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

Monday, February 26, 2007

Method of Study

Several empirical studies have been conducted comparing spiritual gifts to either temperaments or psychological types. The results have been promising, but have revealed nothing conclusive. This study employs a “comparison of literature” method. Various literature on spiritual gifts is compared to other literature on personality types.[1] The effectiveness of this method depends on two premises. First that spiritual gifts should be recognizable if we look for them correctly. If God gives some the gift of encouragement, but we can’t recognize that they have more encouraging ability than the rest of us, the gift would seem to be weak and ineffectual. If we truly are “living epistles,” then other people should be able to “read” our gifts in our daily lives and interactions.

The second premise is that our minds can perceive structures and patterns in human behavior far beyond that which empirical studies can verify. The very existence of spiritual gifts may be impossible to experimentally confirm, but that does not mean that we are unequipped by God to recognize them once we understand the concepts behind each gift. Theologian Frederick Bruner believes that “through the gift of the Spirit the Christian not only has the gifts of grace, he is enabled to have some discernment of what these gifts are and mean.”[2]

Understanding mercy, faith and wisdom should equip us to recognize them in other people, especially when it occurs in concentrated amounts. The “comparison of literature” method assumes that our best evidence is not an empirical study, but the perceptions and insights of men and women who have studied the topic extensively. This comparison will be self explanatory for some gifts, but a few will require explanation or added comments to clarify the connection between a gift and a related personality type.

References

[1] “Psychological types” is still considered the correct term by many, but the current literature often uses “personality types” as well.

[2] Frederick Dale Bruner, A Theology of the Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience and the New Testament Witness (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1970), 271.



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A Summary of Personality Type Theory

Extraversion (E) vs. Introversion (I)


This dichotomy distinguishes those who focus primarily outward from those who focus primarily inward. Extraverts are typically energized by interacting with others, while Introverts rejuvenate through introspection and solitary time. Estimates vary, but American society is perhaps two-thirds Extraverted.





Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N)



The two ways of perceiving, or taking in information about the world, are Sensing and Intuition. Sensors prefer to take in information through the five senses. They tend to be practical, observant, realistic, and down-to-earth. They are the typical common-sense types. Intuitives prefer to take in information as a whole, relying on impressions and looking for underlying meanings and relationships between things. They tend to be imaginative, innovative, theoretical, and are the typical visionary types. American society is perhaps two-thirds Sensing.





Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)



The two ways of making decisions based on the information gathered through Sensing or Intuition are called Thinking and Feeling. Those who prefer the Thinking function typically make decisions based on data, facts, principles, and justice. They tend to be objective, firm, and principled. Those who prefer the Feeling function usually make decisions subjectively, based on empathy or the effects of a decision on others. They tend to be personal, appreciative, and sympathetic. In American society, 60% of males are estimated to be Thinking types and 60% of females are estimated to be Feeling types. This is the only preference that shows any gender difference.





Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)



This preference is determined by whether your Judging (decision making) preference (T or F), or your perceiving (information gathering) preference (S or N) is focused outward. Judging types prefer to have decisions made instead of leaving options open. They tend to be decisive, structured, resolved, and organized. Perceiving types prefer to gather information and put off making decisions. They tend to be adaptable, flexible, and spontaneous. American society is estimated to be 55-60% judging.



Your preference on these four dichotomies will combine to make one of the sixteen personality types such as ESFJ, INTJ, ENFP, or ISTP.





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Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Gifts and Duties

How do we distinguish our Christian responsibilities, or duties, from the spiritual gifts of the same name. Most spiritual gifts are also duties that all Christians are expected to perform. We are all exhorted to have faith (Gal 5:6), show mercy (Mat. 9:13), encourage one another (I Thes. 4:18), and practice discernment (Heb (5:14); but the bible is also clear that we cannot each have all of these gifts (I Cor. 12:12-29).

One lesson from this is clear: It must be possible to encourage, have faith, show mercy, and practice discernment without having the matching gifts. Based on I Cor. chap. 12 it cannot be concluded, for example, that showing mercy requires some degree of the gift of mercy. It is a logical impossibility. Fulfilling a Christian duty associated with a spiritual gift requires no amount of that gift, otherwise, we would all be expected to have most of the gifts, and that would be a violation of the principles of I Cor. 12.

The implications of this lesson, however, are not so clear. Many authors make an error when assigning the action of a biblical character to the outworking of a specific gift. For example, John Packo[1] attributes two gifts to Barnabas: Giving and exhortation. The example of giving comes from Acts 4: 34-37 when he sold his land and gave the proceeds to the apostles. This is, though, a one-time event in the life of Barnabas and not necessarily evidence of a consistent ability. It could be, but we don’t have the evidence to show that it is, so assigning the gift of giving to Barnabas is highly speculative.

In contrast, the attribution of exhortation to Barnabas has stronger evidence. It is based on Acts 4:36 where Joseph is renamed Barnabas by the Apostles. Barnabas means “son of encouragement.” The traits and abilities to exhort and encourage were an obvious and consistent part of the ministry of Barnabas, enough so that he was renamed along the lines of his probable gift.

Discerning the gifts of historical figures is notoriously difficult, and seldom is there agreement on the issue. The insight of Peter into the deception of Annanias and Saphira (Acts 5:1-10) has been attributed by different authors to the gifts of prophecy[2], discernment[3], and word of knowledge[4]. The same logic will apply when we look for gifts in ourselves and others. Occasional or sporadic displays of an ability do not constitute “a portion” of that gift. A gift is what makes us part of the body of Christ, and body-parts do not perform their function only occasionally, but consistently and with ease.

