The Gift of Tongues, Part 3
Tom Shrader closes out the spiritual gifts section of 1 Corinthians by working through eight questions on the gift of tongues, addressing whether it has ceased, how it differs from a private prayer language, and whether it evidences Spirit baptism. He argues from Scripture that tongues were a sign gift for the apostolic era, that they have ceased, and that a private ecstatic prayer language has no biblical support. The teaching concludes with a survey of all the spiritual gifts listed in the New Testament, encouraging every believer to identify their gift and use it for the common good of the church.
“God gave you a spiritual gift to work effectively and efficiently in the body of Christ.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 Corinthians
Recorded: 2002 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 44 min
Themes: spiritual gifts, tongues, holy spirit, prayer language, sign gifts, church unity, serving the church, baptism of the spirit, new believer, questioning charismatic experience, seeking spiritual identity, curious about tongues, church member, small group leader, navigating charismatic church, young adult
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Corinthians 12:7-11, 1 Corinthians 12:8, 1 Corinthians 12:13, 1 Corinthians 12:28-29, 1 Corinthians 13, 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Corinthians 14:2, 1 Corinthians 14:3, 1 Corinthians 14:4, 1 Corinthians 14:13, 1 Corinthians 14:22, 1 Corinthians 14:37, 1 Corinthians 14:38, 1 Corinthians 14:39, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, 2 Corinthians 12:12, 1 Peter 4:11, Luke 11, Luke 22:41-44, Matthew 6:9, John 8:44, John 17:1, Acts 2, Acts 19, James 1:5, 2 Timothy 3:16
Theological Themes: cessationism, charismatic gifts, pneumatology, spirit baptism, apostolic era, gifts of the spirit, biblical sufficiency, 1 corinthians
Full Transcript
Why God Gives Spiritual Gifts
The task today is to close out not just chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians, but really this entire section. The section includes chapters 12, 13, and 14, and it is a discussion on spiritual gifts. Paul has been talking to this specific church, the church at Corinth, a church with all sorts of problems. He told them earlier in the book that they have all the spiritual gifts but are not using them.
He tells them in chapter 12 that the body has many different parts, it is one body, and that they need to come together. He addresses the issue of spiritual gifts, and that church had become enamored with the showy gifts, especially the gift of tongues. So what he does in chapter 13 is say, let me tell you something — no matter what gifts you have, if you don't have love, love is supreme over all those things. Then he gives us that classic definition of love, and in chapter 14, Paul comes back to talk about this whole idea again of gifts, especially focusing on the gift of prophecy and the gift of tongues.
We spent two weeks in chapter 14, and the best way to tie all this together is to return to the list of questions we started with. Some will get answered more easily than others, and in our study we have answered most of them. That should give you a good summary. Then next week we move on to the resurrection chapter, 1 Corinthians 15.
Here are the questions, by way of reminder. Why does God give us spiritual gifts? Does the Bible give us a clear definition of the gift of tongues, given how prominent it is in 1 Corinthians 14? Has the gift of tongues ceased? Is the gift of tongues different from a heavenly prayer language? Does the gift of tongues we see exercised today fit the biblical description? Does the gift of tongues represent evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Is the gift of tongues for every believer? And it is always helpful to go to Scripture and see how this gift is used in the body.
We will answer all eight of those questions, and then there is one additional question to introduce today. So here is the first question: Why does God give spiritual gifts? Note it is in the present tense — not did give, but does give. Why does He give them to the body today?
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul addresses this directly. He says, "Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, varieties of ministries, the same Lord, varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all people." This comes in a discussion of the body, very similar to what Paul says in Romans 12. In Romans 12, Paul talks about spiritual gifts, but before he does, he says, "Just as we have many members in one body and all members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another."
In Ephesians 4, Paul talks about gifts, and before he does, he says, "There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." The point Paul is making is that you have a body. He uses the picture of the human body — a wrist, an ankle, a knee, an elbow, an eye, a torso, ears, all these different parts — but they come together to form one body. So it is with the church. There are many individuals, but we come together to form one body.
That is simple enough. But verse 7 tells us exactly why spiritual gifts are given. "To each one is given a manifestation of the Spirit" — a spiritual gift — "for the common good." Spiritual gifts are not given for personal edification. They are given for the edification of the body, for the building up of the body. That is why spiritual gifts are given.
