Spiritual gifts

Today we start Spiritual Gifts, and actually chapters 12 through 14, which actually will take us through the middle of October. So the next two months we're going to be talking about Spiritual Gifts. It's an important topic, and there's different aspects. This is the beginning part, this is where Paul starts. In some ways it seems Seeing where we're going, it seems like I would have started a different place. This is where the Lord started the ball, so we accept the Lord's wisdom in this. We're going to start down the path of spiritual gifts.

There's all kinds of interesting topics down the road. We're going to briefly touch on tongues and that kind of stuff. That's become a big deal. A lot of people are focused on tongues and that kind of stuff. So hopefully we can answer a lot of those questions as we go through these chapters and these verses.

Okay, so actually what I did, I think I pushed the button a couple times already. This is the outline. I've been using the outline from Macaulay. I don't necessarily follow that directly in the presentation, but it's just kind of good. I like what his organizational skills are. The Lord has really gifted him. Just amazing how he is able to take and organizing is just really cool.

So he points out as we start into chapter 12 here, two of the words we're going to see is spiritual, which is pneumatos, and we're also going to see gifts, which is charisma. So we're going to see those two words and other important words as we go through these passages. So the first thing we're going to start out with is a mix of contrast with the pagan. You know, you once were pagans and now you're in the Lord. He's going to talk about what you once were, the influence of that, and how you've been changed.

And then he's going to start into the statement about spiritual gifts. And he's going to point out about the fact that both the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are involved in spiritual gifts in the believer's life. We're going to see that in 4 through 6. And then we're going to come down to the aim of spiritual gifts.

And the aim of always the spiritual gifts is not for you, but it's for the body. And boy, if there's one thing you want to keep in mind, that's it. Because what happens after a while, you get so focused on spiritual gifts, who are you focused on? You're focused on yourself, and that's wrong focus. The focus of spiritual gifts is how they can edify the body. So if you get so focused on yourself and tweaking and polishing up your spiritual gift, so to speak, you're going to miss the point.

So we'll see that and get involved in that too. He states some of the spiritual gifts, not all of them, and actually Macaulay kind of separates them into three groups, mind, body and spirit. I didn't exactly see what he was doing there, but I'm not exactly following his outline. I'm going to go through verse by verse, and we're going to look at each of the verses. The fact that he calls some of the names, some I see, some I don't. If that's helpful, that's great. That's kind of a quick outline. Can someone read the first 11 verses in chapter 12?

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware. You know that when you are pagans, you are led astray to the mute spitals, however you will it. Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is a curse, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit.

And to another, the effecting of miracles. And to another, prophecy. And to another, the distinguishing of spirits. And to another, various kinds of tongues. And to another, the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually, just as he wills.

Great. Thanks, Tom. OK. So let's just start off with the first verse here. Now concerning spiritual gifts. So the first thing you're going to notice is that gifts is in italics. So it's going to be defined later on. But the translators, and I'm going to mention that in the text, the translators thought it was important to put gifts up there so that it would be a better flow. And you could argue about that or whatever. So we're going to look.

Now concerning or about and spiritual, as I mentioned, is pneumatikos, meaning those things pertaining to the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. communicated or imparted by the Holy Spirit. And actually, we've come across this word before, earlier, in 1 Corinthians. So let's just look at a couple of those occurrences. Let's go back and read in 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Someone could read verses 14 and 15 in chapter 2.

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. Okay, so actually if you continue on it talks about a man of the flesh, we get in chapter 1. of chapter 1, verse 1 of chapter 3.

So this is what, I actually covered that, it's a passage that talks about the three kinds of men in the scripture, the natural man, the man of the flesh, and then the spiritual man, and then, actually I misspoke there, the natural man is a man outside of Christ, and the man of the flesh is a carnal man who is a Christian but not walking with the Lord. So this word spiritual is used to describe the man walking by the Spirit, or walking under the control of the Spirit. He's a believer. So the word is used of a man, in that case, and then it's going to be used a little bit differently in a couple of the cases here. So let's look at, so the first case is used of a spiritual man early in the chapter. Then it's going to be used a little bit differently in chapter 9.

Did someone read 1 Corinthians 9.11?