References

[1] Packo, 38, 41. Packo is one of the more careful thinkers among writers on spiritual gifts and takes care to distinguish gifts and duties, “Just because a believer does not have the gift of mercy does not mean that he has no obligation to display mercy,” John E. Packo, Find and Use Your Spiritual Gifts (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1980), 28. Most authors, even other careful scholars such as Michael Griffiths, make similar errors when analyzing the gifts of people in the bible, “When Barnabas first appears he is exercising the gift of giving while his nickname reminds us that he is a supreme example of the gift of encouragement.” Grace-Gifts (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.), 22.

[2] David Ireland, Activating the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1997), 155.

[3] Michael Griffiths, Grace-Gifts: Developing what God has Given the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. 1979), 57.

[4] David Yonggi Cho, The Holy Spirit, My Senior Partner: Understanding the Holy Spirit and His Gifts (Orlando, FL: Creation House, 1989), 150.

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Gifts and Ministries

The debate over the relation of spiritual gifts to church ministries is as old as the New Testament and has been vigorous since 1892[1]. The two cannot be separated in any meaningful way. No function of ministry can really be separated from the idea of charismata. For a Christian, the notion of holding an office devoid of any charismatic gifting can be dismissed because the whole Body of Christ is formed together based on gifting. If someone is in Christ, then spiritual gifting is part of the package. So to say that being charismatically endowed is required for a ministry is only to say that being in the Body of Christ is required for that ministry. Every believer will bring their own gift to whatever role they perform whether they know what that gift is or not.

It follows then that the reverse is also true: Charismata cannot be considered apart from the idea of ministry. Each gift is given to fill a necessary role in the life of the Church. “Since charismata are given to all believers in the community of faith, all believers will necessarily also function in some expression of ministry[2].” The New Testament enlarges the idea of “minister of the gospel” to include all believers. The focus here, however, will be on the gift-type theory and its implications for the discussion. Primarily, are specific gifts prerequisite for certain offices?

Are Specific Gifts Required For Office?
There is a long debate between the two-office and the three-office view of the local church. The two-office or “Presbyterian” view, dating back at least to the Didache of the mid-second century[3], maintains that only the offices of bishop and deacon are differentiated in the New Testament. The three-office, or “Episcopalian” view can be traced back to Ignatius’ letter to the Philadelphians in the early second century[4] and contends that elder and bishop (overseer) are separate positions along with deacons. The biblical evidence is ambiguous (Acts 20: 17, 28, and Titus 1:5-7), and in most Protestant churches the functions that would be expected of a bishop have been subsumed under the title of pastor. Therefore, the offices looked at here will be those of elder, deacon, and pastor.

Elder
The office of elder is sometimes taken to be the same as that of bishop. Neither the Greek terms for elder and bishop, nor the lists of requirements Paul gives in I Timothy and Titus suggest that any specific gifts were expected of those who hold the office. Bittlinger notes a view held by some that “elders are regarded as men with the charisma of leadership[5]”. Few churches, though, have any expectation of specific gifts for those who hold the office of elder, and an understanding of psychological type does not suggest that any one type would be better suited than the others for the task.

Deacon
The term “deacon” comes from the same root word as the gift of service (diakonia) listed in Romans 12:7. Does this mean that the gift of service should be expected for deacons? In Bittlinger’s view “Like all other ministers, the deacon is a charismatic. However, his charisma of diakonia is so pronounced as to induce the congregation to entrust him with a particular ministry[6].” Those with the gift of service would perhaps be better at performing the duties of a deacon than any other gift, but Paul does not include this as one of the conditions for seeking the office (I Timothy 3:8-10), something he easily could have done if he considered it important. Paul lists, rather, character traits, which he obviously considered more important than gifting.

Looking at the question with the gift-type theory in mind, the gift of service matches the ISTJ type, which observation will show is the most common psychological type to serve as deacons, perhaps with no close second. It is also clear that the next most common types to serve as deacons, ISFJ, ISTP, and probably a few others, also serve well in the office. Observationally, there is no more reason to emphasize gifting than is given in Scripture. In larger churches, there will be a high self-selection ratio of those with the gift of service seeking the office of deacon. In smaller churches, the narrower pool of candidates and the need may lead the Spirit to prompt persons with seemingly unrelated gifts to respond. There is no basis, then, for adding a requirement to the Biblical ones.

Pastor
The spiritual gifts literature of the Seventies and Eighties would often state that a pastor should have a specific gift or gifts, although they seldom agreed on what that gifting should be. For Neighbor it is prophecy[7]. Gilbert states emphatically that “the pastor must have the gift of shepherding[8]”, although he allows that others may have the gift as well. Wagner mentions that, apart from pastoring and encouraging, “two other gifts frequently but mistakenly considered necessary for the pastor of a growing church, are the gifts of evangelist and administration[9]”.

More recent literature tends to accept the variety of gifts among pastors and some authors, like Peter Wagner, even explore the effects of these different gifts in the pastoring role. Kenneth Carter has written a book, The Gifted Pastor, which celebrates that pastors have a diversity of gifts, and he encourages them to recognize and utilize those gifts.

