Ecclesiology 9 - A New Church - part 7: Spiritual Gifts

     Chapter 10 of The Problem of Wineskins is subtitled "The Place of Spiritual Gifts."  It is, again, a somewhat lengthy and detailed chapter with enormous amounts of useful information contained within.  However, I believe I will alter my approach somewhat.  The last few posts, in which I attempted to condense the chapter in question, ended up so long that even I was bored by the time I finished editing.  In this case, I will summarize and illuminate the text in the interest of brevity.  In so doing, I must reiterate the advice given so frequently throughout this work: if interested, you should make a point of buying the book.

    If the New Testament is anything to go by - and I firmly believe it is - spiritual gifts were a major part of first century church theology, as indeed they were evident throughout the ministry of Jesus himself.  Despite this, the Western church seems to have no idea the role of spiritual gifts in modern ecclesiology.  Liturgical churches often appear to be embarrassed at the very mention of gifts, so we simply omit the subject from our biblical studies altogether.  Pentecostal churches, on the other hand, are all about the gifts and make them the centerpiece of our worship services, albeit almost exclusively prophesy, healing and tongues - you know, the "sexy" ones - sometimes to the point of turning the worship service into a sort of macabre Las Vegas floor show.  Evangelicals attempt to take a "middle ground" approach to gifts, presenting them as a part of our worship services (largely through the use of miniature rock concerts), but evidently confining their usefulness to the body to the "feel good" glow - accompanied by ringing ears - our parishioners may feel as they make their way from the sanctuary to the parking lot.  In all these cases, any residual effect is thereafter confined to the occasional use of "Christianized" salutations such as "Good morning, Sister," or "Have a blessed day," both of which are uttered in such a way as to draw as much attention to the utterer's piety as to the work of the Holy Spirit in the world.  All of these possibilities demonstrate common misunderstandings of spiritual gifts that need to be corrected and shown for what they are: unbiblical tendencies that effectively quench the working of the Holy Spirit in the Christian community.

(1) The tendency to deny or discredit spiritual gifts.  In its extreme form, this tendency says that gifts were given as miraculous signs at Pentecost to "kick start" the church but have no legitimacy today.  All spiritual gifts, and especially the more controversial ones, are thought to be superfluous at best and heretical at worst.  Such a position, however, arbitrarily limits the operation of the Holy Spirit and the applicability of the New Testament to our day.  There is no more warrant, for instance, for applying chapters 12 and 14 of I Corinthians exclusively to the early church than there is for limiting the thirteenth chapter in this way.  We simply have no authority to declare specific gifts invalid.  It may be difficult to accept the full range of biblical teaching here, but this is necessary to avoid impoverishing the church.

(2) The tendency to over-individualize spiritual gifts.  Paul repeatedly emphasizes that the Spirit's gifts are for the edification of the church and lose their significance if this emphasis is lost.  The general principle here is, "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" (I Cor. 12:7, italics mine).  The biblical concept is that the community of believers acts as the controlling context for the exercise of gifts, thus discouraging individualistic aberrations.  And when the church really functions in this way, the various gifts not only reinforce each other, they also act as check-and-balance to prevent extremes.

    It is at this point, incidentally, that small prayer-and-meditation and Bible study groups find their utility.  The small Spirit-led group builds community and provides the context for both awakening spiritual gifts and disciplining their use.  As a consequence of many such cells, the whole larger community of the church is edified.

(3) The tendency to confuse spiritual gifts and native abilities.  The error here lies in the tendency to go to one extreme or the other: to make spiritual gifts and native abilities either synonymous or antithetical.  A native capacity does not really become a gift of the Spirit until it is given over to the Spirit and used by it.  The principle of crucifixion and resurrection, of dying and rising, applies here.  Natural abilities remain in the plane of powerless human works until given to God in self-sacrifice.  So talents and gifts are neither synonymous or antithetical.  Both, after all, are bestowed by God.  It is no accident that converted salespersons often make good evangelists.  God is not capricious.