If we sow spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? Okay, so in this case it's going to talk about This is Paul speaking, and we sowed spiritual things, things of the Holy Spirit, things of God in you. So this is talking about the same word, pneumatikos, that's used as spiritual gifts, used as spiritual things. And then it's going to be used as spiritual gifts again, but let's kind of jump ahead here to chapter 14 and just, if someone could read chapter 14 verse 1. in 1 Corinthians. Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. Right. And if you notice in here, I'm sure in your Bible, it has gifts in italics again.

So it's spiritual. So the core meaning obviously is that it pertains to the Holy Spirit. It's communicating what the Spirit is involved in, what He's active in. And the Spirit of God is active in the believer's life. That's his job, that's his ministry. So then I kind of borrowed a quotation from Macaulay. And he kind of maybe drills down a little bit farther. He says the word spiritual is used in two ways in the New Testament. First it is used of anything that pertains to the person of the Holy Spirit. And second it is used to designate the work that he does in the life of the believer. We had a whole class, Mike had a whole class for a year on the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit's ministry. And it's a wonderful thing. The Spirit of God is working and energizing the believer in Christ and the body of Christ. And there's lots to be said.

So we're just going to focus on the ministry in terms of spiritual gifts. Gifts that are grace given, to the body of believers. And we're going to see a distinction as we get into this, because Paul is going to start off with a group of gifts that, to the best understanding that I have, and others, they don't really apply to the church today. And that can be kind of a, some have taken those and just run with those.

And I like to say, some people like to live in the book of Acts. They think their Christian life is a book of Acts. And so everything they see in Acts, oh, That's what I should be doing. That's how I should be interfacing. And I think it's kind of a, and maybe Randy can, go ahead Randy. I think we should sell all of our property, give it, and see if the Holy Spirit kills anybody, just like he did in Acts. Okay. We're supposed to live out Acts, right? Right, and that's right.

And the thing is, if you, you know, all kinds of things, and then the people that claim to be apostles. Even though an apostle had to see the Lord. I don't know how they justify that, but some people are apostles and they speak God's word and wisdom outside of scripture. Boy, when you start going down that path, that's a slippery path. And that's why you think, why in the world would Paul start off with these lists that don't really apply to us? Maybe he wants us to be on our guard so we see the ones that are not for us, so later on we'll see the ones that are for us.

So you can argue that too. I've already mentioned that. gifts in italics and in the context it's supplied later. We'll cover that in verse four. There are a variety of gifts. That's the word charisma. That's verse one. Okay, verse one, second part. I do not want you to be unaware.

So he says, now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware, or actually continue, it's present tense, so something that's continuing on, you continue to be unaware. And there was a problem in the Corinthian church with spiritual gifts. They got out of hand. So he doesn't want them to be continuing in the state that they're in.

The word unaware is a word ignorant. There are a couple of verses that talk about being unaware in other contexts. They both have the same phraseology. I do not want you to be unaware brethren. The first one talks about This is Paul, that I plan to come to you, and I may obtain fruit from you, and so on. And the second one, he doesn't want them to be unaware that their fathers were all under the cloud and passed through the sea. So this is the way that Paul typically was communicating in the scriptures. He used that phraseology, not to be unaware. What he means is, I want you to be aware. I want you to be on your toes. Perk up your ears, so to speak. Now he's going to reflect back on where they came from. We see this in other parts of scripture.

You were here, you were dead in trespasses and sins, and now you're alive in Christ. So there's this contrast between what you were and now what you are. You know that when you were pagans, and pagans, an idol, an image, represent a false god. Actually, maybe in the interest of time, that verse just kind of describes some of the aspects of being a pagan. So, I think for the time being, you can look that up on your own.

You were led astray. You were led astray to mute idols. And this is pretty cool here. You are led, unless it mutes us out of voiceless or speechless. So if you think about it, in so many different cultures, pagan cultures, they always had an idol. Sometimes they had multitudes of idols. But the idols never said anything. They never communicated with us.

But how much different, how much different the true God who wants to communicate with his creation. He wants to interact with his creation. So much different. So Paul's making the point is that these are just voiceless things standing there. Why are you even fooling around with that? That's so silly. They can't inform you. They can't enlighten you.