If pastoring is a biblically commissioned office, then it might be reasonable to suggest that the office should come with the gift of the same name. To maintain this view the pastor (ποιμεν: poimen) must be synonymous with the bishop (episkopow). In favor of this position, some look to I Peter 5:1-2 where Peter exhorts the elders (presbuterouw) to shepherd (poimenate) the flock, serving as overseers or bishops (episkopow). This verse might suggest that the terms are interchangeable, but shepherd (poimen), which is used as a verb in this case to indicate the desired activity of a bishop, has a broader meaning than the gift of Ephesians 4:11. It is the ordinary biblical word for shepherds in the field and Peter might have wanted to convey this picture of protecting and providing rather than suggesting that bishops have the gift of a shepherding.

For many charismatics and some non-charismatics, Ephesians 4:11 contains a list of offices, not a list of gifts. Paul only states that the five gifts listed here have a common purpose of equipping the Body of Christ for service, not that they are official positions in the church. This view is considered more closely in the section on “categories of gifts.”
The empirical research also suggests that pastors have a variety of gifts. According to “Barna Research Online” 40% of pastors claim to have the gifts of preaching or teaching, 12% pastoring, 6% encouraging, and 4% leadership (www.barna.org, 2001). Ward observes that “the majority of pastors are ENFJ + ENFP[10].” While actually having observed all sixteen types serving as pastor, the author concurs that the ENFJ (encouragement) and ENFP (prophecy) are the two most common with a fair amount of INFJ (pastor / shepherd) and ESFJ (hospitality). When it comes to preachers with a national ministry, the results are similar.

With so many types and gifts observed among great pastors, it is unlikely that any gift was ever intended to be the “one gift” for the job. If that is the case then the majority of pastors are not equipped for the role, because no gift is possessed by a majority. Different churches have different needs, and it seems that they often find a pastor that is right for the need they have at the time.

References

[1] Max Turner, The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 279

[2] Siegfried S. Schatzmann, A Pauline Theology of Charismata (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson, 1987), 87.

[3] Cyril C. Richardson, Early Christian Fathers, the Library of Christian Classics, Vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan, 1970), 178.

[4] Anne Fremantle, A Treasury of Early Christianity (New York: Viking, 1953), 33.

[5] Arnold Bittlinger, Gifts and Ministries (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eermans Pub. Co,1973), 24.

[6] Bittlinger, 41.

[7] Ralph W. Neighbor, This Gift is Mine: Spiritual Gifts and How They Build up the Body of Christ (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1974), 98.

[8] Larry Gilbert, Team Ministry: A Guide to Spiritual Gifts and Lay Involvement (Forest, VA: Church Growth Institute, 1987), 99.

[9] Peter Wagner, Your Spiritual Gifts can Help Your Church Grow (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1979), 155.

[10] Ruth M. Ward, Blending Temperaments: Improving Relationships—Yours and Others (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 236.

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Monday, February 19, 2007

Gifts and Roles

There is a tendency to make Christian roles, or positions, synonymous with gifts. If someone does well in a leadership role, for example, it is assumed that we are seeing the gift of leadership in action. The most misunderstood role in this sense is teaching, for it is a role that can accommodate any gift—some better than others—but any gift can be expressed through the position of teaching. Teaching is then the best example to illustrate the distinction between roles and gifts.

Take, for instance, a church that has no one with the gift of teaching. Because there are several other gifts that do very well teaching biblical concepts, this church has no trouble finding a qualified person to fill the position. In this case a man with the gift of wisdom (INTJ). If someone with the gift of teaching were to now enter the picture it would not be necessary to remove the first person from the teaching role and replace them with the teacher, because the teacher’s gift can be expressed through vehicles other than just the position of teaching, and the position of teaching can convey gifts other than teaching quite well. It may seem then, that teaching is an easily replaceable gift, when the truth is just the opposite.

Using the above example with the INTJ in the teaching role, we tend to look at the results and say that this is an expression of teaching, but that is our word for anything that is conveyed through any medium that resembles a classroom setting. From a gift-type perspective it is an expression of the function of wisdom through the role of teaching. The function of teaching will lack expression until it is transmitted by an ENTP with the gift of teaching.

We derive benefit from the function of a gift more so than any particular role which the gift might be functioning through. Although certain roles may be excellent vehicles for the transmission of specific gifts, it is most important that the function of every gift be expressed in some manner or another. The most overlooked method being simple fellowship—any extended interaction with other believers. The benefits of any gift can come through in the attitudes, perspectives, and insights that are part of ordinary interactions with fellow Christians. As Frederick Bruner writes of I Corinthians chapter 14, “It appears in this chapter that Paul sees the highest expression of spiritual gifts in the free, helpful discussion of Christians together and their contribution in thoughtful speech to each other[1].”

It is understandable and desirable, though, to seek a more specific application for our gifts, and the gift-type theory can give us a perspective on the search for a role in the local church. The picture that emerges is one of significant overlap in roles, but extreme specialization in abilities. A gift serving in a specific role can typically be replaced in that role without a great loss to the church, but if that gift were removed from the Body of Christ entirely, no other gift could come close to replacing the missing abilities, and the loss would be immediate, obvious, and crippling.

OVERLAP
The overlap in roles does have its limitations, and some roles are more flexible than others. The position of deacon, for example, is so well suited to the gift of service that the self-selection ratio of one type, ISTJ, seeking the position, is higher by far than for any other match of gift and role. No other position has even a majority of a single type seeking or holding the role. For most positions, however, there are a variety of gifts that bring different strengths to it, and we should not confuse our concepts of the roles of leading, teaching, or preaching, with the different gifts that find expression through them.

