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Lesson 12: Spiritual Gifts and Ministries
In our lesson on Spiritual Disciplines we saw that God gives to the church the gift of spiritual discernment. This is given to the church so that the believers can understand what things are appropriate and what things are not appropriate, for example in the area of music. But discernment is needed also in the area of doctrine because false teachers will arise with clever deceptions. How will the believers understand if a new doctrine is in harmony with the Scriptures? Of course they will investigate the Scriptures but while doing so the believers must discern the truth in the Scriptures. There is a right way and a wrong way to interpret the word (2 Timothy 2:15). The gift of discernment is by no means the only gift God gives to the church. God has equipped the church for service to Him and to the world. In this lesson we will look at the gifts God gives to the church, what their purpose is, and how they should and should not be used.
Q1. What gift does God give the new believer? Read Acts 2:38.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
The Holy Spirit is referred to as a gift of God.
Q2. If the Holy Spirit is in us, what precious privilege do we enjoy? Read Romans 8:9-11.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
According to these texts, the Spirit of God is also the Spirit of Christ. If the Spirit of God lives in you, Christ lives in you and you belong to Christ. You have assurance that as God raised Christ from the dead, He will also raise you from the dead. Furthermore, even while in this world, you have the power of the Spirit of God living in you. What greater gift can be given? Yet God does more.
Q3. What does God give to every believer? Read Ephesians 4:7, 8 and 1 Corinthians 12:7.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
It is important to notice that the gifts are not given as a competition or show to see who the Lord blessed with what gift. The gifts are given to profit everyone.
Q4. What are some of the gifts the Spirit gives to the church? Read 1 Corinthians 12:4-10.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
Q5. Do we choose what gift we get? Read 1 Corinthians 12:11-12, 27-30.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
The church is the body of Christ and the Holy Spirit chooses who gets what gift.
Q6. What is the purpose of the gifts? Read Ephesians 4:11-16.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
Every believer has a responsibility for the building up and proper function of the entire group of believers which is spiritually called the body of Christ. As the gifts we have are different, we have different roles or functions in the group of believers. All are to participate in building up the body of Christ which is also known as the congregation also sometimes referred to as the church.
Q7. Are there certain things that every believer must do regardless of the gifts they have? Read James 1:27.
A. ___________________________________________________________________________
Every believer has the responsibility to maintain their relationship with Christ through faith and to exercise the spiritual disciplines that keep us connected to the Vine. Every believer is called to serve God and man with their whole heart and shun the foolishness of worldliness. The existence of various spiritual gifts does not cancel our duty to God or man in areas that we might not particularly excel in but are still part of the Christian life. For example, someone may be particularly gifted in the area of helps, but that does not mean he or she is the only one who must clean the church! When Jerusalem was in ruins, all the people worked together to rebuild it (Nehemiah 2:17, 18). Likewise in the church, let all hands work together.
Q8. How do we discover what gift we have? Read Exodus 31:1-7 and Acts 6:1-7.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
We see that the congregation of believers recognizes spirituality and talents as people work and live together. In order for you to discover your gifts you need to be actively doing something! You may try different tasks and see that God has particularly blessed you in some ways and not in others. Do not be discouraged if you cannot do some things well. God gave other people gifts too and they may be different from yours. You cannot discover your gifts in inactivity. Go to work for God!
Q9. What are we to do with our gift? Read 1 Peter 4:10-11.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
By all means, use it!
Q10. What happens to those who don't use their gifts? Read Matthew 25:14-30.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
Q11. What is the greatest gift? Read 1 Corinthians 12:28-13:13.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
When Paul was talking about the spiritual gifts he showed the Corinthians a more excellent way. He spoke about the gift of self-sacrificing love. This is the gift above all gifts and the gift that each believer is to have and exercise or else all the other gifts they possess are nothing. It is this gift in the church, when manifested, that will show the world that we have the truth. Jesus said, "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). Self-sacrificing love is not born of man. It is a gift from above (James 1:17).