And the contrast here, let's just look at Romans 8.14. So the contrast to being led by these voiceless idols that can't say anything to you.

The total contrast to that is what is in Romans 8.14.

Can someone read that? For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. Here they are being led astray by mute idols. The believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is being led by the Spirit of God and they are the sons of God. You already have this relationship. He calls you sons. He calls you children. So there is this wonderful relationship you have and it's a relationship that there is dialogue and speech.

Now you might argue, well I'd like to have it so that God talks back to me. Well, he does, but in a different way. He's chosen, and probably wisely. Imagine if the Lord spoke to us directly. All of us. That sounds really good. But you can see a problem pretty soon. Tom might say, the Lord told me this. Randy says, the Lord told me that. I say, He told me that. Pretty soon, what did He tell us?

If He writes it down, being that we have a fallen nature, We have something to look to and there's less chance in a way of, you know, we go back to the source and say, what does it really say? Now you can argue all day that, well I think it says this and I think it says that, and hopefully we flesh that out.

But the wisdom of God giving us his word and communicating the way he has, I think it's pretty neat. It's different than we would do one-to-one. We communicate directly. But a lot of times there's misunderstanding in all kinds of things. How much wiser to have it in a written form that's preserved for us. The true God speaks to us through his word. however you were led, or whenever the occasion might arise. So God has led us through his word in every situation that we know. His word is sufficient for all that we need.

Any thoughts on this verse here? This is a cool verse. You look at this verse first of all and you might scratch your head here. This verse says, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. So I think as a starter before we dive into this verse you might want to This is not saying that you cannot say these things. A believer or unbeliever can say both these things, obviously. Any person can say these words.

The question is, who's guiding you? What's happening in this situation? What is the Holy Spirit doing in this situation? A person can say those words, but this is a testimony to the fact that the Holy Spirit has a ministry. So let's see if I can prove that to you. Okay, it says, no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed. So the little by is by means of or under the power of.

So boy, that's a real good start. What he's saying is, if the Holy Spirit is working in your life, why would the Holy Spirit, whose ministry, which that's the next question, what's the ministry of the Holy Spirit? It's on the paper. Do you remember what his ministry is? To reveal the Lord. Right. To teach us. Right, exactly. I will glorify me. In fact, let's look at that verse. Let's go back to John 16, 13 and 14.

Albeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth. For He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you. That's just a wonderful statement about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I always like to think that He is a divine conduit. Actually, Cheryl will appreciate this.

This is a story from work. At our work out at Buckley, we have secure phones and unsecure phones. The occasion happens where you would like to communicate something that isn't classified between the classified system and the unclassified system. You can't just put the things together. That's illegal. You're compromising that. But you can say, well, so-and-so says hello. John here that you know says, Sheryl says hello. I'm talking to Sheryl.

He's the divine conduit between the Lord, between Christ and us. He's the divine conduit. He shows us the things of Christ. And that's his ministry. He's to glorify Christ. He says he takes of mine, of Christ, and discloses them unto you. So the Holy Spirit would never say Jesus is a curse. Because Jesus is not a curse. Probably one way of looking at it in the same vein would be the Holy Spirit will take the things of Jesus and make them real to the believer. Right, exactly. Jesus as a curse is not reality. That's a false statement. It's not so much that someone is going to say that. I don't think that's the point.

The point is that the Holy Spirit's ministry is to show us the things of Christ. The second part of this is, no one can say Jesus is Lord except by, the same thing, by means of, or by the power and influence. There are several verses, I only have one I think here, that talk about the Holy Spirit's ministry in declaring who Christ is. And this is one of those verses.

Could someone read 1 John 4.2? By this you know the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. Right. So we know from Scripture who Jesus Christ is, what he's done. So if a spirit is another person, a fellow believer, If he says that Jesus Christ is Lord, he says that because he knows him. The point here in this passage, I think, is the origin. What's the origin? The origin is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will not say conflicting things. He will not say Jesus is a curse. He will say Jesus is Lord, basically. I think that's the takeaway from this. Not that you couldn't say both of those things. There might be some difference of opinion. Go ahead.