SPECIALIZATION
The focused abilities of every gift are impressive enough to provoke a “wow” response when they are understood. If there is no such response then the gift is likely not fully understood. One gift that illustrates the principle of specialization is service, because servers’ particular abilities are often underappreciated.
The gift involves skills as unique and interesting as any other gift, and probably more consistently useful to the Church. Often described as a gift of those willing to do the work that others don’t want to do, a closer look at servers will reveal how much the usual descriptions underestimate the gift. An understanding of ISTJs reveal several special abilities that are ideal for serving the Body of Christ.

One is that they are good at many things. ISTJs tend to have many practical abilities such as wiring a house, constructing a building, or repairing anything that is broken. If they do not have the expertise needed to perform a desired task, they tend to acquire the skill more easily than most, and without help from others. Although many ISTJs apply these skills in the areas of management, science, and technology, the practical side of their talents more easily demonstrates the specialization of their gift.

Another ability that ISTJs have is a well-developed memory for procedure, sometimes remembering how they performed a given task for the rest of their life. As they grow older, this results in a huge reservoir of experience on which to draw. If an ISTJ has done it once they can likely carry out the same task again from memory. By being able to do so many things, ISTJs are often the only ones with the right skills when a need arises, and they are typically willing to do the needed work[2].

ISTJs also have an eye for the arrangement of how things are put together. They tend to understand the internal supports and stresses of a variety of physical structures, and anything they build or repair will typically last for many years. They also have the ability to conserve resources by using what is available to its greatest potential. If suitable materials can be acquired from a pile of scraps in the back, then why spend the church’s money on new materials. Other gifted members would have great difficulty in accomplishing the server’s work. Given the scenario of another gifted member trying to replace a server, they…
1. would have to be pulled away from their own area of giftedness, leaving less accomplishment in their best area.
2. would be less likely to have the knowledge to do the work. They would have to learn the skills and the work would take longer.
3. would find less pleasure in the work than the server, and thus have more frustration in the short term, leading to burnout in the long term.
4. They would not likely have the same instinct for the way things are constructed, so their work would be less likely to last over time.
5. They would not have the same ability to conserve resources and would cost the church more money.

Servers, then, are not just more willing to do the practical work behind the scenes, but they are much more competent than others in doing it well. Each of the other gifts also has a core of abilities that is unrivaled. If the abilities of each gift were graphed, there would be a characteristic spike when the graph reached their specialized area. The graph for an ENFJ, when it reached the area of encouragement and exhortation, would rise far above the other types. There would be a second best, but it would not be a close second. The theme that emerged would be repeated for each gift: In each one’s area of specialization, there are no close competitors.

References

[1] Frederick D. Bruner, A Theology of the Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience and the New Testament Witness (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1970), 297.

[2] It is interesting that, since the purpose of all the gifts is service, the ISTJ takes the most direct route to that end.

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Miraculous Gifts

The overtly miraculous gifts are not a central part of the gift-type theory. I consider them to be the least interesting gifts, but the theory raises some questions about them, and a brief analysis would be worthwhile. The following is no more than a rough outline of some ideas on the topic.

The gifts of miracles, healing, tongues, and interpretation are separated from the others by their overtly miraculous nature; but what else can we deduce about them? First, the theory implies neither a cessation nor a continuation of these gifts. Such arguments must be made on other grounds. Second, these gifts could occur as a manifestation only, or there could be an ability behind the manifestation, as with the other 16 gifts. This gives us four combinations, each of which has mainstream support.

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If these four “gifts” are / were manifestations only, with no permanent abilities behind them, then they most likely work through whichever of the 16 gifts a person has which defines their part in the body of Christ. In this case, they could be classified as not gifts at all. In favor of this “manifestation only” position are several points.
1. These four “gifts” are only listed in the I Corinthian 12 list. This may be because they are only manifestations and have no gift or ministry component, and therefore would not have an appropriate place in the other two lists.
2. Each one is a plural in the Greek, and three of the four are double plurals: Gifts of healings, workings of powers, kinds of tongues, and interpretation of tongues. There would be no need for multiples of the same gift, if the gift was a permanent endowment.
3. As pointed out in the “categories of gifts” section, no one has ever identified any matching personality or character traits of these gifts. This suggests that these four “gifts” do not reside in us as abilities.

There are also arguments against the “manifestation only” position.
1. Healing is clearly labeled a gift (charismata) in I Cor. 12:9. This is a problem if we are trying to maintain a clear distinction between the gifts (charismata) of Romans 12 and healing as a “manifestation” only. Although Paul could be making the point that even the manifestation is a “gift” to the person who receives it, this explanation is not very satisfying. Paul could also be suggesting that, while most gifts should have the Spirit manifest through them, some “gifts” are contained in the manifestation.
2. The “gift” of discernment is also a double plural, “gifts of discernments.” This could suggest that the plural nature might be true of the manifestation of any gift. Even permanent gifts need repeated manifestations of the Spirit operating through them to be edifying to the body.

Although the first position seem slightly more likely, neither is determinative for the gift-type theory. There are more conceptual difficulties, however, with both of the ability views. If they are / were abilities used at will, then what is the nature of these gifts? The other 16 gifts are characterized by ways of perceiving information and then making decisions based on those perceptions. Would the miraculous gifts have new perceiving and judging capacities of which we are unaware? Would these capacities be beyond our ability to detect, or be so unusual that we could not decipher them if we did detect them? We have no way of knowing unless we can clearly identify people with these gifts and study them.


