WWUTT 192 Manifestations of the Spirit?

1 Corinthians 12 says, To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

So the spiritual gift that you have is not to build yourself up, it's to build up the body of Christ.

In love and in humility, serving others when we understand the text. You're listening to When We Understand The Text, committed to the sound teaching of the

Word of God. For questions and comments email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

Here's our host, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We are in Romans chapter 12 again today, and then we're going to flip over to 1

Corinthians 12, as we did yesterday, but we just read straight through the chapter. We'll go through it a little bit more specifically today.

But let's begin with our root text, Romans 12, and start in verse 4. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them, if prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

Yesterday, we looked at each one of these giftings that are mentioned here, prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, generosity, or the one who contributes in generosity, leadership, and also the one who does acts of mercy.

And so if you missed the specifics on those, I encourage you to go back and listen to yesterday's program. Then from here, we flipped over to 1

Corinthians 12, so turn with me there, and we just read straight through the chapter. Well, today, let's go back through this again and look at the specifics of what

Paul is mentioning here according to spiritual gifts. There's also a place where Paul talks about spiritual gifts in Ephesians 4, and we'll get to that also, and then look at some commonalities between these three sections,

Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4. But before I get too far ahead of myself, let's come back to 1

Corinthians 12 here. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.

You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the

Spirit of God ever says, Jesus is accursed, and no one can say, Jesus is

Lord, except in the Holy Spirit. And what we're talking about here is genuine worship. You can walk up to any person on the street and tell them, hey, say to me,

Jesus is Lord, and they can just repeat it back to you, Jesus is Lord. But it's not genuine. It doesn't mean anything unless they have the

Spirit of God, and it is right worship before the Lord. I've heard this verse used before to try to, as kind of like a litmus test to find out whether or not a person has a demon.

Well, if they're demonically possessed, they can't say, Jesus is Lord. Well, yeah, even demons can declare

Jesus is Lord, just not in a way that's worshipful. In Mark 5, for example, when the demon

Legion encounters Jesus, he says, what have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

That's a pretty lofty title to give to the Son of God. So they can acknowledge

Christ as Lord. They just can't do it in a way that is worshipful and pleasing to the

Lord unless they have the Spirit of God. Likewise, we cannot use spiritual gifts in a way that is pleasing to God unless we have the

Spirit of God. A person can have a talent that looks like a spiritual gift, but it cannot produce fruit in keeping with repentance, in building up the body of Christ, unless that person is in the

Spirit themselves. So in 1 Corinthians 12, 4, now there are varieties of gifts, but the same

Spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same

God who empowers them all in everyone. So a person might be called to one type of service and another person called to a different type of service, and these persons, by the various giftings of the

Holy Spirit, are able to do their respective callings of service, and in their strengths and weaknesses, able to complement one another, and it builds the body of Christ up all the more.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Verse 8, for to one is given through the

Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same

Spirit. Now, here's how I broke this down with my congregation when we went through this a few weeks ago.

What is the difference between wisdom and knowledge? Well, knowledge is just information, right?

Wisdom is the ability to know how to apply that knowledge. I think of the mighty men who came up around David, talked about in 1

Chronicles 12, 32. It mentions that of Issachar, there were men who had understanding of the times, to know what

Israel ought to do, so they had a wisdom on how to interact with or engage with the people of the times, the culture that they were surrounded by.

That's wisdom. Knowledge is an ability to just store up information and facts, and I will tell you that I'm a person that probably has a gifting more in the area of knowledge than I have in wisdom.

I need help with the wisdom. I need help with knowing how to apply that knowledge. Some people just have that, man, they've got that ability, we're in a snap.

They know immediately how this information applies to this setting or situation.

I don't always have that ability, or I know how I can make it apply for myself, but not how to communicate that to somebody else.

So I need help on the wisdom parts, and that's where reading comes in for me, because when I read from other teachers how they understand those passages, it helps me to take the knowledge and know how to apply it according to the wisdom of other men.

So there are those who are granted a gift of wisdom and another a gift of knowledge, and the two of them working side by side are able to, like the wisdom guy might not have that gift of knowledge as well as the knowledge guy does.

He can't remember his wife's phone number, let alone chapter and verse references. Just don't trigger with him.

I think of one of my elders at church, Chris Solano and I, he's got the wisdom thing down,

I think, and I've got the knowledge thing down. So he's straight -up set, I can't memorize stuff to save my life,

I can't remember chapters and verses like Gabe does, so I can remember the chapter and verse, and then he knows how to take it and apply it in a wisdom way.

And then there's Dave, one of our other elders, I think he's really gifted in that wisdom aspect as well.

So you see how in the body you might have a person gifted in one way, another gifted in another way, the two of them working together become a powerful force in the spirit.

Couldn't help but say that, I just had to throw that in there anyway. Verse 9, to another faith by the same spirit.

Now here's a point to make, don't we all have faith? Aren't we all supposed to have faith? Well yeah, if you're in Christ, absolutely.

He's the author of our faith, he gave it to us, and he's the perfecter of our faith. He is growing and maturing us in it as well, according to what we read in Hebrews 12.

So if we're all supposed to have faith, what's the designation here? To another faith by the same spirit.

Well, one might have a knowledge of the faith more so than another. So there's going to be a greater responsibility upon them in how they handle that knowledge and that information.

I think of the qualifications for elders and deacons as given in 1 Timothy 3. Now the difference between the calling of an elder and a deacon is that an elder must be able to teach.

But to the deacons, it says, 1 Timothy 3 .9, they must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

So they still have a knowledge of the faith, they just maybe don't have that gift or that calling to teach it.

So there's an example. There's one way that an elder is called to the faith and another way that a deacon is called to the faith.

