Spiritual Gifts

Christ calls His followers to an active faith. To be an authentic follower of Jesus and experience the full richness of the spiritual life, a person must become involved in some kind of service in Christ’s name. The theological word for service is “ministry.” The particular nature of one’s service is directed by the Holy Spirit through the giftedness that God bestows in each individual life.

How can you best serve Jesus? What are your spiritual gifts? Is God calling you to a specific mission or purpose in your life? We will get to all those questions; that is “the bottom line.” It is important to first lay a foundation in Scripture. What does the Bible mean by “spiritual gifts” and what does it specifically teach on this topic? It is often the cause of controversy or extravagant claims.

There are three key passages that provide considerable material on this topic, as well as a number of other texts that reinforce the principles in these key passages and add some additional information. We will study each of these three key passages in depth, but the story actually begins at the very beginning of the Christian church in Acts 2:17-21.

In the record of the very first public evangelistic sermon preached on behalf of the Christian faith, Peter takes his text from Joel 2:28-32. “In the last days, God says, I will pour my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Jesus had set the stage for this event a few weeks earlier when He told His disciples at the Last Supper, “Now I am going to him who sent me” and promised to send the Holy Spirit as “counselor” and “guide.” (John 16:5, 7, 13, NIV) At the time of His Ascension, Christ reminded them of this and commanded, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised … you will be baptized by the Holy Spirit … and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:4-5, 8, NIV)

By the end of Acts 2 there is a clear picture of the kind of enterprise that Christ was seeking to establish, the movement that would come to be called the Christian church. Many of the people who heard Peter’s sermon “were cut to the heart” and responded with the question, “What must we do?” (Acts 2:37) Peter told them, “Repent and be baptized … so that your sins may be forgiven, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Verse 38) The Bible says that about 3,000 people became followers of Jesus that day.

These original Jesus followers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. … All the believers were together [and] they gave to anyone as he had need. … And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” (Verses 42, 44-45, 47) This is Christ’s model for His people. This is what God expects of you as you become a follower of Jesus. Bible study and prayer, meals and fellowship with a small group of believers, meeting the needs of those we see suffering in the world around us, and sharing the hope that is in Jesus. And key to this is the direction and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, the “gift” from God.