Intro
In the most famous sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has this line. He asks his audience, if your son asked for bread, how would you respond? Would you give him a stone? “Here son, if you bite really hard, you’ll find the gooey marshmallow filling inside!” That’s the Craig translation, it’s very loose in this instance. Or if your son asked for a fish, would you give him a snake? Your son asks for something good, something they need, how do you respond? You give it to them, of course! I think every parent here gets that. You find joy in giving joy to your kids. Then Jesus says this: “if you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11) Jesus is really, really blunt. You are evil. How do you like that? Your hearts harbor all kinds of wicked thoughts. Your love is naturally, inevitably distorted to some degree or another. Despite all that, you still want to give good gifts to your children. If that’s the case, think about God. He’s pure, He’s holy, He’s wholly good. Psalm 92:15 says that “the Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.” So of course He’s going to want to give good gifts! He’s a gift-giver who loves His children! He loves being generous. He loves showering His children with blessings.
What we’re talking about at The Bridge these days is exactly that. The Holy Spirit has given us gifts. 1 Corinthians 12:7 says that the manifestation of the Spirit has been given to each one for the common good. God delights in giving us these gifts, He delights in working through these gifts in us, so that we can be a blessing to others. However, the gifts may not be what you first think of, or even what you naturally want. The gifts the Spirit gives are not primarily about material pleasures or favorable circumstances. They are actually far better. They are empowerments for serving Him and serving others. They are means of accomplishing the purposes God has given us.
Today we’re going to look at some of the gifts Paul particularly talks about in 1 Corinthians 12, as well as the questions of which are available to us, who they’re available to, and how we know which we have.
7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 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. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
1 Corinthians 12:7-11
1. The Gifts
Before we talk about the individual gifts, I want to quickly reiterate what I said last week: the gifts of the Spirit are all about Jesus, through and through. Notice that they come from God- the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one. Given, by the Lord. We read over and over again in these verses that it is the Holy Spirit who works through them. Verse 11 tells us that the gifts are the work of the Spirit. They are for the Lord. Verse 3 tells us that the main test of authenticity in spiritual manifestation is if Jesus is exalted. The gifts are not about you. They are about Him. They are about His unmerited, unearned goodness working in and through us. So what are the gifts? Let’s go through each one Paul talks about and try to explain them.
1. Message of knowledge/wisdom
First, we’ve got two gifts that are closely linked: a message of wisdom and a message of knowledge. There are two main schools of thought here about what this means. The first is more contextual to 1 Corinthians, where wisdom and knowledge are really big deals to the Corinthians. Remember what I said last week about how the Corinthians had been deeply influenced by Greek ways of thinking. It was important for them to appear wise in the eyes of those around them. But Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 that the wisdom of the cross is very different. The wisdom of the cross is foolishness in the eyes of the world, because it says that a crucifixion, the brutal death of a man, stands at the centre of God’s purposes for salvation. What wise Greek philosopher is going to come up with that? So Paul says “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1:18) A few verses later he says that the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom (1:25). What’s the message of wisdom? What’s the message of knowledge? It’s the cross! It’s that this event is the power of God for salvation. That’s wisdom in God’s eyes. That’s true knowledge. In that case, the gift of a message of wisdom or knowledge would be the ability to apply the message of the cross to everyday life. It would be to provide words that give insight to others about how God’s upside-down wisdom of the cross is worked out. Preaching would be one place this is manifested.
The other school of thought sees these gifts as words of revelation given to someone, words of wisdom and knowledge they would have no way of knowing otherwise. A message of wisdom would have more to do with what someone should do going forward. It is 20/20 foresight, it is the how, it is instruction. A message of knowledge is about what is happening now. It is the what, it is information. You see this kind of thing in Jesus’ life, when he knows what the Pharisees are thinking, even though they haven’t said it out loud (Luke 5:22). Or when Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 and Jesus tells her that she has had 5 husbands and is now living with a man who is not her husband. You see it in Acts 10 when the Spirit reveals to Peter that three men are about to arrive at the home that he is staying in, and that he is to go with them. Here’s a more contemporary example of how this word or message of knowledge might work out (see especially 5:02-6:40):
That elderly man had no way of knowing that Lacey Sturm, the girl in the video, cried herself to sleep every night. But this information, this knowledge, was revealed to him by the Spirit, and that revelation was spoken to her, resulting in her coming to know the love of God for her in Christ.
So which school of thought is right? Is the gift having insight to know how to speak the message of the cross into people’s lives, or is it revelation about someone’s life you wouldn’t otherwise know? In the end, I don’t think it matters much what title we give those activities, because both are gifts imparted by the Spirit as a means of God’s blessings.
