The Natural Gifts
The Supernatural Gifts
2/18/01
NATURAL GIFTS
TEXT: 1 Corinthians 12:4-11
This week and next week, we are going to get down to the nitty gritty of spiritual gifts. This will be more like teaching than preaching as we look very specifically at the different kinds of spiritual gifts and talk about what they mean and what they are for. I've been with you now almost two years, and in that time I hope you've been hearing that I don't believe that this Christianity business is much good at all if it only stays in our heads. Christian faith is about how to live, not how to think. We might have to get our thoughts in order before we can fully live it out, but if what we say we believe never affects our lives, we've wasted a lot of Sunday mornings.
That's why I do things like have teaching sermons on the spiritual gifts. I don't think of this as just an intellectual exercise. I absolutely believe that the spiritual gifts are real gifts that God gives to real people so that we can help each other along in our faith journey. There is a cream-colored sheet of paper in your bulletins that says "Spiritual Gifts" at the top. Take it out. [For website purposes, the name of each gift will appear in bold type, followed by brackets containing the Greek name in italics and the scripture reference. Categories of gifts will be underlined.]
If you have ever made a commitment to love and serve God, you have at least one of the
gifts on this list. And if you haven't ever made such a commitment, God is waiting to give you one of these the minute you do. Like I said last week, the gifts you get are not for you...they are for you to use to help others. That means that this is a very selfish sermon. Unless I can get you to realize the gifts you have from God, I'm not going to benefit. And I happen to like to benefit. So, I'm going to talk about the gifts that God gives out to people and hopefully encourage you to figure out which gifts God has given to you. This sermon applies to every person in this room. You either already have one or more of these gifts, or God has packages with your name on it, waiting for you to be willing to receive them.
For the purposes of these two sermons, I have done some grouping of the gifts. The first grouping I did, which is not evident on the sheet is to divide the gifts into NATURAL and SUPERNATURAL GIFTS. We'll do the natural gifts this week and the supernatural ones next week. Now in one sense, all the spiritual gifts are supernatural...they all come from God and are given for spiritual purposes. We have other kinds of gifts from God that we call talents...woodworking, math, music, soccer, cooking. Those sorts of things are God-given gifts, but they are not what we mean when we talk about spiritual gifts.
Spiritual gifts are those things identified in the Bible as gifts that God gives for the purposes of helping each other in our spiritual lives. They are gifts for the church. Some of them...like teaching, for instance...may have a counterpart in a natural talent. But in talking about teaching as a spiritual gift, we are talking about the way teaching is specifically used in a faith context.
In saying that we will talk about the "natural" gifts, I am talking about the gifts that we see as staying within the bounds of human reason and natural law. You'll see next week that God gives gifts that transcend those boundaries as well...gifts like healing, miracles, and tongues...and that some gifts have both natural and supernatural applications. But you'll see that as we go along. Beyond that, I've divided the gifts into four categories, which are on your sheet -- Leadership gifts, Supporting gifts, Knowing gifts, and Caring gifts.
For those of you who enjoy doing some study on your own, I have also included the
Greek word for each gift, as it appears in the Bible, as well as the Bible passage or passages where you can find the gift listed. The Bible passages are not a complete listing of every place a word appears, but rather a list of the places where it is listed specifically as a spiritual gift. We are going to go through them rather quickly. If you want to know more, there are a number of books on the gifts, or you can come to the Spiritual Gifts class during Lent.
Look on your sheet under Leadership Gifts. The first one here is Leadership itself, and the Bible has two different words for gifts of leadership. The first one I have called Nurturing [proistanai Romans 12:8] and it refers to the kind of leadership style that acts like a protector and guardian. This gift leads by being the caretaker for a group and giving aid and help to those under your care. In modern lingo it is the enabling leadership style.
The Bible also lists a second type of leadership gift, which I have called Guiding [kubernesis I Corinthians 12:28]. Sometimes this is called "administration," but it really has little to do with the organization of details. The Greek word here is the word for the pilot of a ship or a statesman. If you have this gift you are able to give good, concrete direction to others. You can steer the ship in the right direction and others willingly follow.
Both of those types of leadership are gifts from God for use in the church...the top down style of guiding leadership and the more subtle nurturing style of leadership. The church, to be complete, needs both kinds of leaders.
