Spiritual Gifts: What Does the Bible Teach?
Discussions about spiritual gifts often begin with somebody’s experience. A person describes a healing, a message, or an unusual meeting, and everyone is expected to decide what happened. Experiences need to be examined, but we cannot judge them properly until we understand what Scripture says the Holy Spirit gives and what He intends those gifts to accomplish. I want to follow Paul’s explanation closely enough that we can recognize useful service, confront abuse, and avoid treating our own expectations as the measure of the Spirit’s work.
The Spirit Gives and the Spirit Decides
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul addresses a church that had spiritual gifts and considerable trouble using them properly. He begins by directing their attention away from individual prominence and toward the God who supplies their different ministries.
There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.
The repeated reference to the same Spirit, the same Lord, and the same God places all this variety within the united work of God. Paul is speaking of the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus, and God the Father. Their work does not divide the church into rival groups, with each gifted person gathering followers around his own importance. Different members receive different responsibilities while serving the same Lord.
We also need to be clear about who the Holy Spirit is. He is a divine Person, fully God, who teaches, leads, convicts sinners, and indwells believers. He seals those who belong to Christ, and Scripture warns believers against grieving Him. An impersonal force does not do these things. Treating Him as an energy that a gifted performer can release through the right technique misrepresents the One who gives the gifts. I explain His person and work further in A Complete Bible Study on the Person of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit’s personal involvement reaches beyond church leaders or people who speak publicly. Paul describes Him working through individual members for the congregation’s good:
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all:
The Greek word translated “manifestation” is phanerosis, referring to something disclosed or made evident. A gift makes the Spirit’s work evident through a believer as other people benefit. Paul does not present it as the discovery of some hidden greatness in the recipient. He says the manifestation “is given.” A person cannot buy it with an offering, earn it by reaching a religious rank, or produce it by imitating someone else’s mannerisms. Emotional pressure may get a response from a crowd, but that response does not establish that the Spirit supplied a gift.
Paul names several manifestations in verses 8–10: a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healings, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, different kinds of tongues, and interpretation of tongues. These include workings we cannot explain merely as developed natural abilities, although God certainly uses abilities people have learned. Paul keeps tracing each manifestation to the same Spirit and then states who decides how they are distributed.
But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.
The verb translated “works” is energeo, describing active operation. The Holy Spirit is personally at work, and He distributes “as He wills.” I cannot turn His willingness to work through believers into a right to command Him. Paul tells us to desire spiritual gifts, but desiring a gift does not put its distribution under our control. Hebrews 2:4 likewise describes God bearing witness through signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will. We can ask expectantly while leaving the decision with God.
Since the Spirit supplies these gifts, they must agree with the truth He has revealed. Calling something supernatural does not exempt it from examination. The Holy Spirit inspired Scripture; a message that contradicts Scripture cannot gain His approval because its speaker claims an extraordinary experience. We will come back to Paul’s instructions for testing those claims after considering what gifts are meant to accomplish.
Every Gift Is for the Body’s Good
Paul has already given the purpose in verse 7: the manifestation is “for the profit of all.” This does not require every act of service to happen in front of the entire congregation. A believer who helps one distressed family can serve the church’s good without making a public announcement. The gift looks beyond the person who received it toward people who need help.
That purpose exposes a serious problem with ministry built around a performer. Suppose a speaker keeps people dependent on his supposed access to God, pressures them to accept whatever he says, and treats questions as an attack on the Holy Spirit. The congregation may give him plenty of attention while becoming less able to understand Scripture and recognize deception. His prominence is no evidence that the church is being strengthened. The Spirit glorifies Christ and equips His people to follow Him. Paul describes the congregation as a body whose members belong together:
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.
Paul develops this comparison throughout the chapter. A foot does not cease to belong because it is not a hand, and the eye cannot dismiss the hand by saying, “I have no need of you.” The first member resents its own place; the second despises someone else’s contribution. Both fail to recognize how God has arranged the body. If I refuse to serve because another person receives more notice, I am allowing envy to deprive people of help God has equipped me to give. If I behave as though my work makes everyone else unnecessary, I have misunderstood my own dependence on the church.