In the Greek, it's someone who is in the spirit cannot say those things. It's not just any person. It's someone who is in the spirit cannot say those things. I probably didn't make that clear enough, but by means of, you know, an unbeliever can't be under the power and influence of the Holy Spirit to say the things. He may be under the power of conviction of sins conceivably, that's what scripture says, but he's not going to be under the control of the Holy Spirit.

That's good, Randy. So hopefully that answers that one. Because I looked at this verse in the past and said, wow, how do I make this happen? I can say this, I can say that. Go ahead. I think too, unless you are controlled by the Holy Spirit, you're not going to say Jesus is Lord. No. Or you're not going to understand it or believe it. Exactly.

Sometimes you can do silly thinking where you say, well, I could say that. It's sort of like a bunch of kids. I say this, you say that. Well, of course you could say that. But this is speaking about the influence and ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer. Don't you think it's not just about speaking it, it also reflects your life? Exactly. Anybody can say anything, but I don't think that's what Paul... He's not being flippant here. No. He's saying, this is people's hearts. Right, exactly. And this is how the Holy Spirit is, by means of, or under the influence, is showing who Christ is. He's exercising his ministry, the Holy Spirit is. So now, there's a series of verses here that have a very consistent pattern.

It says, now there are a variety of gifts, but the same spirit. There are a variety of ministries, and the same Lord. There are a variety of effects, but the same God who works all things and all persons. Now there are a variety of gifts. So that's in the present tense. These gifts are continually present. It's not like they come for a season and they're gone for a season. The gifts are continually there. The idea of a gift and a believer is that's a God-given gift and that's something that he can exercise. His ministry in his life is continually that situation.

Varieties is this word of apportionments or distributions. And it's in the passive sense, it's been given by God. So basically the apostle here is, this is not being bestowed upon us, but bestows certain gifts on certain people and not the same. We're going to see that a little bit later on. We're going to see in verse 7 that he's given specific gifts to people for specific ministries in their life. And it's not necessarily the same for each person. It's God's working in each individual.

And we're going to see that phraseology as we go on. But this word varieties is used here to kind of indicate that there's not just one, there are varieties or apportionments or distributions. And these words kind of gifts and ministries and effects are all kind of made synonyms of each other, I think I mentioned that here as we go on. Gifts, so the first of those gifts, charisma, a gift of grace, a gift involving charis, grace, on the part of God as the donor, is used of his endowments upon believers by the operation of the Holy Spirit. We're going to see that there's going to be a variety of gifts that God has given the body of Christ.

It's sort of like the function of the human body. The human body, you have hands and toes and feet and the whole works. They each have a certain function. You wouldn't want your You wouldn't want your ear to act like your toe and your toe to act like your ear. You wouldn't want them to have the wrong ministries, right? So, in the body of Christ, the ministries are there for the common good, we're going to see, for the edifying of the body, to build up the body.

But the same spirit. So the same spirit is working with these varieties of gifts. And it's the Holy Spirit. And there are a variety of ministries in the same Lord. So here I just, at this point, decided to point out the fact that if you look carefully here, you'll see that it says varieties of gift, the same spirit. Varieties of ministries, the Lord, the Lord Jesus. Varieties of effects, the same God.

So this is pointing to the fact that the Trinity is involved in the gifts. And it's using words that are somewhat similar. Ministries is this word service. It's use of apostolic ministries and the service of believers now. Let's see if there's some verses here that might be helpful. Yeah, let's look at, can someone read Romans I want to look at a couple of usages of this word ministry. Romans chapter 11 and verse 13 is the first one.

This is going to be Paul speaking here. I speak to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office. Okay, well yours says office. That's interesting. Okay. Yes. All right. What should it say? Well, it should be ministry. The Greek word is diakonia. Maybe office is one of them. Well, actually, and that's what I'm trying to point out here. This word is ministries, is the idea of service and ministry. That's a function. Paul says my function is that I'm the apostle to the Gentiles. That's what I'm functioning in that ministry or in that office. That's perfectly fine.

Another verse is in Ephesians 4.12. For the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry and for the edifying of the body of Christ. That kind of jumps into the middle there. If you just go back, it says, and he gave some apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ.

So here the word is the work of, it could be the work of ministry, but it's service here. What is your set in 4.12? Mine has work of ministry. I've already moved on. Okay. The equipping of the saints for the... Ephesians 4.12? Perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry. Okay. So you have ministry. So I actually might have service. Okay.