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Sunday, February 18, 2007

Constructing a Gift List

The Possibility of an Exhaustive Gift List

Is an exhaustive gift list even possible? Many have attempted to create a complete list of gifts, but others dispute whether this is advisable[1] or even possible. Peter Wagner presents the prevailing view when he writes “none of the lists is complete in itself...And one could surmise that if none of the three lists is complete in itself, probably the three lists together are not complete[2].” Coming from the opposite point of view, Bruce Black responds “If Wagner’s view of an open-ended list is correct, everything anyone does in the area of Christian service could be classified as the exercise of a spiritual gift[3].” William McRae comes to the same conclusion through different reasoning.
Does the New Testament contain a complete list of the spiritual gifts given to the church? This is not easy to answer. It may be answered by asking, What possible gift would be added to the list? Upon reflection, the list is surprisingly complete. Eliminating natural talents, I cannot imagine a spiritual gift which could make the list more complete.[4]

Leslie Flynn takes an intermediate perspective on the gift lists.
One widely held view is that every possible gift for the church could be classified under one of the gifts in Paul’s three tabulations. Thus, though all the gifts in the church are not actually specified in Scripture, yet every unnamed, genuine gift could be subsumed under one of the listed gifts.[5]

It is likely that Paul never intended to give us a “master list,” given the partial nature of the lists he did leave; but it is not a conclusive argument given that many doctrines are pieced together from different biblical authors. Whether Paul meant to leave us with an exhaustive gift list is not the same question as “Did the Holy Spirit mean to leave us with a complete list?” It is at least possible that He did.


Building the List

The purpose of a gift list for this research is practical. A correct list will help the church identify which gifts we should look for in ourselves and others, and it will also determine how the gift-type theory stands against a normal (in this case literal) reading of the relevant bible passages. But the material we have to work with is difficult to put together into a comprehensive picture. So how do we construct a list of gifts from the bible as a guide for what to look for? A literal hermeneutic will be used here. Letting the text speak for itself is the only objective criterion we have and involves only two guidelines: Do not add to or subtract from what is written.

Principle 1: Do not add gifts to the list
(A.) Some gifts are added by suggestion. A bible passage might imply the existence of another gift not mentioned in the major gift passages.
(B.) Some gifts are added by intuition. The writer believes he/she has seen a gift in action that is not listed in the bible.

Principle 2: Do not subtract gifts from the list

(A.) Gifts are sometimes edited out of consideration by combining them with other gifts, e.g. leadership and administration are often combined into the gift of ruling. A strict interpretation will view distinct Greek words as having distinct meanings, and unless the text suggests otherwise each gift should be considered separately.
(B.) Gifts can be taken out of consideration when they are unnecessarily defined as supernatural and therefore limited to the early Church.

A Starting Point: Paul’s Gift Lists
The following lists provide our raw material. Any repeated gifts are in italics.

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A literal reading of these lists yields the 20 unique gifts numbered above.

Gifts to Remove From the List

Apostleship
Apostleship is viewed by many to have involved a set of circumstances peculiar to the early church[6], such as having seen the risen Christ[7]. Some extend the gift to include modern church planters[8]. The place of apostleship has been elaborated at length in books and articles. If we take the majority opinion and subtract apostleship from our list we have 19 gifts remaining.

Miraculous Gifts
Separating the supernatural gifts by applying the categorical distinction of “miraculous by definition” removes four more gifts from the list: Miracles, healing, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. These gifts are detectable only by the results of using them and not by personality factors. We now have 15 gifts.

Gifts to Consider Adding to the List

Voluntary poverty and Martyrdom.
The primary source for these additional gifts is Bridge and Phypers. They find two extra gifts in I Cor. 13:3 Voluntary poverty[9] and Martyrdom[10]. The wording in verse 3 is ambiguous and the designation as gifts must be inferred from the context.

“And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” (I Cor 13:3, NKJV)

Although the overall context is the charismata, Paul is deliberately using extreme language. The structure of I Corinthians 13 must be examined to understand the relationship of voluntary poverty and martyrdom to the gifts. In verses one to three Paul gives us a list of good things taken to extreme. The general categories would be as follows:

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All of these qualities but the last one, martyrdom, correlate with a gift, “understanding all mysteries” being a likely reference to the gift of wisdom[11](I Cor. 2:7). The use of gifts to derive these qualities is intentional to make a point. Taking “all knowledge” as an example, here is the logical relationship: If I go beyond the gift of knowledge to “all knowledge” it is still worthless without love, how much more is just the “gift of knowledge” worthless without love.

The logical progression is

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So the hypothesized gift of voluntary poverty is just the gift of giving in absolute form. It is then no different from “all knowledge” and “all faith,” which are not gifts, but gifts hyperbolized[12] to give perspective to love. And martyrdom is just the final step beyond any of the gifts. Even this most self-sacrificing act can only have meaning when done in love.

Celibacy
I Corinthians 7:7. Celibacy has the best case for consideration as an additional gift. If so it would be an exceptional and rare gift and would not correlate with any psychological types.

Exorcism
Exorcism[13] is equated by some with the gift of miracles (powers), but it is never stated as a gift and must be inferred as one.

Intercession
Wagner includes intercession because he has “seen it in action[14],” otherwise it has very little evidence supporting gift status.

Craftsmanship
Found in Bridge and Phypers (1973) reference to Exodus 31:3, which is clearly speaking of a person gifted by God "in every kind of craft," but not in the sense of the charismata. God has arranged for this ability by giving excellent craftsmanship skills to other gifts such as faith and service. People with extraordinary skill in craftsmanship are clearly gifted, but there is scant evidence to include craftsmanship among the charismata.

