Understanding spiritual gifts starts with an understanding of the “Church” as the empowered “body of Christ.” The Holy Spirit is the One who gives life to the “members” of the body and turns individual “hands” and “feet” into a unified body. Paul explored the metaphor of the human body at length in 1 Corinthians 12:1-27. Luke begins the Book of Acts by telling Theophilus that his first book (the Gospel of Luke) had been about “what Jesus began to do and teach” suggesting that his second book would be about what Jesus continues do to and teach.
The Holy Spirit is the life force within the Church, like the breath that keeps a human body alive. Spiritual gifts are simply those enablements given by God to individual members of the body of Christ to do what God has called them to do, and to build the body up to faithfulness and unity. Remember how it feels when your leg goes to sleep? You send the message from your head to your leg to move in harmony with some goal or purpose, like walking. But the internal body harmony is temporarily interrupted. The leg moves with a mind of its own, not in harmony with the signal from your head. Understood in this way, spiritual gifts are the work of the Holy Spirit which both enables feet to walk and to walk in harmony with the Head’s purpose. |
Administration
Apostleship
Craftsmanship
Creative Communication
Discernment
Encouragement
Evangelism
Faith
Giving
Helps
Hospitality
Intercession
Knowledge
Prophecy
Leadership
Mercy
Shepherding
Teaching
Wisdom |
Another way to demystify spiritual gifts is to consider an analogy from the business world. It takes many functions to make a modern corporation work. A corporation needs leaders who lead, accountants who count, sales people who sell, production people who make product, maintenance people to keep equipment running, researchers to keep new products coming. If the corporation lacked one of these functions, imagine what would happen to its ability to live up to its purpose. Suppose the sales people all went on sabbatical. The production people would keep turning out the product, but it would stack up in the warehouse. The leaders would keep leading, and the accountants would keep counting. But eventually, there would be nothing to count and no one to lead! Corporations are multi-function groups and it takes all groups working at peak efficiency to survive and prosper in today’s world.
Spiritual gifts acknowledge that it also takes many functions to live out the purpose of the body of Christ. To affirm the concept of spiritual gifts is simply to affirm the notion that God gives the body of Christ what it needs in terms of functions to survive and prosper. The body needs preachers to speak the Word; the Holy Spirit provides persons gifted with preaching to speak the Word. The body needs teachers who can clearly communicate the implications of the gospel; the Holy Spirit provides teachers who can clearly communicate the implications of the gospel. The body needs people who can help behind the scenes to keep things well oiled and running smoothly; the Holy Spirit provides people who can help behind the scenes to keep things well oiled and running smoothly. Remember we said earlier that abilities and spiritual gifts are similar. But spiritual gifts are given specifically for the task of magnifying the Lord Jesus Christ and building up God’s people in the body of Christ.
Spiritual gifts are well attested in the New Testament. See for example Romans 12:4-8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; Ephesians 4:11-13; and 1 Peter 4:9-11. These New Testament writers were fully convinced that the Holy Spirit infiltrated the church, giving it what it needed to do its job. Spiritual gifts were seen to be special attributes given by God’s grace to believing disciples enabling them collectively and individually to do and be what God called the Church to do and be - the “body of Christ,” glorifying God and nurturing God’s people.
The New Testament Church viewed spiritual gifts as gifts of grace. This means they cannot be earned or learned. Like God-given abilities, they can be nurtured and matured, for example the gift of preaching can be improved through mentoring and practice. But doing so nurtures what is already there, it does not create it. Only God, through the Holy Spirit working in an act of grace, can give a spiritual gift. The Greek word for grace is charis, which can be seen in the Greek word for spiritual gifts, which is charismata. Biblically, a charismatic is a “gifted one.” Therefore, all believing disciples are charismatic.
 Spiritual gifts have been at times divisive in the Church, including the church of Paul’s day. That’s why in the first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul includes what we call “the love chapter” (1 Cor. 13). Paul says that all spiritual gifts must operate in the context of agape love. There is much to be said about what distinguishes agape love from other kinds of love. (The Greeks had four different words to describe what we lump into the one category, “love.”) But at root what distinguishes agape love is that it is self-giving, not self-serving. Agape love is the ultimate evaluator of the use of our gifts. Agape love is the determining factor in whether our ministry is motivated by servanthood or servility. Jesus is agape love’s supreme example. Jesus demonstrates agape love in the 13th chapter of John’s gospel. He then commands it to His followers in John 13:35. “A new command I give to you; love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples.” Jesus gave the ultimate demonstration of agape love on the Cross.
Perhaps one reason the gifts have been divisive at times is that, like many of God’s gifts, we come to see them as our own. We allow ourselves to become puffed up by all the good press the exercise of our gift brings. But spiritual gifts belong to God, not to the one to whom they are given. They are no cause for pride or arrogance.
 They are also not to be hidden. Remember the earlier illustration of the 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle? You labor for weeks to complete the puzzle and discover in the end one piece is missing. The value of that one piece is more than 1/10,000. The puzzle is incomplete until all the pieces of the puzzle are in place. So it is with spiritual gifts. All believers have at least one spiritual gift. God gave you a gift for a purpose. Not for your benefit, though you will find that you do benefit in its use. The gift is given to you but does not belong to you. That which God meant to accomplish to fulfill God’s plan remains undone so long as you do not exercise your gift. Like the uncompleted jigsaw puzzle, just one missing gift detracts more than it would seem at face value. Think about this. When God looks at the ministry of the Church, what God sees if you are not exercising your gift is the missing piece, just like you looking at the jigsaw puzzle missing one piece. Do you realize what this means? This makes YOU a vital part of God’s ministry!
There is another important thing to be said about the diversity of spiritual gifts. They build up the body of Christ because no one has all the gifts. Therefore, we really do depend upon one another. Diversity is not simply an accident of fate, not something we need to learn to tolerate. Diversity is God’s design! Matthew 18:19 has an instructive verse: “If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.” Having experienced life in the real Church, you might get discouraged if you picture “agreeing” to mean marching in lock step. We don’t know two Methodists who can totally agree on anything! But it is helpful to know the underlying Greek word is “symphoneo,” the same word from which we get “symphony.” A symphony is not the same instruments all playing the same note. A symphony is a diverse population of instruments, all playing different notes and different rhythms, but all playing the same harmony under the direction of the same conductor. So it is with spiritual gifts in the church. We are not all the same. But we seek harmony as we minister under the direction of the same conductor. Like the instruments in a symphony, we need each other. And this is by God’s design!
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