(4) The tendency to exaggerate some gifts and depreciate others.  The tendency to think of spiritual gifts only in terms of the more spectacular gifts such as tongues, healing, or prophesy is an aberration that must be avoided.  All gifts are important, all gifts are necessary, and all are given by God for the common good.  The multiform operation of the Spirit may awaken an infinity of gifts; gifts may be as varied as human personality.  The problem, too often, is the failure to affirm the full range of gifts - the failure to appreciate "God's varied grace."  It is as wrong to overemphasize preaching and teaching and to deny tongues and healing as it is, on the contrary, to so emphasize the more spectacular gifts that the more mundane gifts are lost sight of.  The Holy Spirit acts so "that there may be no discord in the body" (I Cor. 12:25), only when all gifts are affirmed and operating cooperatively.  It is only human pride that labels one gift "spectacular" and another "mundane."  To the Holy Spirit, all gifts are equally vital.  While we often have more appreciation for the work of the pastor than that of the custodian, the local health department never shut down a church facility over a bad sermon.  They might do so over a backed up toilet, however.

(5) The tendency to divorce spiritual gifts from the cross.  This tendency arises from the failure to incarnate the tension between the cross and the charismata, between Passover and Pentecost.  It is the tendency, on the one hand, to emphasize gifts in such a way that the cross is lost sight of and the community is fractured by self-centeredness or, just the opposite, to deny any emphasis on gifts because of this tendency toward self-centeredness and self-aggrandizement.

    There is a danger here, for spiritual gifts are often misunderstood.  The New Testament teaching about spiritual gifts is not a call for each Christian to do his own thing and forget the welfare of the group and the needs of the world.  Ministry is not determined by personal desire, but by the cross.  And yet, biblically, there is no contradiction between gift affirmation and self-denial.  In fact, the two go together.  The biblical principle, again, is that of death and resurrection.  As we are crucified with Christ and die to our own will, the Holy Spirit resurrects within us our particular significant gift.  So, spiritual gifts, rightly exercised, are not self-centered - they are self-giving.

    As I was reading through this chapter and trying to grasp its meaning, I developed in my mind something of a flow chart to help me distinguish between the concepts of "talent," "occupation,"  and "gift."  I think "talent" refers to an aptitude or natural ability; it is a function of genetics; one is born with it.  At some point, a child so imbued may discover this aptitude and, through discipline and training, hone this native skill to a point at which he/she may even make an occupation of it (although this step is not necessary to develop it into a gift; I see no indication in the New Testament that the Holy Spirit particularly cares how we earn our incomes beyond the need to do so in an honest trade).  Finally, in an inspired moment of self-denial, the child (now adult?) commits this talent/discipline to the use of the Holy Spirit, moving beyond the need for any sort of piety or self-glorification, but wishing only to use this ability to the benefit of the world, the edification of the church and the exaltation of the Spirit.  Now we have a spiritual gift.

    A quick example:  Often, when we think of the gift of tongues, we draw a mental image of someone standing up in a worship service and, in a physical display of euphoria, loudly uttering what is, to all onlookers, a long string of gibberish.  In this hypothetical, who is benefiting from the gibberish?  Even if someone offers a "translation" of the gibberish, the English version is rarely anything more than a rehashing of what the pastor had already been saying that day.  How has the spectacle improved the church's understanding and edification?

    But, what if that is not what we mean by the "gift of tongues"?  What if we're really talking about, initially, a natural ability to readily comprehend languages?  What if such a person is discovered in our midst as we are planning to take our mission to the poor in our neighborhoods more seriously, and what if we find that, like the neighborhood in which I live, our community's poor are largely native Spanish speakers (or Vietnamese, or Italian, or whatever) who struggle with English?  Having someone among us who, with some online or in-person training, can quickly and readily learn fluent Spanish would be a huge benefit in our mission, would it not?  Would not that be an excellent application by the Holy Spirit of the "controversial" gift of tongues?

    Great confusion exists today about spiritual gifts.  And yet the biblical teaching is clear, if we seek it.  When spiritual gifts are misunderstood - through being over-individualized, denied, divorced from community or otherwise distorted - it is the church that suffers.  A church whose life and ministry is not built upon the exercise of spiritual gifts is, biblically, a contradiction in terms.

    There is no teaching more practical than that about the gifts of the Spirit.  The discovery of one's spiritual gifts often turns a frustrated, guilt-ridden Christian into a happy and effective disciple.  For it is Christ himself who gives gifts to men and women in order that they may happily glorify him.

Pax