Music
Used through other gifts but nowhere mentioned as a charisma.

Hospitality
Hospitality, the 16th gift necessary for the gift-type theory, is found in I Peter 4:9. This gift is often found in gift lists, but there are some authorities who do not include it. Bruce Black notes that Peter’s exhortation to “Be hospitable” was directed to all Christians[15]. Black believes that hospitality can, however, be a vehicle for the gifts of serving and giving[16]. McRae suggests that it “may be one of the outlets for the gifts of helps or mercy[17].” Including hospitality in our list does violate the strict rules of constructing a gift list cited above, but there are three possible reasons to consider adding it.

1. The proximity to the exhortation to use our gift earns it consideration as a separate gift. As Leslie Flynn reasons,
Though hospitality is not included in any of Paul’s lists of gifts, the context in which hospitality is mentioned seems to earn it consideration as a separate gift. After Peter speaks of hospitality in verse 9, he immediately goes on in the next two verses to say that whatever gift a person has should be faithfully exercised. The link in Peter’s thinking between hospitality and gifts strongly implies that hospitality is a gift.[18]

2. We can see it in action. By itself, this is a weak argument as there are many abilities we might claim to see.

3. It completes the picture. There are fifteen gifts which line up with fifteen psychological types. The type left over just happens to be the type described as “Hosts and hostesses of the world[19]”. Ultimately, however, the biblical texts should be our determining factor, and the reader can decide if Peter’s wording is sufficient reason to include hospitality in our list.
Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. (I Peter 4:9-10)

If we count hospitality as a separate gift, we have the 16th gift in the gift-type theory, but the issue of synonymous gifts must be considered first, before we confirm the list.

Combined gifts
Gifts that sound similar are often combined as if they were synonyms. These pairings of gifts are nearly always based on an intuitive response of the author and not on any analysis of the Greek, and only rarely on the respective functions of the gifts.

Leadership and Administration
The gift of ruling is often postulated as the combined function of leadership and administration. The Greek terms, though, of kubernesis (administration) and prohistami (leadership) are clearly distinct words with distinct meanings. The leader (one who stands before) is clearly distinct from the administrator (steersman of a ship). The leader must choose the destination, but the steersman’s destination is already known, and the job is to reach the destination.

Helps
The gift of helps is the most frequent target for blending with another gift. At least four other gifts have been combined with helps by different authors.
1. Service: The helps-service combination is the most common and is sometimes called the gift of ministry.
2. Mercy: Billy Graham is one source for the helps-mercy combination. “Helps is the gift of showing mercy[20].”
3. Giving: Robert L. Thomas places giving as “a specialized form of the gift of helps[21].”
4. Hospitality: Mels Carbonell writes that “some of the many gifts in scripture are similar to others, such as, the gifts of helps, hospitality, and serving. They are described in similar terms. To avoid redundancy and complexity, we’re going to combine these into one: ‘ministry / serving[22].”

The variety of combinations for the gift of helps show the subjective, even arbitrary, nature of combining separately listed gifts into one. The only other combination left to consider is that of pastor and teacher. These gifts from Eph. 4:11 are sometimes combined into the gift of pastor-teacher based on the Greek construction. Much of the recent scholarly analysis of this verse has concluded that the two gifts should not be combined. The analysis, however, is fairly technical and is saved for appendix B.

Summary and Conclusion
A gift-type theory of spiritual gifts is compatible with a normal reading of scripture, with the possible exception that the gift of hospitality is not stated explicitly as a gift and must be inferred from the context. Otherwise, the theory is supported by the most literal reading possible of the relevant passages. The following is a summary of the above analysis.

A literal reading of Paul’s Gift Lists
Total = 20

Subtract Apostleship
Total = 19

Subtract the miraculous gifts of Miracles, Healing, Tongues, and Interpretation
Total = 15

Consider additional gifts / only add hospitality from I Peter 4:9-10
Total = 16

Avoid arbitrarily combining gifts
Total still = 16

References

[1] Stone, citing Higgs p. 45, Lists as Literary Devices, suggests that the lists are only samples, and that the attempt to use them to identify our own gifts may be a pointless and frustrating endeavor. p. 23, Relationship Between Personality and Spiritual Gifts. Psy.D Diss., (George Fox College: University Microfilms International, 1991). The gift-type theory depends on a literal-normal hermeneutic, contra Stone and Higgs.

[2] Peter Wagner, Your Spiritual Gifts can Help Your Church Grow (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1979), 62; echoed by Carson, D. A., Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12-14 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), 35.

[3] Black, Bruce W., The Spiritual Gifts Handbook: The Complete Guide to Discovering and Using Your Spiritual Gifts (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, 1995), 32.

[4] William McRae, Dynamics of Spiritual Gifts (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1976), 81.

[5] Leslie Flynn, 19 Gifts of the Spirit (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1994), 37.

[6] Thomas, Robert L. Understanding Spiritual Gifts: A Verse-by-Verse Study of I Corinthians 12-14. Rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1999), 174–176.

[7] Jack Deere speculates that Paul’s method of seeing the risen Christ in a vision could be repeatable today, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993), 248. although he also argues that apostleship is a God-given commission and not a spiritual gift, p.242; see also C. Samuel Storms, in response to Robert L. Saucy and Richard P. Gaffin, who points out that “the term charisma is never applied to apostleship;” also “Exhorters exhort, teachers teach, healers heal…But how does an “apostle” (noun) “apostle” (verb)? Whereas both Saucy and Gaffin insist that apostleship is a spiritual gift, neither one defines it.” Wayne Grudem, ed., Are Miraculous Gifts For Today?: Four Views (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 156.

