This is Part 1 of 2 of a discussion of Lesson 3: Spiritual Gifts and Prophecy. Click here to return to the introduction of the lesson.
The Apostle Paul provides four lists of spiritual gifts (Rom. 12:6–8; 1 Cor. 12:8–10, 28–30; Eph. 4:11, 12). I’ve summarised these below, noting after each gift the number of times it appears in Paul’s lists:
Listed 4 times
- prophecy
Listed 3 times
- teaching
Listed 2 times
- ministry /pastor
- healing
- miracles
- different kinds of tongues
- apostles
Listed once
- exhorting
- giving
- leading
- showing mercy
- word of wisdom
- word of knowledge
- faith
- discerning of spirits
- interpretation of tongues
- helps
- administration
- evangelists
Our quarterly Bible study is focussing on ‘prophecy’ and it’s of note that this is the only gift noted in all 4 lists.
It should be noted that the role of a prophet in the Bible wasn’t just about predictions of the future. Note the study guide’s insights (teachers’ ed. p. 36):
Prophets were men and women who spoke the word of God to their generations. The emphasis in the prophetic gift was not on predicting the future (although this was one of the marks of a true prophet), but on setting forth what God wanted His people to hear.
What was the purpose of God giving His people these gifts via the Holy Spirit?
…to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.Eph 4:12 (NLT)
We don’t see the more miraculous of these gifts generally in action these days. Did such spiritual gifts only operate during the period of the early church?
The study guide (teachers’ ed. p. 32) has this to say:
These days we find two views among Christians in regard to the permanency of spiritual gifts. Some believe that edifying gifts, such as knowledge, wisdom, teaching, exhortation, faith, and mercy, are permanent gifts but that the sign gifts, such as prophecy, healing, tongues, and miracles, ceased with the death of the apostles. Defenders of this view claim: “The sign gifts had a unique purpose: to give the apostles credentials, that is, to let the people know that these men all spoke the truth of God. Once the Word of God was inscripturated, the sign gifts were no longer needed and they ceased.”—John F. MacArthur, Jr., Charismatic Chaos, p. 199. Other Christians believe that all the spiritual gifts will be present in the church until the Lord comes.
This latter view is supported by Ephesians 4:11-13:
11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ…
I quite like Pr Doug Batchelor’s thoughts from this week’s podcast. He says that the more miraculous gifts come in ‘waves’. The Holy Spirit, which gives the gifts, is also represented by the former and latter rains which also come in waves. Doug notes that miraculous gifts can appear when ‘…God is getting ready to move in some supernatural or spectacular way…’.
In the Seventh-day Adventist Christian church, we believe that the gift of prophecy was unmistakedly given to Ellen White during her life (1827-1915). More will be discussed about Mrs White later in this quarter’s lessons.
The study guide (p 31.) poses an interesting question:
Certain gifts more obviously reveal the presence of the supernatural. What dangers exist in overemphasizing those gifts, undervaluing them, or blindly following them?
Interested in your views on this, however my take on this is:
- Overvaluing these gifts can lead to disillusionment if God chooses not to act in this way in a certain time and place with an individual (or larger groups of people). I know of, and have heard of people whose faith has been adversely affected by a lack of miraculous interventions by God in their lives.
- Undervaluing the gifts can deny the sovereign power that God has and to run the risk of not being receptive to those gifts if and when God chooses to give them to us.
- Blindly following apparent manifestations of spiritual gifts can lead to the problem of being led astray with counterfeit instances.
That’s all for this section. The next part of our discussion deals with the difference between spiritual ‘gifts’ and ‘fruits’.
Click here to continue to ‘Gifts or Fruits’
