Knowing and Growing - Spiritual Gifts
Vern Peterman · Oct 8, 2017
Knowing & Growing, No. 38
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492667354429

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

You'll be shocked that we have just one side of one sheet of paper for our handout today. And the print's a little small. Hopefully it's not too small. We haven't got any magnifying glasses in the pew racks. What we want to do, however, we started last week looking at what God's doing in the body of Christ.

And this is following our first three quarters where we're talking about knowing the Lord, and then six months looking at what are the processes that God has in place. And so now looking, since most of those processes involve individuals, this is what's God doing in the life of the church body. And as we're going through the book of Acts, we're encountering some of these spiritual gifts, but we won't encounter all of them. And there are some particular things to make note of. If you look at this chart that's here, there are what we call Apostolic Era gifts, and then there are Church Age gifts. And so let's ask this question.

So here is Peter and John. They go off to the temple to pray. And on the way, they encounter a man who is lame. He's been lame since birth, right? Lame for decades. And so they come up to him and say, let's pray for you and see what the Lord will do. Right? Is that what they do? And they pray for 15 minutes and kind of shrug their shoulders. I don't know.

Is that what happens? So how did it happen? Here's Peter and he comes up and tells him what? What's the first thing he tells him? I don't have any, yeah, I have no gold and silver, none of that to pass on to you. At which point the guy's probably, oh, right? Disappointed. So what I have I give to thee and he says, please Lord Jesus heal this guy if it be your will. Now what does he do? He tells him to rise up and walk. Rise up and walk.

Boom! Right then. Right then and there. Okay? Ever seen that done in your day? Not so much. And pretty much what you'll see is guys who do that sort of thing, it's usually a fraud. Pretty much the case. Pardon? You mean a planted person? Yes. It's either a planted person or you've got somebody who's going on excitement and emotion and maybe hypnosis or something like that.

Yes, you had knock him over, you know, and so here's here's this guy who goes around healing people then he hen and then he has to go to the hospital from heart trouble It doesn't just go Fix it, right? Nope And he gets back out and he's still not done with heart trouble. All right, so something's wrong there okay, so So what's going on?

Why is it that Peter can come up and say, in the name of Jesus Christ, stand up and walk? Why can he say that? He's an apostle. He's been given those gifts. Yeah, so he is an apostle, and an apostle is what we would sometimes call a super gift. It was a collection of all of these apostolic era gifts essentially these men. Others may have one or more of these gifts, but the Apostles essentially had all of them.

And then, how about the Church Age gifts? When did those start? When did those Church Age gifts begin to show up? Yeah, after Pentecost, so let's take it for instance, the Apostle John died in 96 AD, the last Apostle. That would be the end of the era of the Apostles. And so he would be the last one who had this super gift, a set of all the other gifts gathered together. But there had been people for decades since the day of Pentecost who were teachers, who had the gift of helps or service, who had the gift of administration, encouraging, giving, leadership, mercy, evangelists, and shepherds. By the way, when we read through the book of Acts, who would we say is encouraging? Barnabas, right? As a matter of fact, we say Barnabas, and what does Barnabas mean? son of encouragement, right? And by the way, what was Barnabas' given name?

Joseph. Except for the initial introduction, we never hear that again. Because he was of such an encouraging character that that's what they called him. They called him by his essentially giftedness, rather than by his given name. And just the rest of the New Testament, after introducing him, here's Joseph and they called him Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, and they just called him Barnabas.

Nobody even thought twice of going back or alternating or anything of the sort. So here you have a gift of encouragement. How about giving? Were there people who gave significantly, even fairly early in the New Testament? Yeah, and can you think of a name? Ananias and Sapphira, and what happened there? Right, and so essentially they were saying, you know, we gave it all, but they really didn't.

With Barnabas, he also gave, right? So we might even look at this and say, here's an example with Barnabas where he both had the gift of encouragement as well as of giving. And, as we're going to see soon in the book of Acts, actually, we've just seen it already, also teaching. So all these Church Age gifts begin early, the day of Pentecost on, and the Apostolic Era gifts as well, but those have an ending point with the Apostles, within the lifetime of the Apostles.

