The Profit of Spiritual Gifts
By Pastor Ricky Kurth
The gift of "healing" enabled a man to heal "every one" who was sick (Acts 5:16). When the so-called "healers" of today cannot demonstrate this same complete mastery over disease, they force us to conclude that they do not have a God-given gift of healing.
However, there is a healing ministry in which our Lord was involved in which believers today can happily participate. We read that the Lord was sent to "heal the brokenhearted" (Luke 4:18 ), and this is a ministry to which every believer should aspire. This writer recently officiated at the funeral of a Christian man who took his own life. We could sense that some of his mourners believed the old fable that suicides cannot go to heaven, and so naturally were brokenhearted at the loss of their loved one by his own hand. It was our privilege to heal the brokenhearted that day with the sound teaching of the eternal security of the believer (Rom. 8:35-39; II Tim. 2:13).
"To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues" (I Cor. 12:10). For the reader who laments the loss of the gift of miracles, let's look at some of the different ways that Paul uses the Greek word dunamis, here translated "miracles." This word is translated "power" when Paul declares that "the gospel of Christ" is "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Rom. 1:16). Hence believers today can still work the greatest miracle of all when they introduce a lost sinner to the Savior. Dunamis is also translated "power" when Paul prayed that the Romans might "abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 15:13). When a believer today is able to abound in hope, filled "with all joy and peace" despite the oftentimes overwhelming adversities and heartaches of life, that's a miracle! Lastly, Paul tells us of how the Macedonians contributed financially to the Lord's work "beyond their power" (II Cor. 8:3). This begs the question, if they gave beyond their power, whose power prompted them to give so wonderfully yet so inexplicably? We submit that only the miracle-working power of God can cause believers to give out of "deep poverty" unto rich liberality. As you can see, God's miracle-working power today is centered in the heart and mind of the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, as he implements the Word of God into the very fabric of the details of his life.
"Prophecy" is the ability to speak authoritatively for God, and often involved predicting the future, a gift that passed with the completion of the Scriptures. Today God speaks only through His Word, and we can speak for Him and prophesy future events only as we teach His Word. But while the gift of prophecy has passed, there are still a number of predictions that we can make based on the principles of the Word of God. For instance, we can still predict the activities of the adversary, based on his modus operandi, his method of operation as exhibited in Scripture. We can foretell that He will continue to cause the believer to question God's Word, as he did with Eve (Gen. 3:1). He even tried this tactic on the Lord Himself. When at our Lord's baptism His Father declared, "This is My beloved Son" (Matt. 3:17), Satan immediately sought to cause Him to doubt God's Word, saying, "If Thou be the Son of God?"
When Paul describes the gift of "discerning of spirits," he uses a Greek word that is also used in I Corinthians 14:29, where he instructs them to "judge" the prophets, that is, discern whether they were speaking by the Holy Spirit or by some other spirit. Not all false prophets ran around calling the Lord Jesus accursed, and the gift of discernment was vital to detect more subtle false prophets. But once again, though the gift of discernment has passed, with the Word of God the believer today is completely equipped to discern the spirit behind all who claim to speak for God.
Next comes the gift of tongues. Believers today do not have the miraculous power to speak in the different languages of "men of other tongues" (I Cor. 14:21), as the gift of tongues has been withdrawn. But for any who sigh for the power to speak in tongues, we would invite you to consider that it is still possible for us to speak clearly to men of all languages. We are told that there are certain universal languages that transcend all human tongues, such as music and mathematics, whose notes and figures are the same in all cultures. In a similar fashion, when a child of God displays acts of kindness, or love, or forgiveness, our meaning is readily understood by men of all tongues, and we should be forward to "adorn the doctrine of God our Savior" in all of these things (Titus 2:10).
Similarly, while the gift of "interpretation of tongues" is long gone, with a little practice we can learn to interpret the meaning of the words of others. Every parent knows that when a child says, "I hate math," what he is really saying is, "I don't understand math." Oh, that we might learn that when someone at church says something hurtful to us, that perhaps all they are saying is, "I'm not feeling well today." If we could only learn to interpret such snubs as perhaps expressions of, "I'm going through a rough time right now." When once a man in our assembly expressed bewilderment over what he perceived to be the belligerence of another, I knew the cause. As his pastor, I knew that the man's wife was divorcing him, perhaps prompting him to speak in a way that was out of character for this dear saint, which led to the quarrel. We may not have the gift of interpretation of tongues, but we can and should learn to listen to the words of others with understanding, "forbearing one another in love"
Paul concludes his list of spiritual gifts with the addition of a few more at the end of I Corinthians 12. Of these, we will conclude this message with the gift of "helps" (v. 28 ). Just prior to Paul's shipwreck in Acts 27, the sailors "used helps, undergirding the ship" (v. 17). We are told that this is a reference to how ancient mariners in threatening seas would rush to the bow of the ship and lower ropes or chains around the fragile vessel and cinch them up tightly to prevent it from breaking apart in the raging sea. It is our blessed privilege as members of the Body of Christ to act in a similar way when our brethren in Christ are struggling through the storms of life. May each and every mature saint be willing to rush to the side of his struggling brother and undergird him with the strength of God's Word rightly divided, and share with him the compassion that we ourselves receive from the Lord (II Cor. 1:4).
Yes, the spiritual gifts are gone, but it is a blessed truth that God has replaced them with His Word, equipping us therewith with everything we need to fully function as men and women of God in the dispensation of grace. How wonderful to know that the profit of spiritual gifts is still available to the believer who studies to show himself approved unto God, rightly dividing the Word of truth.
