The Gifts of the Spirit

What are the gifts and why are they important? Part 1

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, to the church he founded there, he exhorts them not to fall short in any of the gifts because Christ enriched their lives so that they could exercise the gifts and eagerly await the revelation of Jesus Christ. “For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge— God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore, you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed (1 Corinthians 1:4-7). The churches Paul founded are to be examples to us in how to function together as the Body of Christ. Though Paul addresses their many immoral issues, which the church today suffers from, he also encourages them to use the gifts for the building up of the church. So, what are these?

The word “gift” in Greek is charisma and refers to the gifts of the spirit as distinguished from the fruits of the spirit: love, peace joy etc. Paul lists these gifts later in Chapter 12 of the same epistle: word of knowledge, word of wisdom, faith, gifts of healing, worship, of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, different kinds of tongues and interpretation of tongues. There is evidence of the church exercising all these gifts throughout the book of Acts, the gospels and the epistles. Yet today many churches are divided over this issue. They insist that the manifest gifts like miracles, prophecy, tongues and words of knowledge were only for the time of the apostles and ended when the canon of the Bible was finished. This is simply not true because for centuries after the Bible was written Christians moved in prophecy, miracles, healing and speaking in tongues. It would take a detail study of church history and revival to illustrate how many of these gifts were in use in the church until the dark ages put an end to much of this. Why? Because people were kept in the dark about a personal relationship with God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ. At that time and for centuries after only priests allowed to read and interpret scripture. Therefore, the people were ignorant. But now that doesn’t have to be so. We can read the Bible for ourselves and Christians can have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them to understand it.

Stay tuned for Part 2