So then let's ask an additional question. Here, for example, is the gift of healing. Because we would say the gift of healing has ended, does that mean that God does not or cannot heal anymore? No, that's not the case. And I can have several personal or near testimonies to say that God can heal. Hello.

One of those would be that Some years ago, back in the 90s, Nancy and I knelt down to pray. Nancy had been having a whole body constant itching, and I had a bunch of Lyme disease symptoms, and we knelt down to pray, and before we said Amen, Nancy was healed. It all just went away before we said Amen. Nancy was completely healed, and the Lord said, Vern, you've got to keep your Lyme disease.

My grandmother was a missionary over in the Fiji Islands, which at that time she was a missionary to the cannibals. She said that, for example, her meat was offered to idols. They had people meat offered to idols. Over there. You can't just go around and kill people. That's not right. So you've got to kill people and offer the meat to the idol and then it's okay to eat it.

Anyway, so she worked there. Then she came on the way back and was a missionary in Hawaii. There, there was a lady who had two daughters, came into the back of the church, and listened to the account of Jesus and the ten lepers. And so afterwards, she came up and said, I need to be saved. And so she was given the gospel, she believed and was saved. And then she held up her hands, and her hands were covered with white gloves, and that covered up leprosy, which had eaten her fingers down to here. So she said, can you pray for me and heal my leprosy? And so they prayed for her, and her leprosy healed, but her fingers grew back. I have pictures of her and her daughters and the fingers grown back.

So this is an instance that the Lord can heal that's different from the gift of healing that we see exhibited. We use the example of Peter, but he's certainly not the only one. Rather than saying, hey, let's pray for you and see what the Lord will do, it was a matter of simply saying it and it was done. In the name of Jesus Christ, stand up and walk. So that's different. God can heal, does heal, but it's not the same as the gift of healing. So let's take a look here. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 12. Do you have your Bible with you? 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Alright, so 1 Corinthians 12 reads like this.

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant. You know that You were Gentiles carried away to these dumb idols however you were led. Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus a curse and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit and speak the truth."

Now there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit. So let's ask, this is a spiritual gift just the same for everybody. No, spiritual gifts, as it's describing here, there's a diversity. So it's not the same for everyone. One person is gifted one way, and one person is gifted another. He gives more detail on that. So let's look at verse 4. Now, there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. So we talk about differences of gifts.

We have different people at Holly Hills who are teaching. Are they all teaching in the same context? We have some people who are teaching home studies and some people teaching the electives. We have Tuesday studies that meet here. So we have different contexts. So all teaching is not necessarily the same.

There are different ministries. Some particular people, for example, focus on ministry to children. Others, like Nancy's teaching among the ladies, etc. So there are a variety of different ministries as well as a variety of different gifts. Even though it may be the same spiritual gift, people will have different ministries expressed, even given the same spiritual gift.

Alright? So then, and there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. Okay, so am I given a spiritual gift in order to build up and edify myself? No. That's not the way spiritual gifts work, do they? Right? Spiritual gifts are not to edify myself. They're to edify others.

And we're going to see an example here in this morning's message, and we can pick on other ones. The Apostle Paul, did he ever heal anyone? Pardon? Actually, we're going to find the answer is yes, and both Peter and Paul in Acts had instances where they resurrected people. They resurrected people. They each had instances where they healed. Of course, the one we referred to earlier is Peter. We're going to see that with Paul as well.

But, given those, were there ever any circumstances where the Apostles You would think they would like to be able to do miracles among themselves, or on themselves, but didn't. Did the Apostle Paul ever have any difficulties that he couldn't particularly deal with? You're saying yes, and what are you thinking of? Yes, he talked about what we call a stone in the flesh, and how many times did he ask to have it removed? Is that the way things are supposed to go with an apostle? Three times, right?

