etc are factual descriptions of the work people are doing. They carry no authority - although years of experience in those tasks does give weight to a person’s words. There is no status attached to them - except the recognition that should be given to a job well done.
An Apostle, for example, is a member of a team which is engaged in pioneer church-planting work. There are thousands of them all round the world and Missions need more. There is nothing grandiose about the title, though it describes a noble task. The first Apostles were only unique in that they planted the first church - indeed they planted The Church - but they did so in order that others might follow them and plant more.
Similarly, I who write this am a Teacher - but the only test of that claim is the question whether I actually help others to learn from the Holy Spirit and the Bible.
5/ Not everyone has gifts even when they appear to be needed. Some people want to heal or be healed but have to accept from the Lord that healing is not for them. Some people long to have their prayers enriched by the gift of tongues, but the Lord enriches their prayers in some other way. The Lord is not capricious, He has good reasons to give or withhold and He knows what He is doing. But His answer sometimes has to be, No.
6/ Tongues - normally the “tongues of angels” but sometimes human languages, is a beautiful enrichment of the prayer life and also a valuable aid to intercession, especially for imperfectly perceived situations and in serious spiritual conflict. It may be described as “speechlessness finding words.”
The writer places a high value on the gift, although I personally do not use it in public, nor do I, as others do, feel any special benefit from listening to tongues spoken by another; but that may be my own limitation.
The gift of tongues is always completely under the control of the speaker. It is not accompanied by any special emotion though it may be used to express one that is there. It has absolutely nothing to do with hysteria. Demons hate it and try to corrupt it into hysteria on the one hand, or produce contrived theologies against it on the other.
7/ What God gives is often counterfeited. Human pretenders and demonic pretenders may produce preaching eloquence, false prophecy, false teaching, false tongues and “faith” healings by human or occult agencies. When these things are human they are only harmful if the claim is made that they are supernatural. When they are supernatural they are evil if not from God.
And finally, like every other aspect of life, if concerned about spiritual gifts, let us talk them over with our Heavenly Father. Having them or not having them is all part of our relationship with Him.