The next gift under leadership is Evangelism [euangelistes Ephesians 4:11]. An evangelist is one who proclaims the good news. It's not just proclaiming news...the word implies good news...victorious, joyous news. If you tend to simply bring God's word...which includes the hard word as well as the comforting word, hang on until we get to Prophecy. The evangelist is the one who is always excited about the great things happening...the one who can see the good side and rushes to make others feel better with the good news. Of course the ultimate goal of the evangelist in the church is to bring to others the best news of all...the news that God has a human face in Jesus Christ.
Next is Teaching [didaskalia Romans 12:7, I Corinthians 12:28, Ephesians 4:11]. We probably don't need to say too much here, except to note that the
spiritual gift of teaching means a special gift for teaching the faith as opposed to the talent of teaching which has to do with imparting other types of information. The Greek word implies passing along information from a higher authority. To have the gift of teaching, you don't need to have the ability to think great thoughts or to have innovative ideas. The gift of teaching is simply the ability to be able to communicate the faith to others in a way that people can understand.
Perhaps your gift is Apostleship [apostolos I Corinthians 12:28, Ephesians 4:11], which is next on the list. The apostle is someone on a mission. It literally means one who is sent out. When you have the gift of apostleship, you are able to be sent out on God's mission while remembering Who it is that has sent you. The focus is on the sender and the sender's message, not on the apostle. When you look at the Bible, you discover that the disciples of Jesus eventually became apostles. They learned from Jesus as disciples, and then they were ready to be sent out. I think that the gift of apostleship is sort of the graduation gift of every disciple.
When we graduate from grade school, or high school, or college, we don't know
everything there is to know by a long shot. But we are ready to be sent out to the next level. It's the same with discipleship. We never finish learning and growing as Disciples. But there comes a point where we have learned enough that we are ready to be apostles...ready to be sent out to work for God in the world. If you are serious about being a disciple, or a learner, of Jesus you will eventually receive the gift of apostleship. You will be sent out on God's mission.
The next one...Miracles...is one we'll talk about next week with the supernatural gifts, and I'll explain then why it is in the leadership category.
Next are the Supporting Gifts, and the first one is Helping [antilempsis I Corinthians 12:28]. The gift of helping is simply loving action, especially during times of crisis. If you are the one who runs to the rescue in a time of need, this is probably your gift. It is the emphasis on crisis times that separates the gift of helping from the next one...the gift of Service [diakonia Romans 12:7, I Corinthians 12:5]. The Greek word for service is more directly tied to helping with basic tasks...waiting on tables, very literally. If you are the one who easily and cheerfully does all the little background things that need to be done, this is your gift.
Helping and service are both forms of giving, but the spiritual gift of Giving [metadidomai Romans 12:8] is talking more about the cheerful giving of money and possessions. Helping and service may include that, but those are more ways of giving of yourself. The gift of giving is giving primarily of your stuff. If you are always surprised at tax time by how much you gave away the previous year, you may well have this gift. Others may give a lot, but they know exactly what they have given and to whom and why. That's not wrong, it's just not an indicator of the gift. Those with the gift of giving simply give stuff away without thinking, and when the gift is in true swing, your tax forms never reflect all you have given because you didn't keep a record of half of it and couldn't remember if you tried. A person with the gift of giving never asks whether the tithe is supposed to be of the gross or the net. You just give because it's your nature. It's your gift.
Tongues and Interpretation we'll hit next week. Next week we will also talk about the Knowing Gifts. This set of gifts really fits in both the natural and supernatural categories, because they can have both types of manifestations. You're going to have this list in the bulletin next week, too, but for now put the knowing gifts on hold until next week, along with the last of the Caring Gifts...healing.
As with the supporting gifts, the Caring Gifts are closely related. The first one has most commonly been called Exhortation [parakalein Romans 12:8], but that English word doesn't really give us the whole picture. This gift might be called the Christian coach. It implies encouraging someone toward a goal, winning someone over, inviting, beseeching, admonishing and comforting. It is the faith version of the physical therapist who you sometimes hate in the midst of things but are thankful for afterwards. If you are always writing letters or making visits to encourage and support others, if you are always on your knees praying for this concern and that one, there's a good chance that this is your gift.
Related to this, and also to the nurturing leadership gift is the gift of Shepherding [poimen Ephesians 4:11], and it probably could as well have gone under the Leadership Gifts as here under Caring. The shepherd protects and nurtures like the nurturing leader, but adds the emphasis of seeking out the lost and protecting the flock at risk to your own life if necessary. Because the shepherd often takes time with an individual sheep as well as the whole flock, it also is a gift that fits here with the caring gifts. The shepherd knows each sheep.