He tells Timothy, you know, have a little wine, by the way that's a little, a little wine for your stomach's sake because of your frequent illnesses. So just because one is an apostle and has the super gift does not mean that they're able to instantly deal with everything. We're going to see an instance this morning in Acts chapter 11 where the Apostle James is killed with the sword, probably meaning beheading, and Peter is miraculously brought out of jail. Well, couldn't James have done some miracle and stopped the executioner?

Right? You would think, but that's not the way the Lord did it. Right? And so, because the gift is not just to benefit myself and to make me Superman. Yes, Sam? Didn't it also say, isn't it in Corinthians, where Paul talks about being sick while he was there?

Or having some... Anyway, he indicated that he was not in healthy condition when he was there. Yeah, so you find that sort of thing. Ruka made reference to also the thorn in the flesh. It seemed he also had some kind of eye trouble. And so these are evidences that if you're an apostle, it doesn't mean just go around and fix everything, make life nice. Right? Yes?

Also that big list of suffering. Yes, 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul lists a bunch of different kinds of suffering that he went through. And by the way, how many shipwrecks are recorded in the book of Acts? Well, the reality is that the shipwreck that occurs is one towards the end, and he wrote 2 Corinthians and lists multiple shipwrecks before the one recorded in Acts. So, you know, Acts is a sampling of things, not necessarily the full story.

But yeah, I mean, wouldn't you think this guy could miraculously avoid all these shipwrecks and beatings and all these other things? Because he's an apostle, can't he do miracles? Yeah, but what's interesting is they're not self-serving, and they're not self-preserving. So here's a guy who can do miracles with somebody else, but it's not intended to make him, you know, I'm always healthy because I always do miracles and heal myself, and I never had any trouble because I always do miracles and get out of the trouble.

That's not the way it works. One of the ways that I've heard it put is somewhat humorous. It's like a banquet table where we're all sitting across from each other and nobody has elbows that bend. You can serve the person across the table, but you can't feed yourself. That is sort of a humorous picture.

So if we proceed here in verse 7, But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge, and to the same Spirit. So those two are apostolic, your gifts. to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as he wills."

Now his listing so far is apostolic era gifts, isn't it? Right? So let's ask, why would there be gifts given during this apostolic era that are no longer applicable? Why would that be? Why give a gift that isn't going to continue through the Church Age? Because it's a different dispensation.

God needed to show to the people that this had taken place, just like the vision Peter had with the sheep. I mean, that was for Peter's benefit, but for the masses, they had to see that this change had taken place. So here are the apostles. Who had they seen resurrected? All the apostles. Christ. They all witnessed Christ being resurrected. Now, if you were to say, I witnessed Christ being resurrected, and I can tell you, yep, I really did witness that.

You're going to say, well, okay, how am I supposed to believe that? As a matter of fact, in basic to Greek culture, they didn't believe in a resurrection, a physical resurrection. So what you're telling me is nonsense. You know, we don't believe in one.

So, what would authenticate their message that, yep, there really are such things as miraculous events, including resurrections. Yeah, so they would do various things, even resurrections, both Peter and Paul recorded in Acts. Each of them would do a resurrection. and healings and other miracles, right? Casting out demons, things like that. So each of them would do miraculous things as an authentication of their testimony and their message. See that? An authentication of their testimony and their message.

And if I just came to you and said, boy, I believe in the resurrection, and it's in the background of the Greek culture, well, they just don't even believe in that stuff. You just don't even believe in that stuff. And so with that background, it's like, okay, you're telling me there's a resurrection. I'm not so sure, you know.

But here the apostle does something that just can't be explained, and then, oh, I guess maybe this guy's got something. after all. So at one it would be an authentication. How about things like a gift of a word of wisdom or prophecy? What would be the value of something like that during this apostolic era? Lacking complete scripture, you have several of these gifts that are in lieu of, in the place of, temporarily, the New Testament. We as of 96 AD had the completed New Testament and therefore those gifts that were given as a until then kind of gift, a gift to give you insight and information. Here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to know.

