Thoughts on Spiritual Gifts with Relevant Scriptural Support

Thoughts on spiritual gifts with relevant scriptural support

Consistent with the “Parable of the Talents,” each believer receives a spiritual gift from Almighty God.  Depending upon a person’s character, faithfulness and natural endowments, he or she may receive attain gifts.  1 Corinthians 12:1-11 lists the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit.  The latter part of that chapter adds help, administration and teaching.  Additionally, Romans 12:6-8 includes service, encouraging, contributing to the needs of others, giving generously, leadership by governing diligently, and showing mercy cheerfully.  God graciously chooses which of these eighteen gifts He bestows upon members of the Church.  Likewise, His sovereignty determines the distribution of the gifts.  Without question, every member of the body of Christ has at least one of these gifts.  

For local congregations, I suggest a process called “Asset Mapping” by the church growth thinkers and writers.  This period of spiritual discernment inclusive of the “Forty Days of Purpose,” emphasizes discovery of individual and collective spiritual gifts.  Each member receives practical tools for discerning his spiritual gifts and methods for employing them within the local church.

As it relates to the intense issue of speaking in tongues, widely considered the direct evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I subscribe to the traditional theological position of dispensation.  The “tongues” spoken in the apostolic age were actual languages spoken by people in the Ancient Near East.  The Holy Spirit gave the apostles and other disciples the divine ability to speak non-native languages to share the gospel with people from different cultures, languages and regions.  The early Christians did not have the printing press, textbooks and mechanical means of learning different languages.  To facilitate their evangelism, Almighty God gave them this mystical gift to establish the Church.  As a consequence, the Bible which is the perfect that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 13 relegates speaking in tongues to a singular movement of a prior era in church history.