One thing I have noticed in my praying about the place of
spiritual gifts is that the lists of spiritual gifts are separated by commas, not
chapters, not paragraphs, and not even periods. The only thing separating the
gifts everyone agrees do apply, from those that many think don’t apply, is
commas. First let me show you what I mean, and then let’s ask the obvious
questions about how this applies.
8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. (I Corinthians 12)
The surrounding context says that “to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good”,[1]
and then we are given this list of what the manifestation of the Spirit will look
like in the church. All I want to focus on at the moment is that the list is
one sentence. There are no periods separating one kind of gift from another.
Paul is only making one point, that all these gifts are what it looks like for
each believer to be given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good
of the whole body of Christ.
Paul even concludes the section by saying, “All these are empowered by one and the same
Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.”[2] We
have a sentence that includes all these gifts separated by nothing more than commas,
sandwiched between statements that tell us that these are the manifestation of
the Spirit for our common good, and all of them are empowered by the Holy
Spirit who distributes them to each person as he wills. Grammatically speaking,
all those gifts are in one package.
In other words, while all churches would give some acknowledgment
that people in their churches could be gifted with wisdom, or knowledge, or
faith, or maybe even distinguishing between spirits, the disagreement over
whether the spiritual gifts of healing, miracles, prophecy, tongues, and
interpretations belong in the church is based on some people saying we can live
by some components of a God-breathed sentence and not others. And they come to
that conclusion while the descriptions are separated only by commas!
26 What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. (1 Corinthians 14)
I think that most churches would be okay if someone came to
church asking if everyone would please sing a certain hymn-song with them
because of how God has used it to minister to them through the week. Many
churches would give room for someone wanting to share a testimony of how a
particular Scripture taught them something about their relationship with God
that then boosted their faith and enabled them to get through a difficult
situation.
However, when we get to the next descriptions, many walls
would go up, and many people would say that a revelation, a tongue, or an
interpretation, don’t apply to the church today, even though they are only
separated from the hymn and the lesson with a comma.
28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. (I Corinthians 12)
This sentence is especially difficult since those who
believe some of God’s gifts are not available today are not only cutting off
one half of a paragraph, or one half of a sentence, but actually have to pick
through the sentence to determine which words are God’s will and which are not.
In other words, while acknowledging that the apostles and
prophets formed the foundation of the church,[3] there
is now the need to pick through the rest of the list and decide that helping
and administrating are still applicable since they do not require any
distinctive supernatural expression, while miracles, healing, and various kinds
of tongues couldn’t apply, even though separated by nothing more than commas,
and mixed up with the rest of the list.
Let’s try one more passage since it offers a slightly
different element.
6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. (Romans 12)
Once again, this is one sentence. However, it has added
semi-colons to distinguish thoughts since the point here is not so much to list
the spiritual gifts, but to show what it would look like for us to use our
spiritual gifts “according to the grace
given to us.”
In this list, I think that most churches would agree that
service, teaching, exhorting, contributing, leading, and showing mercy, are all
legitimate spiritual gifts for today. However, many churches would claim that
the first one listed, prophecy, couldn’t apply because it has a supernatural
nature to it (along with so much need for testing that it sounds like a lot of
work).
My point here is that, once again, the gifts are in one
sentence. No periods. No punctuation that suggests God ever intended us to
separate some of the gifts from the others. Along with the fact that there is
not one God-breathed expression to tell us that the more evidently supernatural
gifts were cut off at a certain point of church history, the repeated inclusion
of all the spiritual gifts in single sentences, written in different orders, sometimes
intermingled in ways that would question how we decide which ones to cut out of
the word, challenges us with Paul’s testimony that he would not “tamper with
God's word”.[4]
What do we do with this? We do the
same thing with all the Scriptures on spiritual gifts as we do with all other
Scriptures. We treat the teachings on spiritual gifts as just as “God-breathed” as the whole rest of
Scripture.[5] We affirm that we will live by the “whole counsel of God” on spiritual gifts instead of
picking-and-choosing which we decide apply.[6] We will live by “every
word that comes from the mouth of God,”[7] instead of
treating God’s words on spiritual gifts as if they are a smorgasbord from which
we have the right to choose only those items that feel the safest to us.
To reiterate, I do not present this
lesson on commas as though punctuation somehow negates any clear, breathed-out
words of God stating that all the supernatural or miraculous spiritual gifts
ceased in the first century church. There are no words from the mouth of God
stating that the words he did say on these spiritual gifts no longer apply.
Instead, I simply present this
lesson in punctuation as one more observation of how God spoke these things to
us through men carried along by his Holy Spirit,[8] and it is imperative that the church teach Jesus’ disciples
to “observe all that I (Jesus) have
commanded you.”[9]
In spiritual gifts, as in
everything else Jesus taught us, both in his quoted words in the New Testament,
as well as considering all the Scriptures taught to us by Jesus Christ, we are
to be those wise people who hear his words and put them into practice. Jesus said
that it was a foolish man who would hear his words and not put them into
practice. The only way we can be the wise instead of the foolish is to treat
all his words the same way: if it is his instruction to the church, put it into
practice.[10] As we do so, we gain more opportunities to build up the
church.
© 2016 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
No comments:
Post a Comment