Those gifts were put in place until the time of the Apostles was completed and the New Testament was complete. So you would have people who would provide insight and understanding in the local churches and for the church at large because the New Testament was either not written or was not complete. Some years passed before any of the New Testament books were even written. And then it took a while to get those circulated, right? So it took a while to get them so that people had them, had the New Testament, and could look at Scripture. And meanwhile, God provided these temporary gifts to fill in that gap of revelation.

Yeah, Stan? Ah, okay, yes. So here's a situation where, you know, is this really, these guys are telling me, you know, they saw Jesus resurrected. I've talked to several of them and it seems like they're, you know, telling me the straight story. But, you know, they went and healed my nephew and he hasn't walked since birth. And this guy over here has been blind, and now he sees. And that gives validity to the testimony that these guys are giving me.

I was thinking more when Paul didn't go into Macedonia because he was guided away from that. It showed that he was following the Holy Spirit. This was the new dispensation for me. It wasn't happening to the Jews. So here you have this apostolic era where there is provision.

Here's Dr. Luke. Do you want to see Dr. Luke or would you rather see him instantly healed? Pick one. So, yeah, you have, even with Dr. Luke, and I'm sure for his day he was a good medical doctor, trained in either Antioch or Philippi. I tend to lean towards Philippi, but nonetheless. So you could see him, he's the beloved physician, but in the end, it should be nice if something were just instantly dealt with. especially if it was by any medical technology incurable or unresolvable, right? That would be awfully nice.

So you have those apostolic ear gifts are the first ones that he deals with. Let's look at verse 12. For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ." So what is this? What's he saying? Yes.

Well again, I think because there were so many variations of the gifts and things that were going on. I think that's why they continually had to state that there was only one God, one spirit. Because otherwise it looked like there was all kinds of different things working together. And in the Greek society, you had, and the Romans, and and he had all these gods, I mean, that's another change. This is a big change, because you go to a monotheism instead of...

So here is a unity among the people in the church body, and imagine, here's one person who has the gift of service or helps, right? And we might say that that was displayed in Dorcas, the woman over in Joppa, who was preparing garments for a number of people, and she died, right?

And so Peter resurrects her, right? And so what you have is what she was doing in terms of preparing garments for people, did that appear miraculous? No. But nonetheless, it was a spiritual gift that she was given. And then Peter comes and Dorcas is resurrected. Do these things, the preparing of garments and the resurrecting of Dorcas, do those have anything in common? Who empowered Peter to resurrect Dorcas? the Holy Spirit, and who empowered Dorcas to do this, what we would otherwise see as miraculous, non-miraculous rather, non-miraculous activity. It was the Holy Spirit too.

And unless without the teaching, you would look at that and say they're two very different things. But it's one body and one spirit who gives these things. So even though you see a great variety It's all from the same source and it has the same significance.

And it's also all for building up the body of Christ. Notice that Dorcas did not have a fantastic personal wardrobe from anything that we know from making all these things, right? And here's Peter who could resurrect Dorcas, but could Peter avoid all troubles and difficulties? No. So just from the outside, you would look at it and say, I'm not sure what all these things have in common.

But so Paul's teaching is saying these are all within the body of Christ, and they're all brought about by the same Holy Spirit who distributes these gifts differently as He wills. the relieving of suffering, but it's the bringing forth of a message.

Yeah, if you look at it, if the job is just to go around healing, they weren't very complete. And you'd say, boy, and even in the book of Acts, we go through it and it's pretty sparse. You know, we don't just see them healing and healing and healing and healing and healing and that's their job to go healing and healing and healing and healing and healing. Right?

We see that the healing is to certainly provide healing, but validity to the testimony. It backs it up. So my question is, I was going to, maybe I came in late, I noticed that some of the games you said had ceased, so I don't know because when I read Marxist theme, he said, and these signs will follow those who believe. And I think speaking in terms of laying hands on the sick was one of the signs that will follow believers.