Now it is helpful to recognize this, because we instinctively want to say, "I wish I had that gift," or wonder about a different gift. But consider verse 11: "One and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills." The NAS says "just as He determines." So here is what we know about spiritual gifts: there are many various gifts, no one receives all of them, and everyone does not get the same gift. But we receive the gift that God sovereignly designs for each one of us, and He gave us that gift for the building up of the body.
This gift is given at conversion. Otherwise it could not be true that each one has one. The person who came into the body of Christ thirty seconds ago has a spiritual gift. It may lay dormant for a while. You may not know what it is. It may take time to develop and may intensify as you grow in your walk with the Lord, but you have a spiritual gift. God gave you a spiritual gift for a purpose, and that purpose is not some grandiose plan to figure out. It is simple: God gave you a spiritual gift to work effectively and efficiently in the body of Christ.
Does the Bible Give a Clear Definition of the Gift of Tongues?
The second question is: Does the Bible give us a clear definition of the gift of tongues? We ask that question as we enter chapter 14, because it is such a prominent issue in this book.
Review of What We've Covered
Here is what we established by way of understanding what the Bible says about the gift of tongues. It is a language known throughout the world but unknown to the speaker. It must be accompanied by interpretation and should be done in an orderly manner. Its purpose, as stated in chapter 14, verse 22, is that it is a sign to unbelievers — primarily unbelieving Jews. When we ask whether the Bible gives us a definition of tongues, we can see that it provides these characteristics, and from those we can build a definition.
Has the Biblical Gift of Tongues Ceased?
Here is an important question: has the biblical gift of tongues ceased? Let's see what we know. 1 Corinthians 13 says this: "Love never fails. But if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away. If there are tongues, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away." When we were in chapter 13, we made this point — prophecy and knowledge are "done away," but tongues "cease." These are very different ideas. The idea of being done away with means something will stop the activity or abolish it — someone or something will come into effect and cause it to stop.
Paul goes on to say that when the perfect comes, prophecy and knowledge will be done away. But tongues are different. The word used is "cease," which literally means to stop on their own — a self-causing action. Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament describes it this way: "They shall make themselves cease, or automatically cause themselves to stop." It is almost like an expiration date, where tongues exist and then simply stop.
So our question is: have they ceased? Here is what I think the scripture says. Tongues are a sign primarily to unbelieving Jews. They are inferior, especially to the gift of prophecy — by which we mean speaking the Word clearly. I think they were sign gifts primarily for the apostles. Even when we see the gift of tongues in scripture, it is never separated from the apostles or from apostolic authority.
When the apostolic age ended, in my mind, tongues ended with it. They are not mentioned anywhere else in the New Testament once we move past this passage. We see three occurrences in the book of Acts, and all three deal precisely with the ideas we have been discussing — either the judgment of the Jews, or the teaching of both Jews and Greeks that the gospel and the Christian faith are now for both Jew and Gentile.
Tongues in Church History and the Present Day
The scripture says tongues are going to cease. I personally believe they have ceased. We see them pass from scripture, and we see them fade away through church history. There is obviously a resurgence in the last hundred years, but I do not want to build a case on that. Someone said to me last week, "You're arguing from silence here." I said yes — because they have ceased, that is why they are silent. But we will argue from the scripture. I simply believe they have passed away.
2 Corinthians 12:12 says, "The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles." I believe tongues, as part of those signs, have faded away with the apostolic age.
Is the Gift of Tongues Different from a Heavenly Prayer Language?
Here is probably a more important question in terms of relevance to us: is the gift of tongues different from a heavenly prayer language? When someone talks about speaking in tongues today, they are rarely talking about what we saw in 1 Corinthians 14. They are rarely talking about someone standing up, delivering an interpretation, and bringing a sign of judgment to the Jews. What they are talking about is someone speaking in a prayer language — and that is a significant difference.
Usually what is described is not a known language but gibberish. If you recorded it and brought it to a university and asked them to identify the language, they could not — it is simply gibberish. Tests have been done. Eskimos pray in tongues, Mormons pray in tongues, people in pagan religions pray in tongues, people in various denominations pray in tongues. When those recordings are taken in and examined, they all sound the same. It is gibberish.