So to another faith by the same spirit. To another, gifts of healing by the one spirit.

Now I'm going to branch off a little bit into some speculation, so bear with me here.

But when we read about healing and we read about prophecy and we read about gifts of tongues, it's commonly associated that these things are apostolic gifts that applied during the apostolic age and they no longer apply now.

I happen to be of a certain vein of thought that thinks a little bit differently about these things.

Now, although there was definitely an apostolic application, like you're talking about Peter and Paul doing miraculous gifts of healing, healing people.

And then the accounts that we have in Acts of receiving the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. There's definitely an apostolic application to that.

The apostolic age, which would have been between 30 AD, the day of Pentecost and 70

AD when the temple was destroyed. That period of 40 years was the apostolic age. Some will argue longer than that, will say that the apostolic age continued until John's death in 90 or 95

AD. That's fine. But the point is that the apostolic age came to an end with the death of the last apostle, which would have been

John. It did not extend beyond that. So there's a certain apostolic application, the revealing of truth, according to what we have written down in the scripture, immediate exercising of these gifts and with a certain level of regularity that happened in the apostolic age.

But I don't think that we're reading these things and thinking, well, these things no longer apply because we don't live in that age before anymore.

I think that a person can have a gift of healing, not that they can lay hands on a person and cure them of cancer.

That's not what I'm talking about. But they have a gift and an ability to heal a broken heart.

They know how to mend a person's broken mind. They just have the right words to say,

I've known people who can do this and I can't do what they do. I have witnessed people who just have that ability to speak a truth into a person's life and it just touches them in a way that I could speak the same words and it just doesn't seem to have the same impact.

They just have that gentleness, that touch, an ability to heal according to a gifting of the spirit.

So I think we can read that verse that way and that's okay. It does not have to have that apostolic context because we don't live in an apostolic age.

There is a certain understanding, apostolic understanding that we should have, but you can still apply this in a way that pertains to our present culture and situation and sanctification of the church.

Now again, I state this as being somewhat speculative, but I still think that that could be read that way.

So I hope that you receive that instruction with testing. Everything should be received with testing.

Now having said that, it's a little bit more difficult to apply that to verse 10, to another the working of miracles.

And again, I think that this can still apply in our present context. Miracles can still happen.

If the Holy Spirit wants to communicate through something miraculous, then he will. However, we must understand that this is not going to happen with the kind of regularity that say an apostolic or one is

Pentecostal church wants to say that miraculous things happen. There's a certain context in which things are happening in the book of Acts and that narrative is not normative.

Miracles are going to be rare, but there may be a gifting of the spirit upon a person to do miracles in a certain place and in a certain time.

And I still think that what is said there in verse 10 could still apply to our present circumstance. Going on beyond the comma to another prophecy.

And as I mentioned yesterday, quoting Paul Washer, a pastor is a prophet or he is nothing to prophesy the word of God.

And in doing so, it is accomplishing sanctification in God's people. So it is building up the body of Christ as is prophesied would happen whenever the word of God was spoken.

So in that way, prophecy can be given to an individual who has an ability to teach the word of God.

People listen to it and are edified and grow to another the ability to distinguish between spirits.

This is the gift of discernment. And some people just have that ability to know whether a person is really in the spirit or they're thinking more with the mind of man.

Very valuable resources to have in a church. And that gift can be abused as well.

But I'm not going to go into talking about that right now. Those of you who are in certain online circles and online communities, you probably know to what

I am referring after the comma to another various kinds of tongues. Now how would this one apply in our present context?

Because if you know how my beliefs have changed over the course of the past half a year or so, then you know that I do not hold to a position that the gibberish that we speak is tongues.

That's not tongues. Tongues are actually other languages. So how would this apply to our present context?

Well, I think that there are people who have an ability to learn and discern and speak other languages better than other people can.

Maybe it's a certain computational skill that they have in their minds. So the

Spirit gives them an ability to speak tongues or interpret tongues. And I might add here, that's an important thing to have.

And it is something that I think that we should aspire to, maybe even encourage people in the body of Christ to do.

Because if we've been called to preach the gospel to the nations, we're going to need to have people who understand languages that maybe the

Spirit of God might be directing our churches to reach out to so that we know how to address them.

Encourage people in the church in learning other languages. Verse 11, all these are empowered by one in the same

Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. And again, as I mentioned yesterday, it is

God who empowers. It is God who apportions. It is God who has chosen.

And so we are at the mercy of God. This is not for us to have a spiritual gift and boast about our abilities.

Hey, look what I can do. And that's what the Corinthians were doing. Paul was actually rebuking their behavior, which is what we have in 1

Corinthians 13. Everything that Paul says that love is in 1 Corinthians 13, the

Corinthians were doing the opposite. They were thumping their chest and saying, look at how amazing

I am, instead of realizing that the gift that they had received was for the purpose of edifying and growing the body.

If you do not yet know what your spiritual gift is, I tell you there is wisdom in an abundance of counselors.

Seek people in your church who are able to watch you, able to get to know you better.

And maybe through that process of mentoring and fellowship, they are able to discern what sort of gifting of the

Spirit you might have and can help apply you to those particular areas. But remember, it is

God who apportions and it is God who has chosen. It is God who has assigned the measure of faith that we have.

So you can't just pick the spiritual gift that you want to have. You need to know what it is that God has gifted you with and how that can be used for the purpose of building up the body of Christ, advancing the gospel all to the glory of God.

Our great God, we thank you for these passages today that we have read, and may we be discerning the way these things are digested and applied.

Show us, give us people around us that can help us to realize what our gifting is and how we can use this for the betterment of the body, and all to your glory.