So I don't know if it was for believers to a certain era and not for us today. Let's turn to that. This is at the end of Mark, Mark 16. Mark 16, 9 through 20, is one of those passages that in some of your Bibles it will have a note that this was not in some of the best manuscripts and whatnot. We won't have time, certainly, to go through that. But I believe that that portion, in spite of the notes that you see, was original and a valid piece of scripture. So let's read the part she's talking about, and this is Mark 16, starting at verse 9.

And now, when he rose early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, and they mourned and wept. And when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. After that he appeared in another form to two of them. They walked and went into the country, and they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either. So verse 14, Afterward he appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table, and he rebuked their unbelief and the hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen him after he had risen. And he said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

He who believes and is baptized will be saved, and that of course brings up other issues of, you know, if you don't have the belief and the baptism are you not saved. But we won't have time to go into that either. He who does not believe will be condemned.

And these signs will follow those who believe. So the question is, Is he referring to those who believe in this apostolic era, or is he referring specifically to all believers of all time during the church age? So that's the question, I think, what you're asking here. So he says, and these signs will follow those who believe.

In my name they will cast out demons, okay? So that's one, and they will speak with new tongues, they will take up serpents and if they drink anything deadly it will by no means hurt them, and they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. So is that intended only for the apostolic age or is that intended for the entire church age? What we would say is the apostolic age, and I would say a few different reasons for that, and we won't be able to go through it all.

But let's take, for instance, anybody here take up serpents? Take up serpents? Isn't there some place that if you get bit by a serpent and you die, then you aren't saved or whatever? There have been cult groups who have gone that direction. So the one thing is the taking up of serpents, and if they drink anything deadly, they'll by no means hurt them.

They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. What you see for every one of these, except for the drinking the deadly poison, that these are things that you see examples of in the book of Acts during the apostolic era. So that would be one thing. So these signs will follow those who believe. So again, the question is, is this all the church age, or is it specifically in the apostles? Casting out demons, is that done regularly now? Okay, and then I have another question.

What does it mean to believe? Let's first ask that one. What does it mean to believe? Yeah, in other words, the believing that it's talking about here is death, burial, and resurrection. So if you are saved eternally, and that means you believe that Christ died and was buried and rose again, does that mean you are going to have all of these physical manifestations? Now, is that the only qualification now? I believed that Christ died for my sins, was buried, and rose again.

And now, because of that, I can go around and do all these things. And does every person who believes now have all of these gifts? Because remember, these are the signs that follow those who believe. No, and the answer is no. So what you look at is, if it were simply a matter of this is those who believe, and that would be all believers, and then that would apply to the church age, then you'd have to look at it and say, well, wait a minute.

First of all, except for the drinking of deadly poison, all of these are fulfilled within the Book of Acts. I can see examples of it. Yes. I have one more question. Yes. For the healing part of it. Yes. So, it means You missed part of the discussion earlier but what we said is that God is certainly able to heal now and I gave a couple of examples with Nancy and I and with my grandmother and I could give you other examples including both my mom and dad in different circumstances. So God can heal. It is not the same today, however, as just simply being able to go up like Peter and John did in the name of Jesus Christ, stand up and walk. That ability to simply command it directly is not present now. Yes?

I think it's kind of interesting that even Jesus had the example where he didn't know because the lady who had that hemorrhage and touched his garment, he said, Why did the power go out for me? So he was unaware of that. So God has the choice to do whatever he wants to do with whomever he wants to do it with, even with Jesus. You would think that Jesus would have known that ahead of time, but he didn't.

Yeah, and I think one of the other things is these things are listed, and it talks about handling snakes, and it talks about drinking poison, and what you find is that there's nobody that's really doing that now, especially deliberately, except for small cult groups, and they have problems with it.

Because it doesn't always work out well, right? So there are those who try to apply this as if it were somehow current for today. And like I say, it doesn't work out very well for them. So this isn't a command, you guys need to go out and start drinking poison.

