Finally, spiritual gifts

SPIRITUAL GIFTS – the final word, once and for all, possibly...

Strap in tight - this blog posting is going to be a long autobiographical one!

It was 1988; for the past year or so, I’d been ministering regularly at a local Baptist Church. Their previous minister had resigned with little warning, and my own pastor told me, with less than a week’s notice, to go there and take the service on the coming Sunday. Thankfully, it was conveniently located in a neighbouring town some 6 miles away.

Though at the time I was working a full-time job in life assurance, I wasn’t fazed by an unexpected preaching engagement at the end of the week in front of an unknown congregation. Was that an early sign of gifting as opposed to ability? Anyway, they were pleased with my presence on such short notice and also with the sermon.

I soon gained further invites, which led to a regular monthly slot. Such a frequency soon brought me into the mechanics and culture of this small fellowship. The three deacons and their wives met on a Sunday evening to sing and pray together. My wife and I would sometimes join them. The freedom in their praise was tangible and very inviting. It was more of a corporate event; the musician wasn’t particularly a ‘worship leader’, but his musical skill meant he could pretty much play anything without the clutter and inconvenience of a music book. Songs were chosen by individuals, but they were all clearly group favourites, and consciously or not, they flowed from celebration to adoration in an almost (super)natural way. My memory is of true praise, not simply song singing, and no one’s choice seemed to grate or ‘cut across the Spirit’ – a catchy phrase I came to hear and adopt years later.

This next metaphor/simile is probably in bad taste. As the deacons worked with local denominational figures to find a new pastor, I felt like a mistress, recognised and appreciated but deemed inappropriate and unqualified for the actual post. I was theologically trained, as was my wife, but within the denomination I had not been officially recognised as called to the pastorate. We sat with the leaders, reviewing the credentials of potential candidates. It was weird! I was already there, preaching monthly, sometimes fortnightly, and with my wife we had started a midweek Bible study – she was a great Bible teacher. On Sunday nights, we found ourselves escaping our ‘home’ church to worship with these new friends – we called them the ‘keenies’, for obvious reasons. I felt like the boyfriend no one could talk about, while we looked and discussed future suitors for the church. We may have got it wrong, misread their messaging; anyway, for the sake of our own sanity, we eventually asked the question, “Could I be considered as a future candidate?”

Baptist rules were clear. Though official ordination was a safeguard to add some quality control to the ministry, which also came with a level of denominational security in regard to pension and work expectations, anyone (biblically) could be recognised as a ‘priest in His Kingdom’ and therefore, following the congregational methods of church governance, anyone could be voted into the position. Although frowned upon by the establishment, I was only twenty-five, and the wheels of this particular ecclesiastical bureaucracy turned slowly. That’s when I first encountered those looks of indignation from some of the local ordained ministers. For the actual church, it was, how do you say… a no-brainer! I was inducted in the autumn of 1988; a local official present insisted on calling me a ‘lay-pastor’, an almost derogatory title to separate me from the real ordained ministers. Nevertheless, that was when I first became a full-time paid church minister. My official ordination was then, by the powers that be, sped through a so-called ‘backdoor method’; nevertheless, my theological credentials were never in question, and I soon had two years of frontline ministerial experience under my belt, including funerals and weddings. I was now officially The Reverend. A title the denomination used on all its correspondence, but a title I chose not to use on my newly renewed driving license!

After that somewhat random autobiographical preamble, it was in October or November 1988 that I longed to run a day seminar called,

The Gifts of the Spirit – Once and For All.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the spiritual gifts but were too afraid to ask.

With hindsight, I shudder to think how arrogant I was, though having had a birthday, I was now a far more mature 26-year-old.

Perhaps, thankfully, the seminar never took place. But for my wife and me, our tentative experiences in what I’ll call mainstream charismatic circles had given us a biblical (dare I say, a theological) foundation rarely seen in the various charismatic-minded fellowships we had both encountered in our respective locations before getting married in 1986.

You can read about my nightmarish encounter with a Charismatic Pentecostal in my earlier publication, School of Prophecy. After an initial ‘baptism of something’ during a highly questionable event in 1977, it did graciously lead to me speaking in tongues a few months later. I then received a picture – a prophecy? – in a random meeting circa 1980. As a charismatic – I'd found my wings. Ignorant, yet functioning – that’s grace for you!

By mid-1983, I’d survived a mission-oriented Gap Year during which I encountered charismatic Anglicans, a dog-collar-wearing vicar playing the guitar over his cassock, and some Strict Baptists, sometimes called Grace Baptists, though the grace part often eluded me. It’s been said that these modern-day Puritans had been baptised in lemon juice, and, amidst their obsession with the doctrine of grace, had built a church fortress, enshrined in religiosity and a form of doctrinal absolutism that could only manifest as arrogance. Harsh, but accurate, and sadly, experienced over and over again in many various locations.   

By 1984, I’d encountered more educated charismatics, where God’s residing presence within the supernatural of the Holy Spirit was confidently explained in Kingdom terms, rather than the obsession to identify each other by possessing an individual gift or gifts. I now had a theological model of charismatic spirituality based on the canon of Scripture, rather than a handful of verses from 1 Corinthians 12, which read more like a biology lesson in human anatomy than a seminar on healing and prophecy.

With hindsight, 1 Corinthians 12 is rich in its teaching, highly informative and also very challenging. Yet one takeaway, we must assume, due to what is clearly missing in the text, is that these gifts (nine deliberately listed) were already known to the church. Because none of them is defined or expounded beyond the simple functionality of their names. Yet from the 1970s onwards, both charismatic and non-charismatic authors have offered us written chapters expounding the meanings of each of these gifts. I’m guilty of this too, generally feeling the need to correct what had been previously assumed, and, more recently, explaining some functions that had been totally overlooked from Paul’s first-century context.