Q12. Can spiritual gifts be misused? Read 1 Corinthians 14:17-28.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
The gift of speaking in foreign languages was given to some of the believers in Corinth. Apparently some of them tried to make this gift appear as the most important of the gifts. Paul instructed the believers that this was not the case. Even today there are those who put forward the idea that speaking unintelligible sounds is really an unknown language given by the Holy Spirit. We know that the gift of tongues is not manifest this way because in verse 21 we see that God would speak to people with other languages and yet they would not obey to the message. They have to understand the message to reject it. We saw this miracle on the day of Pentecost when the people said, "How hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?" (Acts 2:8). Some others even put forward the idea that unless you have the gift of tongues you have not received the gift of the Holy Spirit. We see that this cannot be true because Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:30, "Do all speak with tongues?" The Greek grammar demonstrates that the answer to this question is, "No."
Q13. What other abuse of spiritual gifts does the Bible warn about? Read 1 Corinthians 9:16 and 1 Peter 5:1-6.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
The apostle warned the elders of the church not to be a lord over the people but to lead by example. Jesus said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave-- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:25-28). This is a very different leadership style than we usually see.
Shining Stars Series (Philippians 2:14-16)
"Reşat!" the voice bellowed from the glass-walled office at the end of the corridor. "Get in here. Now!"
Reşat's blood pressure soared as he made his way to his "new" boss's office. Çetin Bey was not really new in the sense that Reşat had not known him before. Reşat had actually trained Çetin Bey in all the ways of the company. However Çetin Bey was the company owner's new son-in-law. He hadn't known anything about the printing business when he joined the company two years ago.
Reşat entered the office and said, "Yes, sir?"
"What is the meaning of this?"
"What is that?"
"What do you mean, what is that? Did you order pens for the office from the office supply?”
"Why, yes sir. The pens were all out."
"Why didn't you get permission from me before ordering? Who do you think you are?"
"Çetin Bey, you know that I always take care of the office supplies. When they run out, I get new ones. It was such a small matter, I didn't think I should disturb you for such a thing."
"That's right. You didn't think! I do the thinking around here. You just do what I tell you. Understood?"
"Understood. It won't happen again."
With red face Reşat made his way back to his desk and sat down. He just sat there twirling his pen between his fingers. When the helper came with tea for him, he turned it down. The helper was shocked because Reşat never turned down tea. "What happened?" she thought.
Reşat's fingers were still shaking from the adrenaline pumping through his body. He thought,
"Why should the whole business slow down because of the ego of one man? No one can do anything without getting permission. There is no creativity, no progress, no development or even good production. Just like soldiers we receive orders and obey. 'Do not think!' the man said to me. Where are we going as a people with that kind of mentality?”
“Position, position, position. Everything is about position. In the home, it was my dad. In the school, it was the teacher and for the teacher it was the principal. And now here in the work place it is the boss. In every place it was about kingship. Whoever is king makes the rules and everybody carries out their wishes. Nobody thinks, nobody dares make a suggestion. No one asks a question or investigates. There can only be one person who thinks. It is the king.”
Still sulking Reşat thought, “Çetin Bey is not even good at what he does. He is a terrible decision-maker. It doesn't matter. He is the boss. No matter how much money they lose or how stupid the decision, in the end it won't matter. He is the boss and we obey. We go like sheep to the slaughter. The thing about it, Çetin Bey was at least humble when I was training him. But as soon as he became the boss...Woah! now he knows everything and listens to nothing. He is the king."
The church cannot be established or run on the same polluted motives of power that we see at work in the world. It must have a different basis. The gift of leadership is given to men, not to make them kings, but to make them servants of the group. As Abraham showed humility in letting his nephew Lot choose which land he would settle, so leaders in Christ's church are to show humility by both service and fostering the spiritual growth and the use of the spiritual gifts of others. This is true leadership, providing an environment where all the gifts of the Spirit are working together in the church which is the body of Christ.
Q14. What do you think your spiritual gifts are? In what ways can you use them in the congregation of believers that would be beneficial?
A.____________________________________________________________________________
Call to commitment through prayer.