If this is your gift, you tend to have a flock...either gathered in a group, which would put it as a leadership gift, or scattered in various places, which would put it here with caring gifts. You demonstrate concern for the struggles and difficulties of your flock, protect them from trouble and harm, and encourage them toward green pastures.
And lastly we come to the great gift of Mercy [eleein Romans 12:8]. The Greek word for mercy implies the kindness that is owed in mutual relationships. What Jesus did for the Greek concept of mercy was to teach, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, that by virtue of our common humanity, every single human being is in mutual relationship with us. What the Greeks reserved for friends, Jesus commanded us to extend to everyone...even sworn enemies. If you have the gift of mercy, your heart goes out to everyone in need...even those who have hurt you and wronged you. And with this gift, more than your heart goes out...you go out and act in kindness toward them.
I hope these descriptions have been a help. As I said at the outset...you all have at least one of these gifts...or at least a package from God waiting with one of these gifts in it. Many of you will have more than one. But God purposely does not give all of them to the same person because one of God's ultimate goals is to get us together in community where we each share our particular gifts for the good of the whole.
And by the way, since God doesn't give all of the gifts to any one person, don't expect
that your pastor is going to have all of them either. I have some of these gifts, and I am standing up here because I have some in the leadership area. But I am just one tiny piece of what is needed for us to do the work of God here in Dover. Without the gifts that each of you bring, we are not complete and our work will be lopsided and much harder than necessary. And we don't just need one person with each gift. The work is large...there's a whole world out there that needs some good news to brighten up their day. There is a world filled with hungry people who need bread, homeless people who need a place to lay their heads, sad and lonely people who need the love and care we have, poor who need our gifts. We need a bunch of leaders, evangelists, givers, servers, teachers, shepherds, and people filled with God's mercy.
What gifts have you been given? What packages are waiting for you to open? What is the spiritual task to which you've been called? If every one of us would take the time to figure it out, Dover could not contain the explosion.
Amen.
2/25/01
SUPERNATURAL GIFTS
TEXT: Matthew 10:5-16
A few years back I was leading a women's retreat in Florida. After one of the sessions a woman took me aside to talk with me. She told me that earlier in the day one of the other women had lost the diamond out of her engagement ring and was completely distressed. So the woman who had lost the diamond gathered with several of her friends to pray about it. The woman who was speaking to me was in that group that prayed.
She told me that as they prayed, an amazing thing happened. She saw the diamond. They
weren't anywhere near where it was, but she saw the exact place where it was...under a chair back in the conference room. They stopped the prayer, went to the spot, and it was there. The woman who had the vision wanted to talk with me about it because she was afraid. She came from a background that always spoke of such things as the occult and labeled them evil. She was afraid that the devil had gotten hold of her and that she had done something wrong.
I explained to her what I want to say to you also at the outset of this sermon dealing with the more supernatural of the spiritual gifts. The thing that makes the use of psychic and miraculous powers right or wrong is not the act itself, but the source of the power. All through the Bible, the people of God are doing strange and wondrous things. Even if you don't count the work of Jesus, you still have others who heal the sick, raise the dead, multiply food, use oracles, see visions, predict the future, interpret dreams, you name it. You also have places in the Bible where much of that is forbidden. Which is it?
We actually have a chance to see the contradictions sitting right together in the story of Moses before Pharaoh. As Moses is trying to convince Pharaoh of the authority he has been given by God, God tells Moses and his brother Aaron to do a number of miraculous acts. You can read about it in Exodus, chapters 7-8. The first three things that Moses does, the magicians of Pharaoh also do. A rod becomes a snake, water is turned to blood, a plague of frogs. Both Moses and the pagan sorcerers are doing the exact same thing. Today we have come to assume that a person turning a rod into a snake is a sorcerer and that such acts are evil. What I'm trying to show is that we can't determine the good or evil question by the act alone. What makes the difference is the source of the power.
The woman in Florida was worried because she was doing something that psychics do and
she thought that action made her evil. I was able to point out that God has supernatural gifts that are given for the building up of God's people. They were praying and asking God to show them where the diamond was. Through this woman's gift of knowledge, God was able to answer their prayer in an immediate, clear, and positive way.
I know I'm going way out on a limb here to get up in a church in front of an established New England congregation and to suggest that this stuff is real. But I've seen too much and heard too much from people I trust to think otherwise. Some churches teach that the time of miracles ended with the writing of the Bible. My studied, thoughtful, intellectual opinion of that theory is... "Nonsense." Jesus and later Paul give every indication that such things are also gifts from God for the work of God's kingdom, and even has the disciples go out and practice it from time to time as we read this morning.