So once again, it's the... In this case, it's the equipping of the saints for the work of service. How they're going to... service to the body, or minister to the body. And then the last one, in Colossians, basically talking about the ministry that you receive from the Lord. So we have gifts, ministries, and we're going to see effects in the next chart here. So those are three. And then the third one, variety of effects. Effects is from the word energy, affecting, working.

It's the results of the energy of God and the believer. What I think is really neat is that you see that God is providing the gifts, or you could say he's providing the ministry that a believer has, and the effects kind of focuses on the fact that this is going to be God's working, God's energy in your life. As we see so often, the Christian life is not I, but Christ. And this is showing it's even more broad than that. The power and the energy is all derived from God.

So this is where the effects point that out. This one has, there are distinctive varieties of operations. And that kind of comes out of the effects of working to accomplish things. I wanted to see if we wanted to look at one of those. Mine says there are differences of administrations.

Okay. As in X. And there are diversities of operations. Okay. And it is the same God which worketh all in all. Okay. So it's all the same. Right. And it's only used in these verses here. It's going to be used in verse 10. We're going to see it again. These effects or energies. But the same God who works all things and all persons. And it works here. So we have effects. And the works is another thing that God is saying. To work in, to be active in, to operate. Issues of God, the Holy Spirit. God the Father, God the Holy Spirit.

Let's look at the one in Philippians. This is a pretty familiar one. Philippians 2.13.

For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So it actually occurs twice in that verse. For it is God who is at work in you, he's This is energizing you, operative in your life. God is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

So we have varieties of gifts, varieties of ministries, variety of effects, but the same God who is energizing you. So this is all about God and little about us. Once again, as we are going through these spiritual gifts and things, God definitely is demonstrating through the verbiage and the tense and the definitions of the words that he is intending to do his work through you. It will be his energy, not your energy.

But the same God, who by his divine energy, operates them all in this sphere. So you see, once you've looked at the words a little bit, we try to summarize some of those ideas in his translation. But the same God, who by his divine energy, operates them all in their sphere. Now we come to the verse that McCauley calls the aim.

So what are the aims of these gifts and effects and ministries? But to each one is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good. Once again, it is a continuous act. Each one is being given. You are not just giving it for a day, a month, a year. The ministry that God has given you is something that continues to be practiced, continues to be used.

It is in the passive voice that God is providing it. It is given. to give, bestow, spoken of God or of Christ as the author or source of what one has or receives. Could someone read John 3.27? John answered and said, A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven. Okay, that's pretty good. So this has been given, but each one is given, and it's from God, and And in this case, these things are continually given, but to each of their is constantly given. So there's a translation of that, emphasizing the present tense, constantly being given. The manifestation of the spirit for the common good. So this is to make visible or observable. The Holy Spirit is spirit.

You can't see him, right? But as he works in your life, you're going to be able to see, and he's not focusing on himself, you're going to be able to see Christ. So it's kind of cool. The Spirit's going to work in you. His manifestation will not be of himself. So when you see all the... focus on the Holy Spirit, just on him alone, then you have to wonder if they really have looked at their Bibles carefully. Because he says he's in the background. He's the unseen agent in this. His focus is to be on Christ.

So the fact that a believer can demonstrate Christ's life in himself is the result of the Holy Spirit working, even though you can't see it. Just that very fact is a demonstration of what's going on. And it's for the common good. With a view to the profit of all, Luis says. So now we have the easy part.

So now we're going to jump in to the enumeration of some of the gifts. So in 8 through 10, there are 9 gifts listed. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the spirit, to another the word of knowledge according to the same spirit, to another faith by the same spirit, to another gifts of healing by one spirit, to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another distinguishing of spirits. to another kinds of tongues and to another the interpretation of tongues. So nine are listed. There are other listings of spiritual gifts. There's actually a good, and I can get it for you, Verne produced a supplement on the spiritual gifts and it's one of his big spreadsheets. You can't read it unless you have it in your hand.