Is this heavenly prayer language different from the gift of tongues? Yes, it is very, very different. I think the idea of a private prayer language is never encouraged in scripture, and if anything, it is discouraged. To be clear about what I am saying: I do not think scripture ever encourages you — privately or collectively — to lock yourself away and begin praying in gibberish where you have no idea what you are saying. The admonition is actually the opposite. I never separate the spirit from the mind. I think something very dangerous happens when, however good it may feel, a person begins to pray in a language completely disconnected from understanding.
I have talked to people who have prayed this way, and they say it is accelerating — like a natural high. But consider this: when the disciples came to Jesus in Luke 11 and said, "Lord, teach us to pray," He did not tell them to go and speak in some unknown language. He said, "Pray this way: Our Father, who art in heaven." In Matthew 6, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said not to pray like the hypocrites, and in verse 9 He said, "Pray then in this way: Our Father who art in heaven." In John chapter 17, the night before Jesus was
A Model for Prayer
He is with the disciples and He begins to pray. All of a sudden, He moves to this extraordinary prayer. John chapter 17 is the real Lord's prayer. The two models we talked about previously — He says, "Pray this way." But when the Lord Himself prayed in John 17, here is how He began. John 17, verse 1: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify the Son that the Son may glorify thee." He did not lapse into some gibberish.
Later comes probably the most intense moment of His life, and perhaps the most intense moment any human being has ever lived. Out to the Mount of Olives He goes. He has the disciples with Him. He says, "You stay here. Pray that you won't enter into temptation." And He withdrew from them — Luke 22:41 — a stone's throw. He knelt and He began to pray.
He said, "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me. Yet not my will, but thine will be done." The intensity of this moment is captured in verse 43: an angel from heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him. And being in agony, He was praying fervently, and His sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground. In the midst of this extraordinary, intense moment, all the praying that is recorded for us is in a known, earthly language.
A Letter from a First-Time Visitor
I received a letter from a lady this week, and it is representative of many I have received. I want to read it to you. She begins: "Sunday, February 3rd was my first time at East Valley Bible Church." She says, "You were 100% accurate when you talked about the charismatic movement being off God's word." Then she goes on to say this: "In 1 Corinthians 14:37, Paul states that what he is writing is the commandment of the Lord. In 1 Corinthians 14:39, he goes on to say, 'Forbid not to speak with tongues.'"
And now she is writing directly to me: "You directly disobeyed God's commandment in your teaching. It broke my heart that you stole a vital aspect of our spiritual walk with God from your people." Here is how she closes the note: "I believe that you need to do a further study of this subject before you continue teaching it to your congregation. I don't know if you have ears to hear, but I pray you do. If your teaching broke my heart as a simple learned believer, imagine how God's heart is breaking."
She continues: "You are a leader of His people and responsible for their spiritual well-being. I hope you'll take to heart my letter and go to God in prayer. If not, then the words tell us in 1 Corinthians 14:38, 'But if a man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.' However, as a leader of His people, you'll be held accountable for God. Please don't continue to break God's heart."
Wrestling with This Passage
I don't even know what to say. There is no one here who is more aware of my inadequacies, week in and week out, than me. Every week I struggle to make sure this is right. I know how imperfect I am, and I desire to teach perfect truth every week — I am sure I do not always succeed.
This does not mean that I am right. But there has never been a topic, and never been a time, where I have studied harder or been more exercised than over 1 Corinthians 14. We left chapter 13 back in December, and I have had six weeks — and I will use a word that may be a little strong — of agony, where there is rarely an hour that goes by that I do not absolutely wrestle with this. I do not want to break God's heart.
By the same token, I have become extraordinarily aware that there are people in this church — perhaps many — who pray in this ecstatic utterance. I certainly do not want to break your heart or disappoint you. However, there is no biblical basis or encouragement for what you are doing.
What Paul Is Actually Saying
I believe Paul, in verse 2, is not encouraging ecstatic prayer — he is describing it. When you speak in a tongue, you speak to God. Verse 4 says it is for your own edification. Verse 13 makes clear that you do not have a clue what you are saying — your spirit is separated from your mind. Paul is not encouraging that. Don't ever do it.
Does He want you to pray? He wants you to pray desperately, and He gave you the model for it: "Our Father." In His own hour of deepest need, He did not lapse into a heavenly prayer language. His mind did not go blank. He was not in a state where He did not know what He was saying.
The Christian faith is not about checking your mind at the door. We are called to love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. I pray in a language I know and understand, and I take that very solemnly and seriously. That does not at all mean that I am right. But I did not simply get up on a Sunday and decide to throw together something on chapter 14. It did not happen that way.
