I realize I’m late to the party here, but have you read Ken Berding’s, What Are Spiritual Gifts? by chance? It’s great stuff that sort of brings us back to the basic question, which is sadly quite rarely addressed. Most of us assume that a spiritual gift is a supernaturally given latent ability, almost like a spiritual super-power (no condescension meant by that phrase, and let’s be honest: that’s basically what we’re saying!).

At Christians in Context we did a series on spiritual gifts where we basically unpacked Berding’s book. The series includes an interview with Dr. Berding (which is the best place to start), a <a href=”http://www.christiansincontext.org/2009/01/review-of-ken-berdings-what-are.html”review of his book and a follow-up post to tie up some of the loose ends.

Honestly, after interacting personally with Dr. Berding for some time (he is a Bib. Studies prof. at Biola, where I went for my undergrad degree) and reading his book, I’m pretty convinced that his case is dang near bullet proof and is a great corrective for the church. I’d be curious for what you’d think.

Thanks for the stimulating post, even if you don’t bother reading our discussion!

Andrew

Setting aside the inevitable debate some would have about whether King Saul was really elect or not my main point is that we can see the Spirit works on an occasional basis in ways that benefit the people of God in particular ways through particular people. A person may have a gift for discerning spirits at one time and not another yet most teaching on the spiritual gifts presupposes a persistency that I don’t see Scripture being all that clear about. It seems popular to go with a few sections in epistles rather than also consult the narrative books. Perhaps our understanding of the gifts would be more balanced if we didn’t zero in on a few sections of Paul and looked at the wider biblical context in which the work of the Spirit is described?

I, too, have noticed most discussion of spiritual gifts finally amounts to a personality inventory/test seminar.

Because “People are people, and the world is full of tricks and twistiness yet undreamed of.”
– One of The Whole Earth Catalogs

“Fanboys” is the perfect term for such folks. Usually you can recognize them by their self-justifying legalism or the overabundance of Jesus junk they purchase; but when they’re charismatics, you recognize them by the tongues. — K.W.Leslie

And when they’re Catholics, you can recognize them by their Marian obsessions. And Mary junk along with the Jesus junk. Makes me wish St Mary WOULD appear to some of her fanboys and slap some sense into them.

Headless: When I first encountered charismatics, I agree—the tongues thing was way overdone. Still is. He who speaks in tongues edifies himself, (1Co 14:4) so there are a lot of charismatics and pentecostals who do little else. But that’s true of most Christians. It’s human nature to follow Jesus in order to better ourselves, not to love God and our neighbors.

“Fanboys” is the perfect term for such folks. Usually you can recognize them by their self-justifying legalism or the overabundance of Jesus junk they purchase; but when they’re charismatics, you recognize them by the tongues.

It never fails to disappoint me that religion doesn’t actually make better people of us. How come us Christians are such tools all the time?

When I first encountered Charismatics, there were all these Spiritual Gifts they claimed: Speaking in Tongues, Speaking in Tongues, Tongues, Tongues, Tongues, Tongues, Tongues, and Tongues.

I held out for Wisdom — the command-and-control over all the others. Didn’t make me very welcome around Charismatics, but I’d rather have the gift of knowing what to do (and what NOT to do) in an encounter/situation than spend hours scat-singing in something Semitic.

Oh, and “gift of discernment” depends on how you define “discernment”. If it means being able to immediately size up the truth of a given situation cold, I’m for it. If it means obsessively looking for Satan and his Whoopee Cushion under every bed (“DEMON! DEMON! DEMON!”), No Way.

So then why the reports in this thread of churches offer ‘inventories’ that demonstrate assuring everyone that they have SOME kind of spiritual gift?

That’s what I can’t get around: this seeming abuse of the concept and the nomenclature of “Gifts of God” – the admittedly weird and supernatural – and their transformation into a kind of “me too”-spirituality that everybody partakes in somehow.

We start using words like ‘wisdom’ and ‘discernment’ to apply to people who are neither wise nor particularly discerning, and we end up with a community of people who no longer understand the meanings of the words in real life, but claim special access to spiritual power anyways. As a result, we ALL personally know flakes who claim to be able to discern spirits or speak in tongues and who really love God – since God is Who made them special. I think that’s pretty weak, Corinthians or no.

What do you think? Am I exercising my gift of discernment or no?

Traversing this statement I got a couple of flats and a broken spring.