Anyway, I borrowed certain sections of that. So these lists of spiritual gifts here, as best we can tell, are ones for the apostolic period. And there's some debate about the thing on tongues, when it actually ended. And to some people, if I told them that I believe the gift of tongues has ended, they probably would run around the room and jump up and down and be upset about that. But if you read carefully, I think You will see that that's one of the gifts that was given. It's a language. We're going to be into that more in detail down the road here in a bit. It's a known language.

So basically these gifts listed here at 8 through 10 are ones, and there's a chart here on the next page. And this is from Vern back in 2009. And the ones we read in Corinthians there, The first column are 1 Corinthians 12 through 12, 8 through 10. And then we're going to see some other ones as we continue on in chapter 12. But some of the ones that focus on the body of Christ, the church age gifts are teaching, helps, ministration, encouraging, giving, leadership, mercy, evangelists, and shepherds. So we're going to see those. And those are going to be covered, actually, not so much in Corinthians. A few are in the remainder of chapter 12. But those are focused on in Romans and in Ephesians. So the ones that we're seeing now are ones that were for the apostolic year, which is the founding of the church.

So what I tried to do here, I tried to go through each of these ones that are listed here. And just to try to, you know, I think it's worth, they're in God's word. Even though I don't think they apply to us now, I think we should understand what they are.

Because what you'll hear, you'll hear people, if you turn on your TV and you listen to certain ministries, you'll hear people saying, well I'm going to give you a word of wisdom. I'm going to give you a word of knowledge. And you say, okay, well what's that all about? And what I believe they're doing is that they're claiming to be able to exercise in those gifts there. And so that can be kind of problematic. If they have a word of wisdom, and this is something that can be in scripture, but many times the claim is that I got that directly from God.

I got a word of wisdom from God. Well, I've got a problem with that. Go ahead, Randy. I'll be careful how I will say this. I've seen a lot of times with the televangelists, when they use phrases like that, that they're employing it as a manipulative strategy to say, I have this from God.

Right. It's almost like the Pope speaking ex cathedral. Right. This is new scripture. It's a new thing from God. And you can't argue. I know. And that's a that's a high risk scenario. Whereas in Paul, the Holy Spirit did something very intentional here when when he inspired Paul to write these for this church in court. Right. So like I said, he starts with the ones that don't apply to us. You think, why wouldn't he start with the ones that apply to us? But he didn't. God in his wisdom was starting with the ones that, for the best we can tell, don't apply to us.

Do we have faith? Yes, we have faith. But this is talking about an extraordinary demonstration of faith. that was a gift given in that time period. And there are some verses that I would not have time to look through them. So let's just start off. Let me just back up here. So I'm going to go through. They start with, as the verse says, for one is given a word of wisdom. So let's just start. A word of wisdom. For one is given, through the implementation, intermediate agency of the spirit, a word of wisdom.

And actually, one thing to notice here, and I haven't really It's actually, there's no definite article, so it's actually a word of wisdom. Some people I was reading kind of made a big deal about that, and I wasn't clever enough to exactly comprehend that. So that's an exercise for the students, as they say. There may be a gem there, but at the moment I'm not sure I have totally grasped what A versus V. V would say there's a singular word of wisdom, only one. A word, there's wisdom in. I'm thinking of that handy dandy charismatic phrase, name it, claim it.

That seems to be where people can be misled. I borrowed some words from Vern here, applying God's word or God's wisdom to specific situations. He has a passage in 1 John which talks about that they saw the Lord, they touched him, they felt him, and basically they came to know him as Lord. They came to understand him as Lord through remembering that he did certain things and accomplished certain things. So in a way, that's kind of supporting the idea that they had some knowledge, and that's the apostles. They had knowledge that was given from God about the Lord Jesus.

And some of these aren't super strong. And some will say, some claims will be, we have nothing that says that these are only for the apostolic era. But boy, as you go down this list, as you get down the list here, you get down to miracles and other things. Boy, you begin to say, and healing. People claim to be healing people, but if they really could, why aren't they out there walking the floors of the hospitals healing people? They'll do it at their meetings, but they won't do it walking the floors of the hospital. I don't know. Christ did that. He walked the streets of Jerusalem, and he healed. Some have said he healed everyone that had a need, that came by him. He healed everyone. He didn't exclude anybody. So anyway, that's all commentary there.

