Spiritual Gifts - given to buildt up...

Antakya Int. Church, May 9, 2010. Josef K.
Spiritual Gifts
Text: 1. Cor. 12:1-11.

INTRO: Our international fellowship here in Antakya: Not just a bunch of nice people coming together twice a week. We are God’s people – His Church – God sees us as: a Spiritual body.

That means God wants to interact with us. God wants us to take part in what’s going on in “the unseen world”. That will have a very positive effect on us, the fellowship, our families and friends. This makes the Church exciting and different from “normal” gatherings.

Therefore Paul is saying here: “I do not want you to be uninformed about the spiritual gifts. v.1.
In other words: Paul also wants the believers in Antakya to be informed about these gifts.

Now let us look at these gifts. The gifts are different from each others. They are given to different people in the fellowship, but they all come from the same Holy Spirit, and they are given to build up the fellowship. Here they are:

1. Wisdom. - 2. Knowledge. – 3. Faith. – 4. Healing. – 5. Miracles. – 6. Prophecy. – 7. Ability to distinguish between spirits. – 8. Various kinds of tongues. – 9. Interpretation of tongues.

Let’s look at how they function one by one:

1. Wisdom and knowledge. Most people have a common sense, but if we for example had a difficult situation, and we all thought “We really don’t know what to do, Paul here refers to: “something that God suddenly brings to mind: the ability to speak extraordinary wisely or with knowledge into a situation.” - a gift from God.

2. Faith. If we for example stand in front of an important choice, and we know what’s the best, but it seems far unreachable. If then somebody says: “I feel faith, we can do it!” (not: “I certainly hope”) but a deep and strong inner conviction, extraordinary and unshakable, in spite of facts, you can call it a gift from God.

3. Healing and Miracles. All believers in Jesus Christ should pray for healing and miracles, and the Bible promise God will hear. Sometimes a person in the fellowship senses a deep passion or call from God to do it often. When healing and miracles happens more often than usual in a person’s life, you can call it a gift from God.

4. Prophesy. The word “prophecy” (prophēteia) refers generally to speech that reports something that God spontaneously brings to mind or “reveals” to the speaker but which is spoken in merely human words. Therefore it can have mistakes and must be tested or evaluated (1 Thess. 5:19–21). Prophecy is used to build up, encourage, and comfort the gathered community (1 Cor. 14:3). Prophecy is also used to disclose the secrets of the hearts of unbelievers and lead them to worship God (1. Cor. 14:24–25). – a gift from God.

5. Ability to distinguish between spirits. A special ability to distinguish between the influence of the Holy Spirit and the influence of demonic spirits in a person's life. Those who claim to speak under the Spirit's prompting could be mistaken, and so God also gives gifts of discernment to the Christian community (14:29; 1 Thess. 5:20–21; 1 John 4:1–3). A gift from God.

6. Various kinds of tongues. Speech in a language the speaker does not know, and that sometimes does not follow the patterns of any known human language (1 Cor. 13:1). Paul sees this gift as a means of expressing prayer or praise to God (14:2, 14–17, 28; cf. Acts 10:46) in which the speaker's human spirit is praying even though the speaker does not understand the meaning (see 1 Cor. 14:2, 11, 13–19, 23). A gift from God.

7. Interpretation of tongues. The normally nature of tongues makes their interpretation necessary if the gathered community is to be edified by them (14:1–25). If somebody speaks out in tongues to the community it often “opens up” for the spiritual gifts, for example Prophesy, words of knowledge, and interpretation of tongues. A gift from God.

The bible encourages us to seek the spiritual gifts: “Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.” (1. Cor. 14:1) In my opinion “seek” is an active open attitude, saying: “Please, come God, - I want, I am available!”