In our lesson on Spiritual Disciplines we saw that God gives to the church the gift of spiritual discernment. This is given to the church so that the believers can understand what things are appropriate and what things are not appropriate, for example in the area of music. But discernment is needed also in the area of doctrine because false teachers will arise with clever deceptions. How will the believers understand if a new doctrine is in harmony with the Scriptures? Of course they will investigate the Scriptures but while doing so the believers must discern the truth in the Scriptures. There is a right way and a wrong way to interpret the word (2 Timothy 2:15). The gift of discernment is by no means the only gift God gives to the church. God has equipped the church for service to Him and to the world. In this lesson we will look at the gifts God gives to the church, what their purpose is, and how they should and should not be used.
Q1. What gift does God give the new believer? Read Acts 2:38.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
The Holy Spirit is referred to as a gift of God.
Q2. If the Holy Spirit is in us, what precious privilege do we enjoy? Read Romans 8:9-11.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
According to these texts, the Spirit of God is also the Spirit of Christ. If the Spirit of God lives in you, Christ lives in you and you belong to Christ. You have assurance that as God raised Christ from the dead, He will also raise you from the dead. Furthermore, even while in this world, you have the power of the Spirit of God living in you. What greater gift can be given? Yet God does more.
Q3. What does God give to every believer? Read Ephesians 4:7, 8 and 1 Corinthians 12:7.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
It is important to notice that the gifts are not given as a competition or show to see who the Lord blessed with what gift. The gifts are given to profit everyone.
Q4. What are some of the gifts the Spirit gives to the church? Read 1 Corinthians 12:4-10.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
Q5. Do we choose what gift we get? Read 1 Corinthians 12:11-12, 27-30.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
The church is the body of Christ and the Holy Spirit chooses who gets what gift.
Q6. What is the purpose of the gifts? Read Ephesians 4:11-16.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
Every believer has a responsibility for the building up and proper function of the entire group of believers which is spiritually called the body of Christ. As the gifts we have are different, we have different roles or functions in the group of believers. All are to participate in building up the body of Christ which is also known as the congregation also sometimes referred to as the church.
Q7. Are there certain things that every believer must do regardless of the gifts they have? Read James 1:27.
A. ___________________________________________________________________________
Every believer has the responsibility to maintain their relationship with Christ through faith and to exercise the spiritual disciplines that keep us connected to the Vine. Every believer is called to serve God and man with their whole heart and shun the foolishness of worldliness. The existence of various spiritual gifts does not cancel our duty to God or man in areas that we might not particularly excel in but are still part of the Christian life. For example, someone may be particularly gifted in the area of helps, but that does not mean he or she is the only one who must clean the church! When Jerusalem was in ruins, all the people worked together to rebuild it (Nehemiah 2:17, 18). Likewise in the church, let all hands work together.
Q8. How do we discover what gift we have? Read Exodus 31:1-7 and Acts 6:1-7.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
We see that the congregation of believers recognizes spirituality and talents as people work and live together. In order for you to discover your gifts you need to be actively doing something! You may try different tasks and see that God has particularly blessed you in some ways and not in others. Do not be discouraged if you cannot do some things well. God gave other people gifts too and they may be different from yours. You cannot discover your gifts in inactivity. Go to work for God!
Q9. What are we to do with our gift? Read 1 Peter 4:10-11.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
By all means, use it!
Q10. What happens to those who don't use their gifts? Read Matthew 25:14-30.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
Q11. What is the greatest gift? Read 1 Corinthians 12:28-13:13.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
When Paul was talking about the spiritual gifts he showed the Corinthians a more excellent way. He spoke about the gift of self-sacrificing love. This is the gift above all gifts and the gift that each believer is to have and exercise or else all the other gifts they possess are nothing. It is this gift in the church, when manifested, that will show the world that we have the truth. Jesus said, "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). Self-sacrificing love is not born of man. It is a gift from above (James 1:17).