So word of knowledge, basically knowledge according to the same spirit. Word of wisdom, closely related to wisdom and knowledge. They both are sourced in God. Revelation from God about people, circumstances or truths. Faith by the same spirit. Trust, implicitly of God to perform unusual deeds. And a lot of these, if you start looking in Acts, you'll see a lot of these are concerned with miraculous things happening in Acts. That's why I was kind of joking about living in Acts.

Paul raised people from the dead. Peter raised people from the dead. They touched people. Touching Paul's clothing. That was miraculous. All kinds of miraculous things happened. And that fits very well with these gifts that were given specifically for a purpose. Gifts of healing. Here's a couple. Peter healed in Acts 3 and Paul did in Acts 20. Being able to cure diseases and physical conditions. Then we have a whole bunch here. Affecting miracles. Miracles were performed in Acts. You'll see there.

Roger, weren't all of those things for that time? were because we didn't have this written word to teach us about the Lord. And so they had to have something to draw people's attention. They were all pagan. They didn't have anything. And they had all these idols who they claimed did miracles and they claimed did all this stuff. But they didn't have this.

And that's why I believe that we have this now. We don't need those miracles. If you read some of these passages here, you'll see that as a result of these miracles, in fact, actually, let's just turn to the Acts passage first. There's one that says, as a result of what happened, that people believed. It validated what was happening. So Acts 13, 8-12. Let me just look here real quick. Now this is the one about this magician.

Paul, who was also known as Saul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze upon him and said, You are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of righteousness. Will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you. and you will be blind and not see the sun for a time. And immediately a mist and a darkness fell upon him.

And he went about seeking those who would lead him by the hand. Then the procounsel believed when he saw what had happened, being amazed at the teaching of the Lord. So there's a result. It validated that Paul was who he said he was. And so that kind of shows up in a variety of these things. Prophecy and a couple occurrences there. The correct evaluation of spirits.

Various kinds of tongues. Basically languages unknown to the speaker. And we see that in the early part of Acts. They say, I'm hearing it in my own language. That's a beautiful passage. I'm hearing the gospel in my own language. But he's speaking Hebrew, but I'm hearing it in Greek, or I'm hearing it in whatever. So they heard it in their own language. And then interpretation of tongues. And that's another thing we're going to find out as we go down the road here.

As the tongues are for the common good, someone needs to interpret it so that it can be for the common good. talks away in this unknown language, you can't understand him, you can't get any revelation that's of any value to you. There has to be an interpreter. That's another area where today's certain bodies are very weak on. Nobody is interpreting. Well, they have interpreters. So-called interpreters.

So that's a listing of the gifts, of those nine gifts. In the last verse, but one in the same spirit works all things Distributing to each one individually as he wills. So this is the word we saw earlier, Energeo, to work in, to be active, operative in his use of God, the Holy Spirit, same as we saw back in verse 6. And distributing, once again we see that the Holy Spirit is distributing the gifts, dividing into parts, and it's for the But all these, the one and same spirit is dividing by his dividing energy, putting into operation, dividing to each one separately, even as he desires. So the Holy Spirit is providing each one according to God's will as he desires. He's the one that's dividing up the variety of gifts.

Okay, so let's, we got through it. You could argue, it could be a little smoother, but anyway, I hope, you know, like I said, the takeaway is the marvelous working of God in the life of the believer. Go ahead, Randy. There are some compelling revelation in other parts of 1 Corinthians on the idea of these things coming to a closure. But there's also a bunch more that we're coming into that is for the body still today that we have to look forward to study and take and look at our own lives and reflect on what's there. So you were forced by the clock to move quickly, but there's a lot of good material there. There is, there is.

We could have a whole class just on these gifts. I think that would be profitable. How do you divide it up? You make a choice and hopefully the Lord guides us in doing that. Okay, let's close. We thank you, Father. We thank you so much for this day, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have, Father. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the ministry of the Holy Spirit, how he is providing the gifts for the common good of the body. And we thank you that you choose those gifts, and you're the one that's energizing us, not ourselves, Lord. Help us to be mindful of that as we trust and walk by faith, trusting that you provide the ministry, the gift that is needed for each individual in our body. In Christ's name, amen.