Romans 12 names several ways these members serve. The word charisma, used for gifts in verse 6, is related to grace, so what God supplies gives us no basis for boasting. Paul includes ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leadership, and mercy, while 1 Corinthians 12 also names helps and administrations. Exhortation includes encouraging and urging people to do what is right. These ministries need patience, judgment, and faithful attention to people. They do not become inferior simply because they attract less notice than an unusual public manifestation.
Someone has to organize necessary work so others can carry it out. A sick believer needs care, a struggling Christian needs sound encouragement, and a family in difficulty may need generous practical help. Teaching Scripture plainly and continuing faithfully in prayer also strengthen the church. We should recognize the Spirit’s provision in this service instead of training people to value only whatever looks spectacular.
Paul makes the diversity explicit in 1 Corinthians 12:29–30. Are all apostles, prophets, or teachers? Do all work miracles, have gifts of healings, speak with tongues, or interpret? His questions expect the answer no. A church contradicts his reasoning if it makes one manifestation the required evidence that every believer has been saved or has received the Holy Spirit. God deliberately supplies different gifts to members who belong to the same body. For more on that shared life, see A Complete Bible Study on the Body of Christ.
Gifts Are Not Fruit, Office, or Maturity
Receiving a gift also does not settle the question of a person’s character. Galatians 5 describes the fruit of the Spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These qualities develop in how a believer lives and treats people. Gifts equip us to serve, but a visible ability to serve does not establish that we are handling it well. Corinth had gifts while still needing Paul’s stern correction.
I would be foolish to overlook manipulation or sexual immorality because someone speaks impressively. Nor should a church excuse envy and division because its meetings contain dramatic moments. The Holy Spirit who gives gifts also produces holiness. When a person claims to speak for Him while refusing correction and self-control, the congregation needs to address that conduct instead of protecting the person’s reputation. Repentance and growth are necessary; giftedness supplies no exemption.
Church office involves further responsibilities. Ephesians 4 describes Christ giving apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to equip the saints for ministry. Ephesians 2:20 identifies the foundational role of the apostles and prophets, a foundation the church does not keep laying again. Recognizing that unique role does not require me to conclude that every supernatural gift has ceased. It does require rejecting claims of new apostolic authority that would add to or overrule the teaching Christ has given His church.
For those who lead local congregations, 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 set out qualifications concerning character, family life, and the ability to teach sound doctrine. A man may be able to explain a passage and still be unqualified to serve as an elder. His skill cannot cancel the requirements God has given. Women also receive real spiritual gifts and serve in many ministries the church needs. We should welcome their service while honoring the New Testament’s assignment of authoritative teaching leadership in the local church to biblically qualified men. Recognizing a gift does not authorize us to disregard the responsibilities Scripture assigns.
Maturity develops as we submit to Christ, obey His Word, and learn to love His people through the responsibilities He gives us. A new believer can begin serving usefully while still having much to learn. Someone who has been a Christian for years may need to repent of neglecting an ability God entrusted to him. I need to remain teachable, receive correction, and persevere in obedience rather than assume that a useful gift proves I have already grown as much as I should.
Love, Testing, and Order Govern Every Claim
Paul places his teaching about love between his explanation of the body in chapter 12 and his instructions for gathered worship in chapter 14. Chapter 13 belongs to the discussion of gifts. It exposes how even the most impressive service fails when the person exercising it has no love for the people he is supposed to serve.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
Paul includes speech, prophecy, knowledge, and extraordinary faith, then goes on to include generous giving and personal sacrifice. None supplies the benefit he describes when love is absent. He is not telling us to choose between truth and loving people. The love he describes rejoices in truth, refuses envy and self-promotion, and does not behave rudely. A speaker who humiliates questioners or resents another member’s contribution needs to hear this passage as a reprimand addressed to his own conduct.
The Corinthians could not reasonably dismiss that warning. Their church was divided into factions, believers were taking one another to court, and sexual immorality was being tolerated. Some abused their liberty without considering weaker believers; even their observance of the Lord’s Supper exposed division and disregard for others. Having gifts had not cured these sins. They needed to repent and learn to exercise what God had given them with concern for the people their conduct was harming.
Concern for those people also requires examining what is said in the congregation. Accepting every spiritual claim would leave them exposed to deception. Paul gives a specific instruction concerning prophecy:
Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.