So with that as background, turn with me to the spiritual gifts sheet and we'll walk
through some definitions for the gifts we didn't do last week. The first one that we skipped is under the Leadership Gifts...number five, Miracles [energemata dunameon I Corinthians 12:10, I Corinthians 12:28]. Literally, the Greek words mean "operations of powers." This category might include all sorts of things...including things listed under other gifts. Healings, exorcisms, walking on water, raising the dead, parting the waters...any number of things that we see being done in both the Old and New Testaments as well as things we hear about today, especially in parts of the world willing to believe that such things are possible.
But the reason miracles are set apart as a different gift from others that we might also term "miraculous," is that the gift of miracles is a gift that focuses on the power and authority of God. The miracles that Moses and Aaron performed before Pharaoh were given to show that God was stronger than anything the Egyptians could muster. By the third plague, the Egyptian sorcerers can no longer do what Moses is doing. Elijah performs miracles to show that God is more powerful than Baal...the local Canaanite deity. Jesus performs miracles to show that he speaks with God's authority, and the disciples perform miracles for similar reasons.
When miracles are done to enhance the fame of the person doing them or through some
power other than the power of God, the person is in dangerous waters, even if the gift was
legitimately God's gift to begin with. The fall will be great, and depending on the powers you have tapped into...maybe even fatal.
The gift of miracles is under Leadership because of its emphasis on the authority and power of God, which is one way of legitimizing leadership. If the focus ever shifts from God to you, however, you have moved from the gifts that delight God to the thing that God condemns. To exercise the gift of miracles, you need the gift of faith, which is under the Knowing Gifts. We all have faith to one extent or another. The gift of faith is that surge of confidence in the power of God that allows you to literally move mountains. It was the confidence that let Peter get out of the boat and walk on water with Jesus.
The next things that we skipped were items four and five under Supporting Gifts -- Tongues [gene gloson I Corinthians 12:10, I Corinthians 12:28, I Corinthians 12:30] and Interpretation of Tongues [hermeneia glosson or diermeneuein I Corinthians 12:10, I Corinthians 12:30]. Visit an Assemblies of God or Church of God church or any of a number of denominations that fall broadly under the category of "Pentecostal," and you are quite likely to see these gifts in action. You can also see it in other denominations and in the Roman Catholic Church, if you find one with a small group or prayer meeting labeled as "charismatic."
If you are not used to it, being in a place where this is practiced can be frightening. The thing to remember is that exercising the gift of tongues is a willful act. Some people are afraid that they will suddenly be caught up in it against their will and end up doing something they'll regret. Don't worry...God doesn't operate that way. Those who suddenly jump up in a worship service and speak in tongues, do so willingly. They choose for God to use them in that way.
The gift of tongues is the ability to speak in a language you don't know and haven't
studied. It is a spontaneous speaking in an unknown language. It has two purposes. The first is for private use. At those times when your heart is full...either in joy or sorrow...and you have a need to speak to God but have no words, tongues is a wonderful gift. It allows for verbal expression to God without the distraction of forming sentences and collecting thoughts.
The second purpose of tongues is more controversial and that is when someone stands up
in worship and speaks in tongues. Paul devotes all of 1 Corinthians chapter 14 to dealing with the difficulties this gift can cause in public worship, and that chapter should be preached at least once a year in churches that openly practice the gift. It can get out of hand. Paul explains that the gift, like all spiritual gifts, is meant for the building up of other Christians. It doesn't build anybody up to have someone stand up and babble at you in a language you don't understand. That is why Paul ties this gift very closely with the Interpretation of Tongues. In private use, God does the interpreting. But in public, the sign that you have spoken words from God is proven by someone...maybe you, maybe someone else...speaking immediately afterward with the interpretation. Read 1 Corinthians 14 for a more detailed description.
We need to move quickly to the Knowing Gifts. First on the list is Prophecy [propheteia Romans 12:6, I Corinthians 12:10, I Corinthians 12:28]. Often we think of a prophet as one who tells the future, and this can be the case, but in a broader sense, the prophet is one who makes known the word of God, whether that word interprets past or present events or describes a future toward which we are headed. A brief glance through the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures will show that a prophet is not always appreciated. Unlike the evangelist who is always bringing good news, the prophet brings all the news from God...God's pleasure and displeasure with what we are doing.
