Gifts Of God

and How to Live In Them

ver.: 09 March 2008

HOW GIFTS SHOW THEMSELVES

There are two ways that gifts usually express themselves:

• through a specific office or ministry; for example, ordination, where there is a laying on of hands. Ephesians 4:1; 1 Corinthians 12:28 show some of these. These encourage, channel, develop, enable, and empower others.
• through a spirit-given ability or power, enabling the gifted person to serve beyond their natural abilities. 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; Romans 12:6-8; Hebrews 2:4; 1 Peter 4:10.

Gifts don't show themselves in a simple way. There is a gift of the giver and a gift of the receiver, and sometimes gifts where the gifted give in a tangible way to each other, and sometimes to many others. A gift to that brings forth powerful teaching from someone is on its flip side a gift of learning to the student. One person's gift of bringing forth healing is on its flip side the gift of new wholeness and health to someone else. Since this is true, it is very important to keep ego and power-cravings out of it : a gift is the Spirit's, not a person's, for if it were a person's, then the flip side of the gift would be hard to come by. The Spirit is the one who flips it.
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GIFTS AND TALENTS

Spiritual gifts do not depend on natural talents and aptitudes or developed skills, though God gave you those, too. A spiritual gift is something that God gives for the purpose of building up others in a life of faith. It is the experience of Christians over the years that the Spirit usually harnesses one's talents in the service of the gifts that are given. Yet sometimes, the spiritual gifts seem to work against a person's natural endowment. This is, after all, the same God who led his people out of Egypt using a stammerer named Moses, made a shepherd boy/musician named David into a renowned warrior and king, and turned rural fishermen into leaders who left a mark on the course of history. There are examples everywhere of people who don't have training, aren't highly skilled, have no particular knack, but when the time comes for them to benefit the Body, the gift is there. The Spirit takes pleasure in surprises and on turning the tables on the expected. It's wise to leave ourselves open for such action. We develop a talent, but God gives the gift it's meant to go with.

Where there's a gift, there's usually a natural ability and a developed skill that can go with it.

• There is the gift of discernment, and the natural ability of intuition, and the skillful use of a discernment process.
• There is the gift of healing, and there are the natural healing processes and the medical skills to assist those processes.
• There is exorcism, and there are people ridding their lives of those who use lies and trickery, and the skill of making themselves more true.
• There is prophecy, and there is the ability to discover the truth and and the skill to figure out how and when to share it.
• There is ecstatic spiritual experience, and there are romance and desire, and the skills to use them to create bonds of love with your spouse.

God created all people with these natural foreshadowings of supernatural gifts. They're good, and are meant to be used all, not just the faithful. But it takes the Holy Spirit working within the believer to put the natural and the supernatural together with power to serve.

The places where ministries flourish:

1. identify peoples' gifts as well as their talents and skills;
2. refine and train them gifts and talents;
3. make opportunities for their use;
4. work hard to support them in their ministry.

GIFTS AND GIVING

Barnabas, foremost among the new members in Acts 4, gave from the wealth he had been favored with, in order to meet the needs of needy people. Think of these needs in terms not just of money, but also of abilities, power, access to others who have power, and knowledge. Many of you who are reading this have been blessed with such things. Are you using those resources to make it so that what was said about Barnabas' work can also be said about you : "There was noone among them who was in need."?

Christ is challenging us to think of our gifts as a reason to give to others (as God gave to us), and a way to give to others (the gift's purpose is to build others up). Thus, think 'give', not 'get'.

TRADITION

Early Christian writers, including Irenaeus, wrote and spoke about the church having people with gifts. But this theme took a back seat to talk about Christ, so much so that it is hard to find direct talk about the Holy Spirit. Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla (the "Montanists" leaders, 156-180 AD), were in some ways an early version of modern Pentecostalists, especially of the sort that was found in Kansas City in the 1990s. The Montanists (and those they influenced) raised issues about the Holy Spirit both as God and as the One who empowers the daily doings of the church. The Montanists prophesied frequently, but valued their own words far too highly. This rating of themselves over Scripture led them away from any willingness to listen or be corrected, which in turn led (as it must) to being untrue to what Jesus was about.

The *Apostolic Constitutions*, written around AD 380, in book 8, went on at length about the gifts. It stated that God gave gifts so that unbelievers of good will might more easily come to belief, and that it was the norm for believers to be gifted. The *Ap Const* gave a stern warning that should be heard today : "Whoever can perform signs and wonders ought neither judge nor cast suspicion on those believers who have not been granted such gifts." However, by the time the *Ap Const* was written, the charismatic gifts were already very rare among the Western (Rome-led) Christians. The Eastern (Constantinople-led) Church, too, was having such gifts less often, and would later suffer further losses with the Muslim conquest of the Middle East, where many churches still actively practiced some unusual charismata.

The history and tradition of the Church is itself a gift, as well as a work of the Spirit. It is the voice of practicing, thinking, believing, praying Christians over the course of 2000 years, and the voice of 2000 years' worth of Judaism before it. Its lessons are numbered beyond measure, and there is no ground that it hasn't covered. Robert Webber (in *Worship Leader* magazine 2/1994 p.9) says :

"True renewal never jettisons the past or treats the past like a cancer that needs to be removed. God the Holy Spirit has gifted the church in every century, and these are the gifts the church hands down to us today. Our task is to mine the past with open minds and hearts to find those gifts that can be given to the church today."

Yet, aren't there aspects of the past, even widely-accepted aspects, that must be acknowledged as sin, repented of, and rejected ? Like Constantinism (the establishment of the church within, and even over, the power structure of government and secular society)? The Crusades? Missionaries that were often (but far from always!!) more intent on spreading Euro control than gospel? The suppression of women? The support of slavery (while remembering the abolitionist believers)? The Aryan Church (while remembering the Barmen churches)? And what about the appeals to tradition in order to create a straightjacket of conformity, or to divert our attention from what we need to own up to in our own era? The Spirit calls us to change our ways to stand against such past and current sins, and to root out the evil without getting rid of the doctrinal and practical riches of the tradition. This task must not be done through partisan ideologies or politics. It is done by turning our thoughts and examinations over to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Tradition is too rich not to be used, yet it must be used with care. Because, even though the Spirit created it, it is still a history of human lives, and is thus horribly messed up like anything else human. Tradition is not to be worshipped or glorified or obeyed as if it were some new definitive word from God. It is to be learned, measured by Scripture, discerned, and treasured. As we do that, we too become a part of that tradition, adding our own horrors and riches.
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Study Questions

(If these questions are being used in small-group study: remember to discuss these at length amongst yourselves, and be honest with each other.)

(A) What gifts do you think the Spirit has given you? What have you done to find out? How have you checked out if it is the Spirit's?

What have those gifts done for others? For yourself?

Take a moment to think about the people closest to you. How has God gifted them with something that builds other people up?

(B) Take a look at the gifts that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians. (There are many others, but we'll limit ourselves here to Paul's because they're Biblical and basic.) Which of these gifts would you find most valuable for your life?

If you go to church: Which of these gifts do you think is most needed in your congregation? Why?

Now, use your imagination and be creative. What difference(s) do you think that each of Paul's listed gifts can make in a congregation in a poor urban neighborhood?

(C) What differences do you find between a gift and a skill? And how does/can one develop into the other?

(D) A Dare : now that you've studied this chapter, take up anew the task of finding the gifts the Spirit has given you. Pray, read Scripture, think about it, and use the tools for discerning God's will (see menu below). Pay close attention : a door will open up if you keep knocking.
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