Having difficulty understanding spiritual gifts

SRoper · #1 (**permalink**) 11-19-2007, 09:56 PM

I've been having some difficulty with the idea of spiritual gifts. My problem is that what we today identify as spiritual gifts appear to me to be no different than the gifts or abilities that the unregenerate man has. If a Christian is good at teaching we say he has the spiritual gift of teaching. If a non-Christian is good at teaching we say it can't be a spiritual gift because he doesn't have the Holy Spirit. It doesn't really make sense to me. Wouldn't the spiritual gift of say knowledge be an immediate gift? How can knowledge gained through ordinary means be a spiritual gift? We don't say that a Christian that is good with languages has the gift of tongues, do we? Help me out here.

mshingler · #2 (**permalink**) 11-19-2007, 11:19 PM

I just began preaching on spiritual gifts yesterday, in 1Cor. 12-14. Yesterday's message should be available sometime tomorrow at First Baptist Church, in case you're interested. Anyway, I think one could easily confuse abilities that non-Christians may have with true spiritual gifts. Yet a spiritual gift is a "manifestation of the Spirit" and I think, therefore, can only be had by those who have the Holy Spirit. I think they are definitely different from "natural abilities" or acquired skills, though they may resemble these things sometimes. For example, a person may have a natural speaking ability, and that is not a spiritual gift. That same person may, however, receive the spiritual gift of exhortation or prophecy (which I understand to be proclamation of God's Word) or teaching. I would say that the primary difference is that this person's teaching or preaching will be energized and used by the Holy Spirit.
I think with something like the gift of knowledge, it's not just that there is a general intake of learning but that the Spirit enables a person to understand deep truths of God's Word and to communicate those truths to others. In fact, I believe the only place that this is mentioned as a spiritual gift, it is a "word of knowledge", which implies speaking or otherwise communicating, not just learning.