Prophecy can take different forms. There are those who are primarily verbal. They sense God's message and either speak or write it. Jeremiah is a verbal prophet. Others are non-verbal, like the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel sees visions and has out of body experiences where God shows him things and interprets them. Ezekiel does report some of this in words, but he also shows a lot of it in symbolic action. Today we would give Ezekiel a nice padded cell somewhere. We have forgotten that God gives gifts that speak to us through non-rational as well as rational means.
Prophecy is similar to number 5, the gift of Knowledge [gnosis I Corinthians 12:8], but they are distinct. The prophet tends to present God's opinion and thought and interpretation. The one with the gift of knowledge is a channel for God's information. The woman who had a vision of where the diamond was, had the gift of knowledge. It wasn't symbolic of a larger truth, it was needed information to solve someone's distress. When police call on a psychic to help with a case, they are looking for someone with the gift of knowledge. Where is the body? Who made the call?
Again, this gift can come in rational or non-rational forms. The woman I knew saw a
vision. For me, I well remember one night in the late 80's when I woke up from a sound sleep in the middle of the night knowing that I needed to pray for Mother Teresa. I had no particular connection to Mother Teresa, wasn't reading about her, didn't even at that point know a whole lot about her beyond the basics of what she did. But I sat up like a bolt, knowing that I needed to pray. I did. The next morning in the paper, it reported that she had a heart attack the night before. I imagine that there were people all over the globe suddenly stopped in their tracks to pray because it was needed and we were open to it. That is another form of knowledge.
Related to that gift is Discernment [diakrisis I Corinthians 12:10]. Discernment is a kind of knowledge, but rather than straight fact or instruction it represents the ability to discern between good and evil, right and wrong, health and illness. Often you will hear it described as the discernment of spirits. If you find that sometimes when you meet someone you have either very good or very bad feelings about them...even though you don't know anything about them, that is an indication that you might have the gift of discernment. It operates with people, with places, and also with things. This can be the troubleshooter...the technician who knows exactly where the problem is...with your phone line, with your relationship, or with your digestive system.
In its more supernatural forms, people who perform exorcisms...which are on the increase, by the way...have this gift. They have discerned that they are dealing with an evil spirit as opposed to mental illness or ecstasy from God. This is also the gift of those who do work with energy and auras...discerning health or illness, positive an negative energy.
That is not to say that everyone engaged in those activities is doing God's work. But it is to say that there is some Biblical support for gifts from God operating in that ways and in other ways that we tend to simply label "occult" or "new age." It might mean that the psychic down the street needs not our condemnation, but our encouragement to see a higher source and greater power for those same gifts. Maybe they don't need to quit what they're doing. Maybe they just need to ground what they are doing in the God of Jesus Christ.
Time is running short...so quickly through the others. Wisdom [sophia I Corinthians 12:8] is the ability to unite the practical and theoretical...to see the whole picture...the forest and the trees both. If you can not only envision a program but can also know what details need to be taken care of to make the thing happen, that is wisdom. Therapists of various sorts often have the gift of wisdom. They can identify the general problem of whatever type...mental, spiritual, or physical...and can also come up with concrete things to do to help. Judges can be wise when they can see the big picture they are dealing with and then figure out the detailed legal steps that will result in justice. To simply figure out what is going on is discernment. To also know what to do about it is wisdom.
There could be a whole sermon on Healing [iamata I Corinthians 12:9, I Corinthians 12:28]. In its natural form, healing is the ability to help someone through a process...emotional healing through months or years of therapy, physical healing through medical treatment. Those natural processes are forms of the gift of healing. It also takes supernatural forms of instant healing...again in physical, emotional or spiritual ways. If you have ever prayed for someone and right then and there the problem is gone, that is the supernatural form.
Yes, there are shams and scams. But just because some doctors are quacks does not mean
there is no truth in medicine or no doctors worth their fees. It's the same way with all of these supernatural gifts. Because some healers are in it for the money and the glory and everything is staged does not mean that all of them are or that God never heals that way. It's the same with the other gifts. Some are crocks or crooks. Some are committed to powers other than God. But there are some Tarot card readers that pray before readings and others who feel exiled from a faith they would like to explore because their particular gifts are seen as evil, even though the Bible seems to be full of their use.
To be complete, to be whole as the people of God, we need all the gifts among us. Yes,
all of them need to be well grounded in the God of the Bible. But let's be sure that everyone gets that opportunity. Let's be sure that we don't label the work of God as the work of evil or as nonsense by mistake. Dare we be open to all of the gifts of the Spirit?
Amen.
