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TWO BAPTIST pastors had a
theory, back when the charismatic movement first touched Baptist
Churches. “Spiritual gifts ended with the Apostles,”
they said. So they set up a service — to “test the
spirit” of those who use the gift of tongues.
Guess what: they never found
anyone whose gift of tongues genuinely came from the Holy Spirit.
What a surprise, eh?
But who offered to test the genuineness of their gift
of discerning spirits? Who thought of questioning how come they
had a spiritual gift if spiritual gifts ended with the Apostles?
Something didn't gel!
Paul said,
Concerning spiritual
gifts, brothers, I would not have you ignorant.
We were an ignorant mob in those
days.
Years ago, one big Baptist church
split into three. One offshoot was extremely charismatic, another
was moderately charismatic, and the ones who got the church buildings
were conservative evangelicals. The moderate evangelicals left
for nearby churches.
You know what that means. It means that charismatics split churches,
doesn‘t it?
I saw the bigger picture. I knew one of the deacons who worked
hard for reconciliation. He was part of a group of moderate evangelicals
and moderate charismatics who wanted to live together in the
one church.
The conservatives called the Baptist Union, though the diaconate
didn’t request this.
The Baptist Union said, “Vote no confidence in the deacons
and they have to resign. Then re-elect any that you want.”
Imagine how the reconciliation deacons felt. So much for trying
to unite the church!
Then they brought in an old–time, hard–line evangelist
who kept preaching that there is no room for Charismatics in
a Baptist church.
After six weeks, the first split occurred. The hard–line
charismatics left. They just became even harder line than ever.
In fact, they were recently investigated for being an abusive
cult and mishandling their members' assets.
Then the moderate evangelicals filtered out to other local churches,
and, a few weeks later, the moderate charismatics left and formed
another independent congregation.
Who split that church?
Paul was tackling a church riddled with divisions, but he took
an opposite tack to the Baptist enforcers back 25 years ago.
He didn’t lay down the law. He didn’t favour one group
and push another group to get out. He faced them with the facts
and said, “Don’t be ignorant, and don’t act in
ignorance.”
My experience is that people who know their spiritual gifts help
a church grow, and those who don’t hinder its growth.
What’s your spiritual gift then? How do you plan to use
it?
Over the coming weeks, we will look at that question, and I pray
and hope that we will be filled with a new expectation and a
new hope for the Holy Spirit to renew his work in us.
We are also looking at this topic on Friday nights. If you can
make it, come for an extra dose of what does you good!
DON’T BE SILLY
The Corinthian church
was dividing over four different issues. The first was personalities,
the second was gender, the third was power, as measured by wealth,
and the fourth was spiritual gifts.
Some of them were lining up with what they understood to be the
approach of some hero or other.
Some followed Paul, with his impressive teaching and organising
abilities. Others thought that Paul was a pretty poor preacher,
and preferred Apollos. Then there was the Peter party, who liked
Peter's down to earth stories and his eyewitness reports of Jesus.
How did Paul counter this? He sent them back to Christian basics.
He told them not to divide Christ for the sake of their own pride.
Then there were arguments over women and what their role should
be in the church. Some believers were even scandalised and shocked
by the new freedoms the ladies had.
So Paul took them back to basics. Don't abandon your freedom
in Christ, but don't give unnecessary offence. Keep decently
dressed, be modest, even if you are using your spiritual gift
of prophecy, or are leading in prayer.
In the split between rich and poor, Paul focused them again on
the basics: what did Jesus die for? Why did he shed his blood?
So, when it comes to spiritual gifts, he takes them back to basics
again.
He doesn't want them to be ignorant. “Don't be silly!”
he warns them.
It's just like the problem with personalities. The Corinthians
were concerned with what impressed them rather than with what
God was doing. It’s like a friend of mine who used to tell
me, ”I’m not religious.” as though that explained
everything to do with faith.