And you guys need to go and start having snake handling ceremonies. So we're going to take the Lord's table this morning, and then afterwards we're going to have a snake handling ceremony. Not so much. Yes? The only instance I can think of in the Bible that had to deal with snakes is where Paul got hit with a snake when he jumped out of heaven and he shook it off. Yes, and that's the one instance with snakes.

There's actually no recorded instance of poison, although that may have occurred. That was a common means of carrying out capital punishment in the Greek world. Having people drink deadly poison was one way of killing someone. So that's one of the reasons why it would be listed. It's the one on this list for which we have no record of it actually having occurred. It may very well have.

So Jesus gave examples here. I could say one more thing, and we don't have time to go past it because we've got other things to cover. If we look at, and we touch on it briefly here, the gift of tongues did not cease with the last apostle, but ceased with the judgment of the nation of Israel in 70 AD. So it actually stopped sooner than the end of the time of the apostles. So that would be something that is an exception to the apostolic era only, because tongues was a sign of judgment. Again, that's not something we'll have time to enter into now.

When we go through 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verses 8 through 13, we explain that portion of things. Okay, so getting back into 1 Corinthians 12, verse 13, for by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and have all been made to drink into one spirit. For in fact the body is not one member, but many. Alright, so we're baptized into the body of Christ.

What's that talking about? Do we all get baptized together? No. So what does this mean? It's certainly those who are saved eternally are brought into the body of Christ, but what does it mean for to be baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ?

Is this different from my being identified with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding? Is this a different baptism? If I think about it, I, as a believer, true for each individual church-age believer, I have been identified, baptized into, that's Romans chapter 6, into the death, burial, resurrection of Christ. So this is Romans 6 and also in Galatians chapter 3. So we've been baptized into Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension and seeding. But then our baptism into the body of Christ, that's accomplished by the Holy Spirit and that's actually a different thing.

It's a different thing. We were placed into the body of Christ, a spiritual body, as a work of the Holy Spirit. And when does that happen? Does that happen when I beg the Lord to have the baptism of the Spirit? It's when I believe. And that's how we can say, and we were all. Chapter 15, he says, here's the gospel, Christ died for his sins, was buried and rose again, and so you believed. Yes?

So is that what John the Baptist was talking about when he said that he baptizes with water, but he will baptize with fire? He will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Right? And baptism with fire is a different thing. But baptize with the Holy Spirit. So he's looking ahead. And people will talk about, I've had spirit baptism. You know what? If you believe that Christ died for your sins, was buried and rose again, you've had spirit baptism. The Holy Spirit has baptized you into the body of Christ.

So we are a bunch of individuals sitting here or standing here and we look separate. Spiritually speaking, we are all, by the Holy Spirit's work, placed into one body. Right? Yes. But like with the body, we're all joined as a family or in the body, but each have a different purpose or gift that they are given to make that body function. Right, for the sake of the body.

He goes on here, we won't have time to explore all the details, but he goes on here to talk about different parts of our body, and he doesn't get terribly technical in his anatomy. But think about it, we have different parts of our body, and different parts of our body do different things, including parts we see, as well as things that we don't see. None of us would do too well if we were completely missing our liver. The liver does several hundred different things and thankfully most of those things we're not conscious of. So the liver is doing all sorts of things to benefit the body and fortunately it's something we rarely have to think about. So that's another thing is many of the functions within the church body are the kinds of things that don't necessarily get a lot of high-profile attention. Does that mean that they're less important?

No. How many of you have ever seen your heart? Probably none of us. As far as I know, the only one here at Holly Hills who has had his heart taken out of his body is Mike Doyle. You had that too? The whole heart taken out. Alright, so the whole heart was taken out, but do you remember it?

No, probably not, right? Yes, kind of the beginning and the end sort of thing, but the reality is that it's a rare person of us who has seen our hearts. It's something we absolutely need. I can't do without it. It's not like I'm going to take a heart vacation. I'm not going to have a heart for the next six weeks or something. I can't drop my heart off at the doctor's office and pick it up later in the afternoon. None of us have seen this organ, but we absolutely must have it. And so this is the way it is with the church body.

