The Gifts

Qualifications – Blog.3

I began this short series of blogs a few weeks ago asking the question ‘what qualifications do we need to serve God?’ Since that introductory blog we have considered the topics of theological training and spiritual maturity, both of which are areas where we can have some input into our own development to be good workmen for God. Today I want to consider an area where God alone does the ‘inputting’. I want to consider the gifts.

Not only do I want to think about what qualifies us to serve God but I want to think about who qualifies us to serve God? The short and simple answer to this question is, God qualifies us and he does so by imparting certain gifts to us at Salvation, ‘But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ’ Ephesians 4 v7. There are a variety of gifts that we could potentially have, some of God’s people may have several of them but all of God’s people have at least one of them. They are given to us by God so that we may function profitably within the local church, for it’s good, for the extension of His kingdom and for the glory of His name, as Paul expanded in Ephesians 4 v 12 ‘For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:’

The gifts can loosely be broken into three categories, the speaking gifts, the serving gifts and the sign gifts, although some of the gifts could belong technically to more than one category. One example of this would be the gift of prophecy which was clearly a speaking gift as the prophet spoke as God led him; however, the gift of prophecy was also a sign gift.

Speaking Gifts

Ephesians 4 v 11 lists some of the speaking gifts ‘And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.’ The first two in this list, Apostles and Prophets, were also sign gifts which have passed away, but the remaining three are all important gifts that need to be exercised within the Church today. We need evangelists to reach out with the gospel message. In fact even if we do not possess this gift we should still do the work of an evangelist anyway (2 Tim 4 v5). We also need Pastors and Teachers to shepherd and edify the flock of God. Do you posses any of these gifts? The only way to find out is to do the work, try to reach the lost, try to shepherd your Christian friends who are going astray and try to teach young Christians coming behind you what God has already taught you. If you do, these things it will soon become apparent if God has given you any of these gifts or not.

Serving Gifts

‘And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.’ Verse 28 of 1st Corinthians bring before us two gifts that fall into the category of serving gifts, these are ‘governments’ and ‘helps’. The gift of government is the ability to administrate and organise within the church. It’s always a good thing to have well organised people to make sure things run well in the church, simple things like paying the electric bills and making sure the heating is turned on. These gifts although less eye catching perhaps than the speaking gifts, are vital in the church and should not be despised. The gift of helps is simply the fact that some people just seem to be very good at getting down and helping out a brother or sister in the Lord who needed help, simple as that, once again it might not be glamorous, it might not attract much attention but it’s vital that people exercise this gift. In this same passage of 1st Corinthians 12 Paul compares the body of Christ to the physical body saying things like ‘If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? V17’ The point is we can’t all be the face of the Church, or the strong arm of the Church. Some people have to be the big toe of the Church, not too pretty but vital for balance.

Sign Gifts

The sign gifts were gifts given to the early church in the time of the Apostles to authenticate God’s servants and His message. This was a time of transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. It was going to be difficult for Jews to accept this new message, so God gave these gifts as signs to the Jewish nation primarily to help them accept the message of the Apostles.

‘Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.’ 2nd Corinthians 12 v12

‘And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.’ Verse 28 of 1st Corinthians is worth quoting again for it lists some of these sign gifts such as Apostles, Prophets, Miracles, Gifts of Healings and Tongues. All of these sign gifts were temporary and have now passed away as Paul said in 1st Corinthians 13 ‘Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease;’ Consider for a moment the gift of prophecy, why did it exist? In the time of the early Church the people did not have a complete Bible like we have today, the scriptures were incomplete, so in order to know God’s will God gave a message to a prophet. However, we now live in a day when the Bible is complete, all the guidance that we need for every decision in life can be found in the pages of a completed Bible, we don’t need a prophet any longer. There are many today who claim to be prophets but oftentimes their counsel goes against the revealed Word of God. The sign gifts are certainly not for today.

So having identified what the gifts are and which ones are relevant for today we need to think about which ones God has imparted to us. Sadly many Christians never seek to find out which gift or gifts they have. Have you? Many young students will graduate from university over the next few weeks with degrees in a particular field, the sad reality is many of them will never pursue a career related to the subject they studied at university. Sadly many Christians don’t know what God has qualified them to do as they have never exercised their gifts. Again, have you? God has qualified you to something for Him and you need to identify what that is.

It would be wrong to conclude a study on the gifts without emphasising some areas that the Holy Spirit has emphasised in the major Bible passages relating to the gifts and they are humility and love. As he introduces the topic of gifts in Romans 12 the Apostle Paul prefaces his remarks by stating ‘For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. (v3) After discussing the gifts he concludes by admonishing us to love our brothers and sisters in Christ ‘Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;’ v9-10 We see the same pattern in 1st Corinthians for after teaching on gifts in chapter 12 Paul goes on to give that famous 13th Chapter on love. Paul well knew the danger that lies in the human heart for someone to look at their gifts and think very highly of themselves and then look down their nose at others less gifted than they. This lack of humility can be a dangerous disqualifier for the service of God and it is to this subject that we will turn in the final blog of this series.