2. Faith
Next you have the gift of faith. What’s crucial to understand here is that there are different kinds of faith. There is saving faith, the faith that Jesus died and rose again and that one’s sins have been forgiven through him. That is something every believer possesses. There is the continual, sanctifying faith we exercise as we trust in Him. Again, something every believer is to exercise. What seems to be referred to here, especially in context, is a kind of God-given conviction that He is going to work in a particular way right now. In 1 Corinthians 13:2, Paul talks about faith that can move mountains. Paul’s probably thinking about what Jesus says in Mark 11:23 about how if someone has faith the size of a mustard seed, they can cast a mountain into an ocean. Is there any need for that? For Mt. Seymour to be thrown into the Pacific? Probably not, but the point is that supernatural and miraculous things can happen when the gift of faith is in operation.
Peter and John likely exercised this gift in Acts 3 when they met a lame beggar at the entrance to the temple, a man they had passed repeatedly for days and months. On this particular occasion, they were apparently given the gift of faith, and they declared that he would walk in the name of Jesus. And he did. Some people think that George Muller exercised this gift. Muller lived in England in the 19th century and established orphanages that cared for 10,000 orphans in his time. He often didn’t know where food would come from for the orphans. Nevertheless, they’d sit down to eat, thank God for food that wasn’t there yet, and before he finished praying, there was a knock on the door with all the food they needed. Apparently, Muller would argue with me about this, because I read on a blog post this week that he himself denied that this faith was a special kind of gift! In any case, before you think that if anyone had that gift they could go around like some superhero altering reality at will, remember that it’s “by the Spirit”. The gift is given as the Spirit wills, in the situations He wills.
3. Healings
That’s a good segue into the next gift, which is a plural: gifts of healings. I know the NIV translation just says healing, singular, but the Greek is a plural: gifts of healings. Most scholars seem to agree that this means that there is not a singular gift of healing. It’s not that someone who has the gift can walk into a hospital and boom! Everyone can go home now. We could use that guy if he’s around! Instead, every healing is a separate gift, worked through a believer. Some people will be used often in this way, some people might find themselves used often for one particular ailment, others may only see it once or twice in their life. However, nobody has this gift to use whenever they want. Think about Paul. We see him being used to heal others, like the father of an official in Malta named Publius (Acts 28). But then we also read Paul telling Timothy to drink a little bit of wine to help with his frequent illnesses, instead of healing him outright (1 Timothy 5:23). This also means, by the way, that healing is not something that is guaranteed if you just speak the word, as if God is contractually obliged to do what we say. It’s not as if you just say the right words, God will say, “you got me. I have no choice. You figured out the magic formula.” Each healing is a separate gift, given by the Spirit as He wills.
Here’s a contemporary story that shows both the gift of faith and healing being worked out. Sam Storms, a pastor and author who’s got a lot of solid stuff on the spiritual gifts, writes about a time he and other elders of the church were praying for healing of an infant boy with a severe liver disorder. As they prayed, he said “I found myself suddenly filled with an overwhelming and inescapable confidence that he would be healed. It was altogether unexpected. I recall actually trying to doubt, but couldn’t. I prayed confidently, filled with a faith unshakable and undeniable.” (Sam Storms, Understanding Spiritual Gifts). Even though the family was uncertain, Storms was sure the boy had been healed. The next morning they took him to a doctor and it was confirmed. That infant is now a healthy man in his late twenties. That, individually, was a gift of healing and faith given to Sam Storms.
4. Miracles
Next, Paul writes about miraculous powers. This is also in the plural, indicating that rather than a permanent gift residing in one person, each miracle is a separate gift. What’s the difference with healings? This is a broader category, including but not limited to healing. I read someone recently saying a miracle is a less common kind of God’s activity in which he arouses people’s awe and wonder and bears witness to himself. So something like the sudden death of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 after they lie about how much money they’re giving to the poor might qualify as a miracle. Not the kind of miracle any of us probably pray for, not one we’re eager to be instrumental in, but a miracle nonetheless! James 5 refers to how the Old Testament prophet Elijah prayed that it wouldn’t rain for three and a half years, and it didn’t. Then Elijah prayed that it would rain, and it did. That’s a miracle. But it was prompted by the Spirit in a particular circumstance. Who wishes someone in North Van could be an Elijah and halt the rain for a week at least?
5. Prophecy
The sixth gift (we took knowledge and wisdom together) Paul refers to is prophecy. This is a huge one, and one that we’ll spend a lot more time on in chapter 14. Prophecy is similar to the second school of thought about the word of wisdom or knowledge. The most basic meaning is that it’s speaking a word of revelation from God, usually responding to or tailored to some particular situation or concern. According to 1 Cor. 14:3, prophecy will often have the effect of strengthening, encouraging, and comforting. Prophecy can also convict or warn. In 14:24, Paul imagines unbelievers entering corporate worship while people are prophesying and are brought into conviction of sin and faith in Jesus because the secrets of their heart are being laid bare. That’s kind of terrifying, isn’t it, to have these secret things in your life that have been tucked away suddenly come out? That’s what prophecy can do. Another example is in Acts 11, which we looked at a few weeks ago. A man named Agabus stands up and “through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world” (11:28). That prophecy prompted a generous offering to be taken up to assist the church in Jerusalem through a trying time.