I’m not religious, either! I find it very hard to ‘Feel
religious’ or to want a ‘spiritual’ answer to
things. I was brought up to be a bit sceptical, and sometimes
I find it hard even to accept what I have seen and heard myself.
I look for a natural explanation first.
But we live in an age when people are searching for spiritual
experiences, and that makes it easy to move from spiritual experiences
to religious feelings and impressions.
And that’s how they were in Corinth, too.
Well, Paul doesn't want them to be swayed here and there by religious
impressions or religious impressiveness. That was how they were
when they were pagans.
It doesn't matter how impressive, it doesn't matter how powerful
the emotion, it doesn't matter how much you convince yourself,
the fact is that anything that glorifies Jesus, that puts his
lordship and rule first, is from the Holy Spirit, and anything
that doesn't isn't.
In other words, look at the results, not the process, the fruit,
not the trunk of the tree.
There has been a revival of prophecy in recent years, and some
friends of mine have experienced very clear and valid ministry
through prophets.
In fact, I saw a prophet at work once, and he had a message from
God for a woman I knew, whom he had met in passing a day or so
before as part of a large gathering. What he said was spot on.
She was going badly off the rails and the word was a warning,
but she didn't listen. She rebelled against the Lord, began an
affair with a married man, and I saw her integrity as a person
just fall away piece by piece over the next several years. The
last time I saw her, she came to visit me here at the church,
and it sounded like the same person, but what she said was just
self-centred manipulation from start to finish. If only she had
listened when she had the chance!
But there have been a few so-called prophets who have fallen
in love with their own voices. A couple I've heard of have become
bolder and bolder, but it's more and more aimed at self-aggrandisement.
They have begun an affair with the devil, and their integrity
has collapsed.
But they sound impressive, so people still follow them. The question
to ask is, does it glorify Jesus? Does it promote his kingdom
rule? If not, then it comes from some other spirit!
Don't be ignorant, don’t be silly. Understand where your
impulses come from.
KNOW THE SOURCE
Paul’s next point
is that there is great variety in the expression of our faith,
but a single source.
He tells us that there are various gifts, but the same Spirit
gives them all. The word, “gifts” here is charismata,
which comes from the Greek word for grace. In other words, spiritual
gifts are the result of grace in action, the result of God’s
givingness towards us. So, if someone tells you that spiritual
gifts ended with the Apostles, tell them that grace didn't end
with the Apostles, and therefore the outworking of grace didn’t
end with the Apostles, either.
But gifts are merely the tools by which we carry out ministry.
We need to go further.
Paul also tells us that there are varieties of service, but the
same Lord. “Service” here is diakonia, and it’s
the word that “deacon” comes from. However, he links
it specifically with the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember that
Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that he had come among them
as one who serves, that is, as one who is a deacon.
The gifts we receive from the Spirit are the tools we have to
minister through serving. If we have spiritual gifts which are
not used in service, they will wither away.
I believe that that has happened to too many believers. They
don’t use their gifts.
Paul’s third point is that there are different kinds of
working, but it is the same God who inspires them all.
So even if what we do isn't something we can see directly as
being a service, if it's Jesus–glorifying, its God–inspired.
For example, we might not readily see speaking in tongues as
service, but, if this ability adds to a believer’s perception
of Jesus’ love, or brings the believer to a greater willingness
to serve, then that working came from God, too.
You see, that’s the whole purpose. The whole of God working
in the whole of you and me together to bring glory to Jesus and
salvation to the world.
That’s why Paul can add almost immediately that it’s
all Holy Spirit–given, and it’s all for the common
good.
You can see it here. Once again, Paul brings it back to the unity
issue. Division in the church is not good. And it doesn't make
a difference whether the division comes from raging anger or
is just someone or some group deciding that they don’t like
what someone else is doing, so they aren’t coming back.
This is a great weakness of the church today. We are too polite
to fight, but we are too unloving to negotiate.
PUT IT ALL TOGETHER
Next, Paul looks at how
we can put all these gifts together.