A claim to speak by the Spirit must be judged. In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul tells believers not to quench the Spirit or despise prophecies, and he also tells them to test all things and hold fast to what is good. John requires testing in 1 John 4 because false prophets have gone out into the world. Questioning a claimed message is therefore part of obedience. A leader who demands acceptance merely because he says God spoke to him is asking for an immunity Scripture does not grant.
The written Word governs that examination. A message denying the truth about Christ, permitting sin, or claiming authority equal to Scripture must be rejected. No private revelation can replace what God has already given His church. We also need to examine how a claim is being used. A speaker may quote a true verse while using his supposed spiritual authority to manipulate a vulnerable person or silence a legitimate concern. The truth of the verse does not vindicate his conduct.
Paul also regulates how people speak when the church gathers. In 1 Corinthians 14, tongues require interpretation so the church can understand and be edified, meaning strengthened in the faith. Speakers are limited and must take turns; if there is no interpreter, the person is to remain silent in the church. Prophetic speech is judged, and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. A claim that the Spirit made someone helpless to stop speaking cannot overrule these instructions. God’s work does not require us to abandon the order He commands.
Paul gave these instructions to a first-century congregation. Christians disagree about which gifts we should expect in the church today. The cessationist position holds that certain miraculous gifts ceased with the apostolic era, connecting them with the apostles’ work of establishing the church and confirming their message. It does not require denying all spiritual gifts or denying that God still heals in answer to prayer. I disagree with its conclusion about the continuation of supernatural gifts, but I should represent the argument honestly.
I do not find sufficient biblical grounds to declare that every supernatural gift has ended. The passages we have considered require testing, love, and orderly use, and I believe the Spirit continues to distribute gifts as He wills. That conviction gives no shelter to counterfeit claims. We must reject emotional manipulation, fabricated gifts, and private messages treated as additions to Scripture. Disorder does not become holy because someone attributes it to the Spirit.
The prosperity spectacle and Word of Faith teaching also deserve firm rejection where they make faith, spoken declarations, or financial offerings into means of obligating God to supply health and wealth. A person cannot purchase a miracle or command the Holy Spirit. Nor does continued illness establish that a suffering believer lacks faith. We may pray for healing and welcome God’s help without promising outcomes He has not promised or blaming the sick when a prediction fails.
Stewards of God’s Grace
Believers who rightly refuse manipulation still need to serve one another. Peter addresses that responsibility by describing us as people entrusted with something we are meant to share.
As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
A steward manages what belongs to someone else. God’s varied grace is entrusted to us for the service of others, so a gift is not private property to exploit for personal advancement. I am accountable for whether I use it faithfully. Fear of doing something imperfectly can become an excuse for withholding help, just as resentment over someone else’s assignment can keep me from doing my own work.
Romans 12 brings that responsibility into ordinary church life. Those who minister should serve, teachers should teach, and those who exhort should encourage faithfully. Giving requires generosity, leadership requires diligence, and mercy should be shown cheerfully. Consider what happens when those responsibilities are neglected: people go without needed care, teaching becomes careless, and work others depend on remains unfinished. Faithfulness involves doing the actual work well, including the parts that receive little acknowledgment.
Christ’s purpose in Ephesians 4 is to equip His people for ministry and bring them toward maturity in Him. A teacher serves that purpose by helping believers understand Scripture and become more capable of discerning truth. Leaders should help other members grow into useful service instead of making the congregation permanently dependent on one personality. The related study A Complete Bible Study on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit considers these gifts further.
My Final Thoughts
I believe we should receive the Spirit’s gifts gratefully and use them with the care Scripture requires. Before seeking a more conspicuous ministry, I should consider whether I am faithfully serving the people already within reach. When an extraordinary claim is made, the church should examine it rather than surrender its judgment. Neither an impressive ability nor a large following can excuse false teaching, unloving conduct, or disregard for God’s instructions.
Our service belongs to Jesus Christ, the center of the church He is building. He is the eternal Son, fully God and fully man, who willingly endured the bodily punishment wicked people inflicted, shed His blood, and died for our sins. The Father did not punish Him. His saving work through His blood and death was complete when He died; afterward He was buried and rose bodily from the dead. The Spirit’s gifts serve people who belong to this Lord. As we use them, our teaching, conduct, and care for one another should help people know Christ and follow Him faithfully.