[8] Kenneth Kinghorn, Gifts of the Spirit (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1976), 43–47; also Gangel, Unwrap Your Spiritual Gifts (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1983), who separates the gift from the office p. 26–27.

[9] Voluntary poverty has been considered a gift as far back as St. Cyril of Jerusalem in the Fourth Century, Lecture XVI.

[10] The gifts of celibacy and martyrdom make possibly their first appearance (with the exception of St. Cyril in the reference above) in 1973 with the first edition of Spiritual Gifts and the Church by Donald Bridge and David Phypers (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1974), 25; although the gifts have become much better known through Peter Wagner since 1979.

[11] Cf. Robert L. Thomas, Understanding Spiritual Gifts: A verse-by-verse Study of I Corinthians 12-14 (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1999), 69, 211.

[12] Cf. Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2000), 102.

[13] There may be an attraction of the ESTP evangelist to excorcism where they can use their instinct for knowing how much of God’s power can be claimed in a given situation.

[14] 1979, p.74.

[15] Black, 93.

[16] Ibid, 94.

[17] McRae, 80.

[18] Leslie Flynn, 19 Gifts of the Spirit (Wheaton, Il.: Victor Books, 1994), 122.

[19] Otto Kroeger and Janet M. Thuesen, Type Talk (New York: Broadman Press, 1988), back cover.

[20] Billy Graham, The Holy Spirit (Warner Books: New York, 1980), 76.

[21] Thomas, 202.

[22] Carbonell, 162.

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Saturday, February 17, 2007

Can Gifts and Personality be Distinguished?

The modern church views spiritual gifts and personality characteristics as phenomena that occur at different levels of our being. Personality occurs at a “natural” level, and spiritual gifts occur at a “spiritual” level. Some teaching systems even describe the results of combining the same gift with several different personality styles.


Current Systems


SHAPE system
The most prominent method of teaching both gifts and personality types is the SHAPE method. SHAPE is an acrostic for

S spiritual gifts
H heart passions
A abilities
P personality
E experiences

In the SHAPE system none of the dimensions of a person are determined by the others. Our spiritual gifts are independent of our abilities, personality, and heart passions. Any personality can be combined with any spiritual gift or any heart passion, so that the gifts do not depend on any personality characteristics.


Mels Carbonell: DISC system + spiritual gifts
The DISC profile system assesses people based on the four behavioral styles of:

Dominance
Influence
Steadiness
Conscientiousness

In his system, each of these four styles can combine with any gift, and Carbonell has done a very insightful integration of the two concepts. The results, though, are similar to the SHAPE system where no gift depends on a personality style, but can be determined independently of personality.


Defining the Problem

There is a growing realization that spiritual gift inventories are not looking beyond personality traits in their attempt to identify the gifts. Stone reports, “It is believed that these inventories are contaminated by personality traits which account for the large amounts of shared variance. This error may be hiding the distinct gifts[1].”

Tim Challies expresses the concern that the spiritual gift inventories can be successfully completed by unbelievers. The questions are generic and he believes “bear an uncanny resemblance to the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator[2].” He proposes that we “ask, then, if these tests are truly measuring spiritual gifts or if they are simply examining personality.” Challies does not miss the implication of this, though he dismisses it quickly. “Is it possible that perhaps we are only given spiritual gifts that compliment our personalities so personality and gifts are one and the same? That would be unsatisfying, because I believe God can work through gifts that may contradict our personalities[3].”

Both Stone and Challies have noticed something that is abundantly confirmed in Part I of this research: That what authors describe as traits of spiritual gifts and what they test for in their spiritual gift inventories are often identical with traits that other authors see in secular personality types. If the two are not the same, then there is some confusion of categories going on, and we are failing to distinguish the concepts. So are we, as Stone believes, missing the true gifts, or are we seeing the gifts as manifested in personality traits, but asserting that we are somehow looking beyond personality; and if it were possible to find spiritual gifts as distinct entities from personality types, how would we do so?

Are the gifts recognizable or hidden?
A basic premise of this research has been that the spiritual gifts should be recognizable if we know how to look for them, based on the reasoning that the gifts would be weak and ineffectual otherwise. If someone is given a gift of mercy and we can’t even recognize that they have more of the qualities of mercy than most other believers then it doesn’t say much for the gift. The question that remains, though, is what are we seeing in the person with the gift of mercy that identifies the gift to us? Is it the same kind of personality factors we see in the secular world, or is it something that occurs at a deeper “spiritual” level.


Distinguishing the concepts of personality and gifts


Evidence
When our most recognized experts on spiritual gifts describe certain gifts, the results are almost identical to specific personality types. There are several clear examples, but one of the strongest is the correlation of the spiritual gift of administration with the personality type ESTJ. The strength of this correlation is documented in Part I, where it is shown that the two descriptions are virtually interchangeable. There are two primary responses to this evidence to consider.

Option 1
This is evidence of a one-to-one correlation of the gift of administration with the personality type ESTJ.

Option 2
Our premise (hypothetically) will be that gifts and type are not the same thing, so we should keep looking for a method of distinguishing them. There are really only two methods that we could use to distinguish the gifts from personality types: Observable behavior and results.