Does Today's Practice Fit the Biblical Description?
Here is the fifth question: Does the gift of tongues as exercised today fit the biblical description? The answer is straightforward — not if it does not fit within the parameters Scripture gives. Last week we laid out those parameters, the rules for speaking in tongues: never more than two or three, never simultaneously, there must be interpretation, and if no interpreter is present, then keep silent.
We went through chapter 14 over the past two weeks, so if you missed last week, you can find all of that on the website. If you see something today and it is the biblical gift of tongues, it fits within those parameters. I can tell you this: I have never seen that.
What Is Seen on Christian Television
What is on Christian television, whatever it is, it isn't this. I've never seen anything like what Scripture describes on those broadcasts. And I get a sense that some of you want to bait me into a discussion — well, is that from Satan? I have no idea. What I will say is this: it's not biblical. Whatever it is, it's not biblical. The rules for speaking in tongues are clear and indisputable. Paul gives them in 1 Corinthians 14.
Does Tongues Evidence the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?
The reason I included this question, and the one after it, is because we are responding to what we hear in the charismatic movement — the claim that if you have the baptism of the Holy Spirit, it is evidenced by speaking in tongues. Here is what Scripture says. In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Paul is talking again about the body: "For even as the body is one, and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ."
Here is the answer to the question, in verse 13: "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into the body." When someone asks you, "Have you been baptized by the Holy Spirit?" you can say to them, "Yes — I'm a Christian," because that is what that means. Every Christian has been baptized by the Holy Spirit. It is not something subsequent to conversion, and it is not something accompanied by all of these magnificent signs and wonders. Those signs attended the apostles, or those under the direct supervision of the apostles, and I believe that era has passed away.
Is the Gift of Tongues for Every Believer?
We ought to at least be able to agree on this next question. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 28: "God has appointed in the church, first apostles, then prophets, and teachers, and miracles, and gifts of healing, and helps, and administration, various kinds of tongues." Verse 29: "All are not apostles, are they?" The answer is obviously no — not everybody is an apostle. "All are not teachers. All are not prophets. All are not workers of miracles. All do not have the gifts of healing, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they?" The answer is obvious.
Is the gift of tongues for every believer? Absolutely not. Perhaps better stated, the question people are really asking today is whether every believer has a prayer language, and I would have to say no, I don't think so. In fact, the great fathers of the faith were not even wrestling with this issue. Go back and read those men — they are not struggling with this.
Where Do We See an Appropriate Example of Tongues in Scripture?
Basically, we see three examples in the book of Acts. We see Paul in Ephesus, which I believe is Acts 19. We see Peter with Cornelius in Acts 10. Again, you see the apostles present, and you see tongues there. What is happening in those accounts is an embracing of the Gentile and a bringing together of Jew and Gentile — demonstrating that the Christian faith is for all, one and for all. The tongues spoken there are spoken either by the apostles or directly under their authority.
By far the best example, however, is Acts chapter 2. It is the Day of Pentecost: "When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other tongues as the Spirit was giving utterance to them."
Taking the Passage as a Whole
Literally two weeks ago I was watching one of the charismatic teachers on a local channel and he was saying, "We want Pentecost. We've seen Pentecost — filled with the Holy Spirit — and we know we're filled with the Holy Spirit because we see the speaking in tongues." But wait — that is only verse 4. What about the tongues of fire? Did you see tongues of fire like that? Did you hear that wind? Did you see all of that? No. They are never seeing that. See how we take one part and separate it from the rest? If you want Pentecost, then take it as a package.
So what were the tongues actually being spoken there? Look at verse 5: "Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when the sound occurred, the multitudes came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language." They go on to ask, "Are not these men who are speaking Galileans?" Here is what is happening: the city is filled with Jewish pilgrims for the festival day, they hear this noise, and they come running in. When they arrive, each person hears someone speaking his own native language — not gibberish, but his own language, heard with his own ears.
Look at what they say: "We hear them in our own language. We hear the mighty deeds of God." They are perplexed and amazed, and they ask, "What does this mean?" And isn't that precisely the purpose of a sign — to make you ask, "What does this mean?" When Jesus healed, John tells us at the end of his Gospel, "Many other signs and wonders Jesus did. These were recorded that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ." That is the whole point of these sign gifts. That is the whole point of the healings. That is the whole point of all of it — to bring people to the question, "What does this mean?"