In all of this, the point of prophecy is a word of revelation to build up and strengthen the church.
6. Distinguishing between spirits
Paul then writes about the gift of distinguishing between spirits. Some think this is linked especially to prophecy since it comes right after it in Paul’s list. In that case, it’s the ability to discern when a prophecy is from the Lord or when it’s either a human invention or worse. This is something we definitely need to do! 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 says to “not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all.” Someone says the world is ending next Tuesday and we should all wait on top of Mt. Cypress together, we should discern that carefully. Again, we’ll talk more about how we handle prophecy in chapter 14.
But this gift might also be more generally about spiritual sensitivity. In Lacey Sturm’s testimony above, the pastor identified a “suicidal spirit” in the room, and suicide was what Lacey Sturm was planning on doing immediately after visiting the church. It’s like this spidey sense that can tell you there is something more supernaturally sinister going on. I read a story of a pastor who was on a prayer walk through a neighbourhood, and he and others suddenly began feeling quite nauseous and disoriented. Then they rounded a corner and on the wall of a school someone had spray painted all kinds of satanic symbols, with the remnants of what appeared to be occultic rituals. You see this kind of spiritual discernment in the Bible in Acts 16, where a slave girl follows Paul around, proclaiming that he is a servant of the Most High God. However, Paul realizes that the activity of the demonic is present, and so he turns and commands this evil spirit to leave her. Conversely, this gift may enable someone to become more sensitive to where the Holy Spirit is at work.
7. Tongues and interpretation
We’ll tackle the last two gifts Paul speaks about together. He says that some receive the gift of speaking in different kinds of tongues and others receive the gift of interpreting those tongues. Tongues is the other gift we’ll spend a lot more time with in chapter 14, but as I said last week, it is incomprehensible, Spirit-empowered speech directed towards God. You’re praying and expressing what’s been laid on your heart, but you yourself can’t understand exactly what you’re saying. Someone who has the gift of interpretation is able to understand and explain the content of tongues to others.
As we said last week, tongues is the gift that the Corinthians have latched on to as the most desirable. It’s the gift that they think marks out spiritual superiority. That’s probably why Paul puts it last in his list. For Paul, tongues are great. He says in 14:18 that he speaks in tongues more than any of the Corinthians. However, because they’re basically unintelligible, they’re pretty low on the list in terms of their capacity to build others up.
The word for some believers who continue to exalt tongues above all else is to recognize what Paul is saying in these chapters. However, a writer named R.T. Kendall makes another point. Some believers have been so put off by what they’ve seen in Pentecostal churches that they have no desire to speak in tongues at all. But he goes, if you want gifts like wisdom and prophecy, are you willing to start at the bottom? He says you don’t need to speak in tongues, “but I think you must be willing to do this if indeed you desire all of God you can possibly have” (R.T. Kendall, Holy Fire). I think that’s right. Don’t despise any gift. Be willing to receive each one.
8. Other gifts
Now, these aren’t the only gifts the Spirit gives. What Paul lists in these verses is not the comprehensive list. How do I know? We’ll read about some more gifts at the end of 1 Coritnhians 12, including teachers, apostles, helping, and guidance. In Romans 12, we get some of the same gifts we’ve talked about like prophesying and teaching, but we also get serving, encouraging, giving, leading, and showing mercy. In 1 Peter, there’s a reference to the spiritual gift of hospitality and in 1 Corinthians 7 we have the gift of celibacy (maybe even less desired than tongues!). But even if you were to pile all these gifts together, it still wouldn’t be the comprehensive list. That’s not Paul’s intention, nor anyone else in the New Testament. Nobody aims to give you the definitive eight gifts that you’ve got to identify with, like some kind of enneagram or personality test. The evidence for that is the very fact that you have so many different references and lists scattered throughout. The point in 1 Corinthians and elsewhere is that there is a wide range of gifts that the Spirit gives us for the common good, not just tongues or preaching or whatever gift is exalted in that moment of time. Remember, God is really, really generous and eagerly pours out His goodness on us in a myriad of ways.
2. Which gifts are available?
That leads into a big question I want to ask in light of the gifts Paul gives us here. Which ones are available to us today? There’s a long-running debate in theology (this will come as a shock to some of you, but Christians don’t always agree on everything). The debate is whether some “sign” or “extraordinary” gifts (as some people call gifts like tongues, prophecy, miracles, or words of knowledge) stopped being in operation in the first century. The thought is that these gifts were mainly given to the apostles as a way of establishing the church, but that once the Bible had been written and those apostles passed away, there was no need for some of those gifts anymore. In this view, any manifestation of those gifts now is a deception and not truly of God.