The New Testament would make much more sense to us if we hadn’t added almost two millennia of cessationist teaching, which is, in brief, the notion that once God had finalised His autobiography, the Bible, He stopped doing the supernatural stuff! We have suffered almost two millennia of ecclesiastical corruption, where old-time empire thinking was forced upon God’s far more organic Kingdom principles. And finally, the church has suffered almost two millennia of manmade doctrines that have more in common with Greek philosophy and general paganism than with God’s revealed biblical narrative and its Hebraic mindset. The church, on the whole,

• has stripped the everyday supernatural from God's presence.

• replaced King Jesus with alternative church emperors, leaders, bishops and controlling-pastors

• and often ended up thinking more like Plato than Paul, ignoring the stunning uniqueness of Scripture and replacing it with a shoddy form of paganism – such as an angry god in need of human sacrifice! That ain’t in the Bible! Yahweh never condoned human sacrifice. It is an abomination. Therefore, we must come to the reality and the horrors of Calvary to understand Christ’s powerful sacrifice with the mind and wisdom of God, not the ignorance of a pagan worshipper.

Deep breath. Rant over. I digressed. Apologies.

Okay, Spiritual Gifts – 1 Corinthians 12 does say it all. They are workings, servings, the tangible presence of God (manifestations); and they are for the good of the church. Also, if the church is faithful to God’s calling, they are for the benefit of unbelievers too. The Gospel narratives, along with those in the Book of Acts, plus Paul’s theoretical example in 1 Corinthians 14 all testify to this truth beyond and within the gatherings of believers. Stop thinking about your gift! Even in Christ’s final words, prior to His Ascension, He spoke of the coming Spirit in terms of ever-expanding geographical ministry. The exception is probably the gift of tongues. Described in 1 Corinthians 14 as a gift that edifies the recipient, as opposed to prophecy, which builds up the church. Though I would strongly suggest that your personal edification is to make you more effective in edifying others. Thus, the discipline of speaking in tongues is to strengthen your spirituality for your ministry toward others. Until we start to be outward-looking and stop being unhealthily individualist, I suggest Christianity won’t ever really make sense to us! It’s like studying the rules of football when there’s only one of you. At school, when I did my maths A levels, I studied both Pure and Applied. In the realm of biblical studies, many Western universities have libraries full of books about ‘pure theology’, though the Gospels show Jesus imparting ‘applied theology’ to his disciples. In the world of academia, philosophy and theology are heavily overlapping disciplines; though in the everyday world, only applied theology can cast out a demon!

Pastor, prophet, apostle, healer, teacher, miracle-worker: in Paul’s first-century setting, these are all functional terms; they describe the action of the individual; they are, I strongly suggest, not titles or offices – unlike the still much-debated New Testament roles of overseers, deacons, and elders. The titles came later, more akin to ancient empires than Christ’s Kingdom, and with them came the unpleasant and unnecessary air of prestige and hierarchy. Jesus Himself warned against such things, telling us to avoid accepting titles such as "teacher" and "father". And to this day, we have in certain streams of His church – exactly that!

The term spiritual gift isn’t in the Greek text. English translators have merged the meanings of two Greek words found in the text. Pneumatica, something spiritual, and charismata, a gift of grace. Hence, spiritual gifts. Though, sadly, our English bias has focused on the notion of a gift, making it personally possessive for the receiver, rather than on grace, which implies an undeserved ability.

In reality, we may well operate in one or more of the gifts more frequently than any of the others, but that is no excuse to turn their function into a noun and use it as a form of ministerial identity.

Hopefully all of us have some basic talents or abilities, which are transferable to God’s Kingdom for the benefit of an expanding church. We may have teaching skills, the natural ability to encourage others, the desire to serve, to lead, or be generous, and to show compassion and mercy. Read the list in Romans 12 and wait for the penny to drop. God can redeem our natural abilities, and even acquired skills, to be used powerfully in His mission. This is just ONE form of a spiritual gift.

Whereas in 1 Corinthians 12, the gifts are ALL supernatural – pneumatic, and graciously given. These gifts don’t enhance your human skillset; they are graciously and supernaturally bestowed for the benefit of God’s Kingdom.

Sigh. Well, that’s the ‘pure gifts’ teaching. And sadly, there’s plenty more where that came from. But what of the ‘applied gifts’ section?

Never drift far from Psalm 100:4, ‘enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.’ In such an atmosphere of ‘spirit and truth’ worship, detect the increasing presence of God. This is His promise, for whenever believers deliberately meet together in godly fellowship. And then allow space for God to speak, to direct, to encourage, to comfort, and much more. In accordance with Scripture, weigh each contribution, and respond wisely and sensitively.

This is the eleventh blog I’ve posted in this Finally series. So earlier, you should already have the help to operate in biblical praise and healthy prophecy… Do the background reading if you’ve forgotten, but never forget, ‘applied spiritually’ is about ‘stepping out of the boat’, stretching your faith and taking a God-assisted risk. To close, I’ll first quote the apostle Paul, from 1 Corinthians 4:20,

“For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power.”

The only evidence of God’s cessation is found in our own lack of experience, compounded by fear and man-made manipulated doctrines that help to explain our lack.

Centuries ago, God succinctly explained our lack through the prophet Haggai – I paraphrase: we’re too consumed with our own needs, resulting in the neglect of the centrality of worship.

The apostle Paul says it brilliantly,

“Follow the way of love and eagerly desire the gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.” 1 Corinthians 14:1.

So, get on with it. And if it’s of help, here’s the handout – Finally, Spiritual Gifts.