In this case, Peter steps forward and says, "Let me tell you something." He addresses the crowd, primarily Jews, and he calls on the prophecy of Joel to explain to them what they have just witnessed.
The Reality of Tongues and the Breadth of Spiritual Gifts
Jesus was killed by the predetermined plan of God, but death could not hold Him and He rose from the dead. He is the one that David promised us. He is the Messiah. When the people asked, "What should we do?" Peter answered, "Repent and believe." Three thousand were saved that day. That is what real tongues looks like — not somebody by themselves speaking gibberish, or a whole group of people working themselves into a lathered frenzy of noise.
Let me add one new question to the mix: what are the other spiritual gifts listed in scripture? I fear that we can fall prey to a discussion on signs and wonders and miss the fact that there are many gifts that don't fall into that category. So let's take fifteen minutes and talk about spiritual gifts.
I have never been a big fan of the whole "study your spiritual gifts and find them" approach. It always bothers me that I can't go to one place and say, "Here are the spiritual gifts" — because there are five places where they are listed. Four of them come from the Apostle Paul, and Peter writes in 1 Peter 4:11. Together, across those five passages, we can compile the full list, and interestingly, no single gift appears in all five.
Speaking Gifts and Serving Gifts
In 1 Peter 4:11, Peter writes: "Whoever speaks, let him speak as it were utterances of God. Whoever serves, let him do so by the strength which God supplies, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever." Someone has suggested that we can actually take all the gifts and separate them into those two categories — the speaking gifts and the serving gifts. There are as many ways to look at spiritual gifts as there are authors who have written about them.
So here is what I decided to do: let's simply list them out and explain what they mean. One reason I am reluctant to go through a list of spiritual gifts is that it can become less an exercise in identifying your gift and more an exercise in identifying what is not your gift — so that you now have permission to say, "I don't have to do that." There is a sense in which every believer has a call to all of these in some measure. Take giving, for example. You cannot say, "I don't have the gift of giving, therefore I don't give." Or evangelism — "I don't have the gift of an evangelist, therefore I don't evangelize."
As we go through this list, one or two of these gifts will jump off the page at you. You will say, "That's me right there." You will also notice how some of them overlap, differing only in nuance — and that is part of why they divide so naturally into those two groups. So take a look and see where you fit.
Tongues and Interpretation of Tongues
The first gift on the list is tongues and interpretation of tongues. I think we have that one covered. But I want to note that they are present in the list, and in each case you have the scriptural reference along with a brief description of the gift.
Apostles and Prophets
The next two gifts are apostles and prophets. By far, the dominant use of the word "apostle" in the New Testament refers to those who were Jesus' apostles — the official position, as when Paul writes, "I am Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus." There is also a broader usage; for example, Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, and others were called apostles of the churches. But the technical term refers to Christ's chosen few — those who performed signs and wonders. That office is gone. You have never met an apostle. When the last of those apostles died, that office was closed.
The same is true of prophet. A prophet is one who spoke the revealed will of God — one who spoke "Thus saith the Lord." They gave us scripture and expounded on the scripture that was there. I would suggest that office too is gone. The apostles and the prophets served a specific purpose: to lay the foundation of the church, to declare and receive the revealed word of God, and to confirm that word by signs and wonders. That work is finished.
James Boyce writes simply: "Neither of these gifts exist today. We no longer have apostles or prophets in that technical sense. But we are not deprived of the benefits of those first gifts of God to the Christian community. The apostles did establish the first churches and taught them authoritatively, and those who spoke from God have left us the New Testament." In other words, they did their job. And just as with the sign gifts, when that work was done, it was done.
Prophecy
Prophecy does not simply mean foretelling the future — it means the public proclamation of God's truth. It is the gift of preaching and proclaiming the word of God with clarity and power. First Corinthians 14:3 tells us that "one who prophesies speaks to men for the edification, exhortation, and consolation." And 1 Peter 4:11 echoes this: "Whoever speaks, let him speak as it were utterances of God, so that in all things God may be glorified."
For me — and there are probably many examples you could name from your own experience — John MacArthur fits squarely in that category. He is a powerful man who opens up the Word and proclaims the truth.