In my late teens, I wrote a college paper advocating for this position, known as cessationism. However, I have for a long time been totally convinced that all of the gifts Paul talks about are in operation today. Here are some reasons why.
First, Paul never himself makes a distinction between “extraordinary” or “sign” gifts and more “ordinary” ones. Cessationists believe that some gifts, like teaching or giving or leading, are still in operation. They don’t believe all gifts have ceased, just some. But why some and not others, when the New Testament writers don’t divide them up that way and instead lump them together?
Second, it’s clear in the New Testament that the gifts, even the more extraordinary ones, are not limited to the apostles, but that God uses a wide range of people in this way, apostles or not. The seven daughters of Philip who are said to prophesy is one example (Acts 21:8-9).
Third, while gifts like healing and miracles may have contributed to the founding of the church, that’s not the only function they serve. What does Paul say right here in 12:7? He says gifts are given for the common good. Well, does that need for the common good still exist? Does the church still need to be built up and encouraged? If it does, why would God take some gifts that would accomplish that purpose out of commission?
Fourth, there’s really no good biblical argument for saying that some gifts must cease once the Bible is written. The one verse that’s usually given for that position is 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, which talks about gifts ceasing when completeness, or perfection comes. But that is almost certainly a reference to Christ’s return and the resurrection life, not the writing of the New Testament. When Christ comes again, we won’t need to prophesy or speak in tongues anymore, but until then these gifts are given for the body.
Finally, we have the witness of the church throughout history, including church leaders in the second and third centuries, who testified that these gifts were still present in their midst, right into the present day.
There’s more we can say about all that, but here’s the main point: every gift that Paul talks about, and more, is as available today as it was in the first century. Every gift is just as capable of building up the church today as it was in the first century. That’s because God is just as generous and eager to bless His people today as He was in the first century.
3. Who are they available for?
And that leads to one more question: who are these gifts available for? Well, here’s what Paul says once again: “to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” A few verses later: “All these are the work of the one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines” (12:11). To each one. Not just to apostles. Not just to men. Not just to people 30 years old or more. Not just to people who grew up in a Pentecostal church. Not just to extraverts. To each one. These gifts are potentially available to every believer, as the Spirit determines.
Some of these gifts you may find that God has given to you on an ongoing basis. We could call these “permanent gifts”. If you are given the gift of leadership or mercy or teaching, that gift likely stays with you and can be used at any point. As we’ve said, there’s indication that other gifts may be given to you on an occasional basis: you receive a gift of healing or a miracle in this particular moment. Or maybe a gift is given for a season. But everyone is going to receive gifts from the Spirit.
And it’s not just that you only get one gift. This isn’t like the Disney movie Encanto, where everyone in the family Madrigal turns a certain age, finds out what one special ability they have, and that’s settled. The Spirit can give us however many gifts He wants. Some are permanent, some are occasional, which is why we continue making ourselves available to Him. Because guess what? God is a generous Father who wants to bless us with these gifts!
Conclusion
Now, before I wrap up, you might be wondering what to do if you don’t know what gifts you have. How are you supposed to figure that out? Some people have developed spiritual gift assessments, kind of like personality tests, that can be helpful in indicating what gifts you have. Another good way is to ask other people what they see in you. Ask them how they have experienced the work of God in and through you. However, I agree with what Sam Storms says about this. He cautions us against getting too introspective or pigeonholing ourselves because some spiritual gifts assessment spit out a certain answer. He says:
”As we spend less time obsessed with some introspective search to identify our spiritual gift(s) and more time actually praying and giving and helping and teaching and serving and exhorting those around us, the likelihood greatly increases that we will walk headlong into our gifting without ever knowing what happened.”
Sam Storms, Understanding Spiritual Gifts, p.65)
Go and pray for the sick, see what happens. Ask the Lord to give you words and images to encourage others with. Give. Step out into a new leadership role. You might walk headlong into a gifting without knowing what happened.
The bottom line is that if you are in Christ, you are gifted. You are an adopted child of God, our Heavenly Father, who is generous beyond compare. He has forgiven you all your sins through Christ, He has set you free by His mercy, and He continues to shower you with gifts through the Holy Spirit. If you are in Christ, you are not left out. You are not a passive participant, destined to sit there just receiving ministry all your life. What I do as a pastor and teacher is to equip you for ministry! In Christ, you are a minister! You have a ministry, because you have gifts! John Wimber, who was used by the Spirit to help bring spiritual renewal to millions, had this great line. He said “everyone gets to play”. Everyone. The manifestation of the Spirit has been given to each one, because God is an extraordinarily generous God who delights in giving gifts to His children.
