Thoughts on Spiritual "Gifts"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A friend and I got into an online conversation about spiritual gifts, the "Network" came up, I read through it and checked its chart on myself, and it\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/31\/thoughts-on-spiritual-gifts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thoughts on Spiritual "Gifts"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A friend and I got into an online conversation about spiritual gifts, the "Network" came up, I read through it and checked its chart on myself, and it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/31\/thoughts-on-spiritual-gifts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-31T05:03:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-08-31T12:15:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/files\/2011\/08\/Screen-shot-2011-08-28-at-1.45.58-PM-300x210.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/31\/thoughts-on-spiritual-gifts\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/31\/thoughts-on-spiritual-gifts\/\",\"name\":\"Thoughts on Spiritual \\\"Gifts\\\"\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-08-31T05:03:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-08-31T12:15:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"A friend and I got into an online conversation about spiritual gifts, the \\\"Network\\\" came up, I read through it and checked its chart on myself, and it\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/31\/thoughts-on-spiritual-gifts\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/31\/thoughts-on-spiritual-gifts\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/31\/thoughts-on-spiritual-gifts\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Thoughts on Spiritual “Gifts”\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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{"id":19853,"date":"2011-08-31T00:03:37","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T05:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/?p=19853"},"modified":"2011-08-31T07:15:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-31T12:15:00","slug":"thoughts-on-spiritual-gifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/31\/thoughts-on-spiritual-gifts\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Spiritual “Gifts”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>I was once a convert to this way of thinking, but within a few years of watching it develop and reading the NT and listening to church history I came to a different conclusion. I think we\u2019ve grossly overdone it, and I think we\u2019ve hardened the categories, and I think we force people into one of our eighteen cubby holes.<\/p>\n

What is your church\u2019s approach to the spiritual gifts? Are they central or peripheral in its teaching? Has there been any theoretical discussion of the gifts?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No one in the history of the church has this approach until the 1960s (in California, southern California of all places! \u2014 that\u2019s a joke, folks). If any theologian or pastor approached church life through this spiritual gift approach, I\u2019ve not heard of it. [I could be wrong.] But doesn\u2019t this matter?<\/p>\n

Instead of this approach, we will do ourselves some real good if:<\/p>\n

1. We see the gifts not as a hard-and-fast list of the eighteen and only eighteen gifts but instead as the sorts of things \u2014 but not the only sorts of things \u2014 the Spirit does in our midst.<\/p>\n

2. There is, in fact, no list of eighteen in the NT. There are, in fact, several lists, none of them identical. They are found in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4. This lack of uniformity among the apostles (and Paul himself doesn\u2019t have the same lists) has led me to see them not as a complete list but as symptoms or effects of the Spirit in our midst. To be sure, the Spirit will prompt a certain kind of similarity because humans are similar, needs are similar, and churches are similar. All churches need teaching, so God raises teachers. But, still, I want to ask why the apostles, who could have known such things, didn\u2019t all have the same list, but instead gave different lists. Does this perhaps suggest they didn\u2019t see them as hard categories but instead as manifestations of the Spirit?<\/p>\n

3. Many folks have been helped immeasurably by these listings of the gifts. Many people have found their \u201cgift\u201d by reading Body Life<\/em> or by using the Network tool. Asking folks what \u201cgift\u201d they have is a good question. But there\u2019s a better one, so I think: \u201cWhat is God\u2019s Spirit enabling you to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

4. Which leads me to this point: We need to be sensitive to the Spirit, we need to help others be sensitive to the Spirit, and we need to create space for the Spirit\u2019s work among us \u2014 however that appears. Instead of forcing what we are enabled to do \u2014 let\u2019s say write, or lead worship, or sing, or dance, or listen, or whatever \u2014 into one of the eighteen gifts, we need to encourage people to do what God\u2019s Spirit is enabling and empowering them to do.<\/p>\n

5. Another point: I\u2019m nervous about someone saying that they \u201chave\u201d a gift, as if they possess the thing the way they posses a book or a car or a home. Instead, the Spirit enables and empowers us so we might better say we\u2019ve been \u201chad\u201d by a gift when God chooses to do something through us.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"