Service
The next gift is service, also called ministry. It is the gift of serving. Jesus Himself said, "I came not to be served, but to serve." Someone with this gift has an extraordinary capacity for seeing people who are hurting — the sick, the widows, the strangers — and understanding that these temporal needs are real, then reaching out and meeting them.
All Are Called, Some Are Gifted
All are called to serve, but some just do it beyond whatever average is. The evangelist — Philip was called an evangelist — means to proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. The verb form, "to preach the gospel," appears 54 times in the New Testament. The noun form, the word "gospel," appears 76 times. This is a perfect example of what I was talking about before: you are all called to be evangelists, but some have an extraordinary gift of evangelism.
No one has 100% certainty that every time they share the faith, God moves. But there are just some people for whom it almost flows. You are not with them three or four minutes before they are trying to find out if you are a brother or sister in Christ, and if you are not, they want to share what it means to know Christ. All of us evangelize, but some just seem to have this extraordinary capacity.
Word of Wisdom and Word of Knowledge
In 1 Corinthians 12:8, the next gift is called the word of wisdom, which gives us the idea that it might be a speaking gift. It simply means the ability to understand God's word, make His will known, and apply it to your life — the "so what" of it. We all have wisdom; that is what James 1:5 says. If anyone lacks wisdom, all they have to do is ask. But this gift is deeper. This is somebody who can take that word and make it remarkably practical.
Right alongside it is the word of knowledge — the ability to understand and speak God's truth, giving insights, especially into the mysteries. Some people just have the ability to take the profound mysteries of God and open them up. How could God, the infinite God, become man and dwell among us? How could He be fully God and fully man? How could God take a sinner and bring him to faith without violating His justice? That is the word of knowledge at work.
Pastor, Teacher, and Elder
Pastor, teacher, teaching, speaking — we can put those together, primarily because we see them together in Scripture, mentioned as pastor-teacher. It is the ability to communicate God's word in a systematic and appropriate way, with an emphasis on shepherding. Pastor, elder, and bishop are closely related, and one of the requirements of an elder is the ability to teach. You see them all come together in that area.
Extraordinary Faith
Now we know we all have faith — we are saved by grace through faith — but this gift is extraordinary faith, the faith that is never detoured. Ray Stedman writes that it is the ability to see something that needs to be done and to believe that God will do it even though it looks impossible. It is almost a perpetual optimism.
People with this gift are extraordinarily frustrating. You just cannot stop them. They say, "Wait a minute — God says He is going to do it, and if God says He is going to do it, He will do it." Circumstances never get them down. When Jesus says you can move mountains, He is not saying South Mountain is literally going to end up in Casa Grande. He is describing this extraordinary ability to simply believe that God is who He is.
The Gift of Healing
I would suggest that certainly God can heal today and probably does heal today, but we are talking here about miraculous healings. Miraculous healings were never the norm throughout the whole history of man, even in the Old Testament, except around Christ and then around the apostles, to validate their message.
C. Everett Koop makes an interesting contribution here. He served as Surgeon General of the United States and worked for years as Surgeon-in-Chief at Children's Hospital. He spent decades in medicine and is a strong Bible-believing Christian. He says this: "I believe in miracles. I understand that all healing comes from God — He may heal through a doctor's scalpel. I'd love to see a miracle of healing where God supervenes His natural law and heals by miracle. If I were to see such a miracle, I'd be overjoyed and would come to God in praise. But in spite of believing that all healing comes from God, and in spite of believing in miracles, I've never seen one."
We are talking about real miracles here. We are not talking about what you see when somebody says there is someone with a pain in their back, and then a man who was dead is told to rise. We are talking about healing like "you are blind — now see." Those are healings. The charade that passes for healing today is not that. Men and women, it is not happening. Every once in a while I hear from somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who met someone in an international airport who had somewhere along the way been to Rio de Janeiro and then into the jungle, and something took place out there. Can God do it? Yes. Does God do it today? My instinct is to say He probably does work that way in some cases. But the apostolic healing that we saw in Scripture is gone.
Distinguishing Spirits and the Gift of Giving
Working miracles — supernatural acts — was again something we saw at the hands of the apostles. The ability to distinguish spirits, I think, is related to the gifts of prophet, teacher, and pastor. Satan is a great deceiver, as John 8:44 tells us, and his message is a counterfeit. Especially in the day and age we are in, with every new theology, every pet rock, every new gimmick exploding across the landscape, somebody has to have the gift of discernment to say, "That is not right."