What will happen is you'll have more high-profile gifts. But that doesn't mean that the other gifts that aren't so high profile are not needed. They're all needed, otherwise the Lord wouldn't give them. And so that's another point that he goes into, is these gifts of the Spirit are gifts that are variety. They have different levels of profile.

And one of the difficulties that can happen in churches is a teacher can become super high profile. Let me just figure, can you think of some high-profile teachers, Christian teachers, here in the United States? Maybe you can think of a name or two. Usually pastors or something like that, and they've written special Bibles, and they've written books. Maybe they have radio or TV programs or send out videos of their messages and things of that sort. So you'll have those guys be really high profile.

So if you think of one, now tell me who the other elders are at the church. Frequently you can't even name one of the other elders at this church where the guy is high profile. And then tell me what the name of the church is where they're at. Often the answer is, I can't tell you. So we have this phenomenon in our modern era where we'll have this high profile guy and you can't tell me much about the rest of what's going on in most cases. And that's a modern phenomenon. It's something you see occasionally popping up in the Bible, but it's usually looked at as not a good thing.

If you have someone who is an elder candidate and he really wants to be first, guess what? He's disqualified. We're going to hear it this morning in the Acts message. Aside from the name of James, Jesus' half-brother, we don't know for sure the name of any elder in the entire rest of the New Testament. Being high-profile is not God's plan and intent.

Even the word pastor, so we'll call somebody, okay, here's pastor so and so, and pastor this and pastor that, right? Even the word pastor is never used of a human being with that gift, except for Christ. He is the only one who gets pastor as a title. The Shepherd, capital S. Even John, when he was probably in his 90s before he died, he was probably highly looked upon by all of the people he ministered to.

He was not really mentioned in that way. No, and the thing is, if you look at it, here's Peter who was in the early chapters of Acts, probably the primary spokesman. Was he looking for people to really exalt Peter? Was he looking to get his name built up and out there? No. Not at all. Same thing here, later on, and we ventured into it, the last part of the book of Acts focuses principally on Paul. And he wasn't looking for making a name for himself either.

He said, I had a name. All the seven things that he lists in Philippians chapter 3. Seven things that he had. Four of them he was born into. Three of them were attainments. And what did he call them? I consider them all rubbish. Dung. His term is scubalong, right? It's all rubbish compared to what? Knowing Christ. It's all rubbish compared to knowing Christ. So making a big name for himself? He writes to Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter 1. We're going to be looking at that. 1 Timothy chapter 1, and he says, Timothy, man, I am such a great guy.

No, he says, I committed blasphemy for the church. I sought death, and then I committed hubris. The worst offense against the Jews was blasphemy. The worst offense against the Christians was to seek their death, and the worst offense against the Greek mind was hubris. He says, I did all three, but God had mercy. I'm not even worthy to be called an apostle, but God has something else in mind. Not because I'm worthy. So anyway, what we're going to do, because we didn't get done with this, we're going to go next Sunday looking into more of this passage and kind of drawing out some of the things that are there.

But the spiritual gifts within the body of Christ are a key thing for us to take a look at. So we'll continue on here. So hang on to this handout. And we'll look at it again next week. Any other thoughts, questions? Oh, by the way, things you'd like to have me explore some more. And what I can do is bring in some written handouts on, for example, the gift of tongues and some of these other apostolic gifts. Would that be of interest to you? So I'll bring those out as supplements for next week.

So with that, let's pray. Lord, thank you for what you've revealed. Thank you for the giftedness that you gave to those during the year of the apostles and for the giftedness you gave them and us that continues into our time. We thank you for these things that you've given because you love us, because you want to see us as a body built up in good ways, in healthy ways, and in ways that bring us to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior. And so we just thank you for that. Thank you for this time together. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.