Q12. Can spiritual gifts be misused? Read 1 Corinthians 14:17-28.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
The gift of speaking in foreign languages was given to some of the believers in Corinth. Apparently some of them tried to make this gift appear as the most important of the gifts. Paul instructed the believers that this was not the case. Even today there are those who put forward the idea that speaking unintelligible sounds is really an unknown language given by the Holy Spirit. We know that the gift of tongues is not manifest this way because in verse 21 we see that God would speak to people with other languages and yet they would not obey to the message. They have to understand the message to reject it. We saw this miracle on the day of Pentecost when the people said, "How hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?" (Acts 2:8). Some others even put forward the idea that unless you have the gift of tongues you have not received the gift of the Holy Spirit. We see that this cannot be true because Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:30, "Do all speak with tongues?" The Greek grammar demonstrates that the answer to this question is, "No."
Q13. What other abuse of spiritual gifts does the Bible warn about? Read 1 Corinthians 9:16 and 1 Peter 5:1-6.
A.____________________________________________________________________________
The apostle warned the elders of the church not to be a lord over the people but to lead by example. Jesus said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave-- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:25-28). This is a very different leadership style than we usually see.
Shining Stars Series (Philippians 2:14-16)
"Reşat!" the voice bellowed from the glass-walled office at the end of the corridor. "Get in here. Now!"
Reşat's blood pressure soared as he made his way to his "new" boss's office. Çetin Bey was not really new in the sense that Reşat had not known him before. Reşat had actually trained Çetin Bey in all the ways of the company. However Çetin Bey was the company owner's new son-in-law. He hadn't known anything about the printing business when he joined the company two years ago.
Reşat entered the office and said, "Yes, sir?"
"What is the meaning of this?"
"What is that?"
"What do you mean, what is that? Did you order pens for the office from the office supply?”
"Why, yes sir. The pens were all out."
"Why didn't you get permission from me before ordering? Who do you think you are?"
"Çetin Bey, you know that I always take care of the office supplies. When they run out, I get new ones. It was such a small matter, I didn't think I should disturb you for such a thing."
"That's right. You didn't think! I do the thinking around here. You just do what I tell you. Understood?"
"Understood. It won't happen again."
With red face Reşat made his way back to his desk and sat down. He just sat there twirling his pen between his fingers. When the helper came with tea for him, he turned it down. The helper was shocked because Reşat never turned down tea. "What happened?" she thought.
Reşat's fingers were still shaking from the adrenaline pumping through his body. He thought,
"Why should the whole business slow down because of the ego of one man? No one can do anything without getting permission. There is no creativity, no progress, no development or even good production. Just like soldiers we receive orders and obey. 'Do not think!' the man said to me. Where are we going as a people with that kind of mentality?”
“Position, position, position. Everything is about position. In the home, it was my dad. In the school, it was the teacher and for the teacher it was the principal. And now here in the work place it is the boss. In every place it was about kingship. Whoever is king makes the rules and everybody carries out their wishes. Nobody thinks, nobody dares make a suggestion. No one asks a question or investigates. There can only be one person who thinks. It is the king.”
Still sulking Reşat thought, “Çetin Bey is not even good at what he does. He is a terrible decision-maker. It doesn't matter. He is the boss. No matter how much money they lose or how stupid the decision, in the end it won't matter. He is the boss and we obey. We go like sheep to the slaughter. The thing about it, Çetin Bey was at least humble when I was training him. But as soon as he became the boss...Woah! now he knows everything and listens to nothing. He is the king."
The church cannot be established or run on the same polluted motives of power that we see at work in the world. It must have a different basis. The gift of leadership is given to men, not to make them kings, but to make them servants of the group. As Abraham showed humility in letting his nephew Lot choose which land he would settle, so leaders in Christ's church are to show humility by both service and fostering the spiritual growth and the use of the spiritual gifts of others. This is true leadership, providing an environment where all the gifts of the Spirit are working together in the church which is the body of Christ.
Q14. What do you think your spiritual gifts are? In what ways can you use them in the congregation of believers that would be beneficial?
A.____________________________________________________________________________
Call to commitment through prayer.