By the way, that is a really lonely gift. It is not a fun gift. It is the gift where you are often the person who sees something that not everyone else sees. Where the person with the gift of faith sounds like the eternal optimist, the person with the gift of discernment can sound like the eternal pessimist — so it must be exercised with love.
The gift of giving is the sacrificial sharing of your resources.
Viewing the Church Through Your Gift
When you see a need, you meet it. You don't say, "I'd love to help you, but right now my Enron stock is not where I'd like it to be — but when it bounces back, you can count on me for a grand." That's not how this works. It may not be somebody with a lot of money, though it's good if it is. It's just somebody who says, "We'll live in this house. This is all we need. We'll stay here, and God can have the rest. Whatever He wants to do with it, let Him do it."
Mercy. Those with this gift loved these people. They just break. They ache. They weep. They see suffering all around them, and they want to be part of what God is going to do to cure it.
Let me make an interesting point here. When people come to me, they oftentimes, as they talk, view the church through their gift. Somebody will call and say, "East Valley Bible Church — it's just not a caring place. You're not really going out of the way to reach the hurting." Almost always that call comes from a person with a gift of mercy. Then I'll hang up, and the next person will say, "Way too emotional. Just teach the Word." That's a prophet. We tend to look at everything through our gifted area. Do you see the message here? That's why you need the body.
The Gift of Administration
Two more gifts to cover. Administration comes from the Greek word that literally means to pilot the ship. It refers to the leader or leaders. You would assume the leaders in the church — the elders in particular — would have this gift, but it shows up all through the body.
How do you know if you're a leader? Here's one foolproof way to tell: does anybody follow you? That's how you find out. We talk a lot about leaders, but Adolf Hitler was a leader. Jim Jones was a leader. A true leader is somebody who sets the course and people instinctively think, "We're going to be okay."
I was listening to a recording the other day where someone was talking about hearing Ronald Reagan on the radio — before he was governor or anything — and said his voice would come on and it was just a comforting voice. It was like everything was going to be okay. I've got a picture of Dutch right there in my office, and I look at him every day. He's smiling down at me, and I can just hear him say, "I ran the world and didn't know what was going on — you can handle this. Hang right in there." I love him. There's not a week that goes by that I don't listen to his voice. I love to hear it. I'll follow him because I trust him.
The Gift of Exhortation
Exhortation is coming alongside someone in a loving way and doing a hard thing: taking the Word and saying the difficult thing, while somehow having the person on the other end understand, "They're saying this because they love me. They're saying it because it's true." As Scripture tells us, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness." The person with the gift of exhortation can say, "You're all messed up here — here's what the Word says. Now let's get it fixed, because the Bible tells us what's right, what's not right, how to get right, and how to stay right."
Finding and Using Your Spiritual Gift
We need to wrap up, so let me give you this. If you're a Christian, you have a spiritual gift. How do you find it? Here's a simple process. Step one: we've identified what the gifts are. Step two: pray and ask the Father to show you your gift. Step three: go back through that list and ask yourself what clicked for you.
Whatever it is, try it. If you think you're a teacher, go teach. Get in touch with Beth or Jim or whoever oversees that area, and go do it. We'll give you twenty-five people and a room. If next week you have twenty-two, and the week after you have seventeen — well, you may have the gift of dispersion. But that's okay, because now you can set that aside and find the gift you actually have.
Be honest. Talk to your friends. Ask yourself: what on that list do I enjoy doing? What do people say you're terrific at when you do it? There is your spiritual gift. This isn't rocket science. It isn't that hard to figure out.
What I find more often than not is that it's not finding the spiritual gift that's the problem — it's obediently using it. There is no way anything can stop East Valley Bible Church if four thousand three hundred people know their spiritual gift and are using it. We ought to have kids invading Mesquite High School and every other place around us. And don't think you have to wait until you're old enough to vote before you receive a spiritual gift. If you're five years old, you have a spiritual gift — it's just going to mature as you mature.
Closing Prayer
Next week, as we head into Easter, we'll talk about the resurrection and what that means to us and the hope that is there. Father, help us see that. Thank you for this Word and this truth. God, I pray that what was said today was accurate, and I pray that we would find our gifts and use our gifts — that we would become a body known as a place where there are many members but one body, many gifts but one Lord. God, let that be East Valley Bible Church. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.