His list is helpful. It covers a fair range of gift, but not
all. Some of you have received Gifts Inventories and other similar
questionnaires from me to help you find your spiritual gift.
They had several other gifts in them, such as mercy, celibacy
and martyrdom, gifts which are mentioned on their own in other
parts of the Bible.
I guess that martyrdom is a bit like those disposable barbecues
you can get: use it once, and it's finished. You can't test your
gift for martyrdom too many times. On the other hand, I suppose
you only know you have the gift of celibacy if you don’t
test it out... It's a joke, Joyce. (Not our Joyce... the
other one.)*
If you want to know your spiritual gift, it’s good to use
those Gifts Inventories and so on, but I think one of
the best ideas is to just read passages like I Corinthians 12
- 14. Read them over and over to understand how gifts work, and
you'll probably begin to see how you might fit into the healthy
function of Christ’s body.
Gifts are often unspectacular, and we can miss them. They sometimes
don't even feel like "gifts" at all. And they happen
in the strangest places.
For example, I have a fairly easy time using a gift of knowledge.
I was talking to Rachel at work
the other day. I can't remember what she said, but I told her,
"Watch out, Rach! You're turning into a real Information
Sponge!" You should have heard her! "Information Sponge!"
she said, "You ought to talk! You're the greatest Information
Sponge I've ever met in my whole life! I've never met anyone
with so many facts in his head."
That worked, didn't it? She probably
has a point about me, though.
I was in a group once, and I
felt that one of the participants had an issue which needed a
picture so that he could grasp what it was all about. Well, we
had been talking a lot and drinking a lot of coffee, and I decided
to check the plumbing, but I kept praying about that picture.
I'm telling you so that you know that Spiritual Gifts aren't
such holy and special things. You can use them anywhere.
Well, I was in thinking mode, and suddenly I had a picture of
a great monster looming over this man, and he was terrified of
it, so terrified he couldn’t even tell us how afraid he
was. So I walked around the back of it, and it was like in the
wizard of Oz — it was controlled by a little old man. I
told the chap, and he made nothing of what I told him. But others
in the group later said that my picture really explained to them
what they were dimly seeing themselves.
Later I mentioned it to the mother
of a young man who has a specific ministry in discerning spirits,
and she laughed and said, “Tim does that kind of thing all
the time. He looks at someone and often can see the spirit at
work in that person’s life. Sometimes he sees angels surrounding
the person as well as demonic spirits.”
On the other hand, I know someone who “feels” when
a demonic presence is there, but doesn’t see anything different.
Paul doesn't say anything about
the details. There’s nothing about, “...and to some
he gives the gift of getting someone to sit down with his heels
together, and of lengthening the person’s short leg until
it matched the long one.” You never hear of the gift of
shortening the long leg to match the other one, do you?
Paul isn’t into detailing the gifts, but into getting them
used responsibly. That’s always the main point.
HOW DO YOU GET IT?
Paul doesn’t answer
that question directly in our passage, but he gives us some important
clues.
First, we have to realise that he is speaking to believers in
the Lord Jesus Christ. He writes to “brothers”. He
never uses that term for unbelievers. They have a personal faith
in Jesus.
Second, he does say that these gifts function within the Body
of Christ, within the Christian fellowship. Paul writes,
Just as the body
is one and has may members, and all the members of the body,
though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
Ray Stedman called it, “Body
Life” — the life of Christ manifested and revealed
through the Christian congregation, which lives out Christ’s
life in the world today.
Finally, he says it comes about through the baptism and infilling
of the Holy Spirit, for
...by one Spirit
you have all been baptised into one Body [...] and have all been
made to drink of that one Spirit.
If you trust in Christ, you are
baptised into his body and are a member of it. But have you lost
the infilling? Is the Spirit no longer able to energise your
gifting and work it out in ministries?
If so, what do you need to deal with before God today?
Don’t put it off until tomorrow!
AMEN |
