The main guide for this research can be found at A Guide to Spiritual Gifts

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Spiritual Gift Assessments - Part 1

Spiritual gift assessments have been the focus of criticism recently in the blogosphere. While I am not a fan of any particular one, I believe much of the concern is misplaced. In this first part I'll address the position that "We are not told anywhere in scripture to discover our gifts." I have seen this point made in several blogs recently, but it can be traced back much further. In his 1979 work on spiritual gifts, Peter Wagner addresses this position taken by Gene Getz in his work from 1976 Building Up One Another. He quotes Getz as saying "it suddenly dawned on me one day that nowhere in I Corinthians 12, Romans 12, or Ephesians 4 can we find any exhortation for individual Christians to 'look for' or to 'try to discover' their spiritual gift or gifts."[1] Wagner also writes in his footnotes that Getz develops his critique of gift discovery in an earlier work from 1974 entitled Sharpening the Focus of the Church.

While the position "we are not told anywhere in scripture to discover our gifts" may be literally true, I believe that it is difficult to fully implement I Peter 4:10 in our lives without knowing how we are gifted. In the context of having love for one another Peter writes

NKJV As each one has received a gift , minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

NRSV Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.

NASB As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

Peter could have simply written "serve one another," but instead he adds the admonition that this service should be according to our gifting. We could consider that Peter had two options here. He could have written

1. Serve one another
2. Serve one another according to our gifting

Unless option 2 further clarifies option 1, there is no point in using the longer sentence. So what exactly is clarified in option 2, which Peter chose. Option 2 implies a more directed and focused service than just serving, specifically focused in the area of our gift (charisma). In his expositional commentary on I Peter, Edmond Hiebert writes
“According as (kathos), ‘just as,’ indicates that the service of each one is determined and is to be governed by the nature of the gift received.”[2]

So we do not fulfill I Peter 4:10 just by serving; we fulfill it by serving "according to our gifting," which is difficult to do if we do not know what our "gifting" is. Without this knowledge, some people will naturally seek out more suitable areas of service than others, and most churches facilitate the implementation of some gifts far more than others.

Wagner's response to Getz focused on Romans 12: 1-6 where he notes
what seems to me a clear logical relationship between "having gifts" (see Romans 12:6) and "thinking soberly of oneself" (see Romans 12:3) and doing the "good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God" (see Romans 12:2) ...Many are in fact using their spiritual gifts without being able to articulate what they are doing. Nevertheless, I sincerely believe that such brethren are operating under God's "Plan B." I think that Romans 12:1-6 is clear enough to teach us that God's "Plan A" is for members of the Body of Christ is to be very conscious of the part each one plays in the "whole body fitly joined together" (Eph. 4:16) . "Plan B" is functional. But "Plan A" is probably God's best.[3]


References

[1] Peter C. Wagner, Your Spiritual Gifts Can Help Your Church Grow (Glendale, CA: Regal Books, 1979) 46-47. The reference Wagner supplies is Gene A. Getz, Building Up One Another (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1976) 9.

[2] D. Edmond Hiebert, First Peter: an Expositional Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984), 259.

[3] Wagner, 47.






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