Observable behavior
Things that we could look for as evidence of spiritual gifts include behaviors, attitudes, habits, traits, or any sort of psychological predisposition. We must find those that have not been covered in the personality type literature, otherwise the description can be correlated with similar descriptions in the types, and we have then failed to separate the two concepts. There is, though, really very little about human nature that has not been observed, described, and analyzed; and there is no point in attributing to spiritual gifts traits that have been observed in the type descriptions such as an outgoing nature, decisiveness or objectivity, and then asserting that these traits are somehow different than the identical traits in personality types.

Perhaps, then, spiritual gifts occur at a deeper, spiritual level than personality types. The problem here is that we lack any way of describing another level. We don’t even know how to begin looking for this level. As the gift-type comparisons of Part I demonstrate, the language is shared—there are no special concepts or even a vocabulary to describe the gifts that has not already been used in the personality type literature. If the gifts occur at another level of our being we can only assert that they do, we cannot describe or measure them. The gifts then become something mysterious and ultimately unrecognizable, with the possible exception that we might recognize the gift by the results that come from using these hidden gifts.

Results
An alternative to looking for the gifts in personality traits is to observe the results of a ministry or act of service and to infer the gift behind the results. If, however, we view the results of using a gift as if they have no connection to observable behavior we have another problem. In our daily life results are nearly always connected to observable behavior. Our minds perceive the cause and effect relationships.

For example, how could the results of mercy come from someone without the observable personality traits of kindness and gentleness? Imagine a man, Frank, who comes with a group to visit a friend in the hospital. Frank isn’t kind and gentle, doesn’t have a cheerful disposition, and doesn’t even smile. Let’s assume the hurting friend is comforted and cheered up by the visit. Would we attribute the results to a hidden gift of mercy in Frank? It would never occur to us, even if Frank had the gift of mercy, to attribute the results to him. It would forever be a mystery that Frank had the gift, because there would never be a cause/effect relationship whereby we could attribute the results of his gift to any kind of cause that we would understand as connected to a gift of mercy.

If, though, we assume that personality traits get in the way of finding the gifts, we must rule out kindness and gentleness as a marker for the gift of mercy, because both of these traits have been clearly attributed to one or more of the personality types. Unless we can identify other traits of the gift of mercy, we wouldn’t ever see the gift because there would be no cause to attribute the effect of mercy to, and there just isn’t much to find that hasn’t already been claimed by the secular descriptions.

If a gift can contradict our personality traits, then observing the results of using a gift is not a satisfactory method of recognizing the gift either, because we would never attribute the results of the gift to the correct person. We make this kind of connection through personality traits, and if these are ruled out as a marker for gifts, the results become a mysterious effect without a cause.

To use another example, if an administrator did not focus on the traits that most good administrators have, but instead focused inwardly, on abstract ideas, made personal judgments, and refrained from decision making until necessary, in other words—displayed poor administrative skills, the organization or group would not likely run well. If it did run well the conclusion would be that the members of the organization run it well despite the deficiencies of the administrator, or that God intervened to transcend the person’s ability, not that the results derived from a supernatural gift that cannot be detected.

Take the ESTJ and INFP types as examples. The affinity and skill of the ESTJ at administrative tasks has copious documentation, as noted in the gift-type comparison for the gift of administration. The lack of these same skills in the ESTJs opposite, INFP, is just as obvious, prompting the observation that INFPs “cannot administer their way out of a paper bag[4].” It could, however, be argued here that God can give gifts that are inconsistent with a person’s personality (natural talent).

Could God give the gift of administration to an INFP? If God did would he also give the INFP the traits that are almost universally associated with good administrative ability, such as an outward focus on the world of people and things, a preference for the concrete rather than the abstract, logical rather than personal decisions, and a structured rather than an open ended approach to decision making. If these traits were not given to our hypothetical INFP administrator, we would still see the cause/effect disconnect, where the effect of good administration would seem to have no identifiable cause. If, on the other hand, these traits were given to the INFP, then the INFP would, by definition, no longer be an INFP, because a preference for the aforementioned traits is the very definition of an ESTJ.

Assessment of a Cause/Effect Disconnect as a Factor in the Awe and Wonder Produced from Miraculous Gifts

1. Start with Wayne Grudem’s assessment of the miraculous as “that which produces awe and wonder."
2. “Miraculous by definition” categorical distinction divides the miraculous from the non-miraculous gifts. It does so by separating those gifts that cannot be defined by or attributed to normal personality characteristics.
3. When the results of a gift such as a supernatural healing cannot be attributed to normal personality characteristics it breaks the usual cause/effect relationship whereby we connect results we see such as effective leadership to causes such as a visionary, analytical and decisive mind.
4. When the normal cause/effect relationship is broken we begin looking for other causes. When no “rational” cause can be found, many people begin looking beyond normal causes to God, other spirits, or some not understood mystical ability.
5. This results in miraculous gifts producing awe and wonder, because they cannot be attributed to the effects of anything we understand in human nature such as personality types or traits. This analysis would likely be done almost instantly in the case of obvious supernatural events.

Note - I have borrowed a distinction made by Wayne Grudem in his book The Gift of Prophecy. Grudem uses the distinction to make a practical point about prophecy, but might not agree with my stronger application of his practical distinction.


References

[1] John Kenneth Stone, “Relationship between personality and spiritual gifts” (Ph.D. diss., Andrews University, 1991), 2. More specifically, “Post hoc findings suggest that personality factors accounted for about 50% of the error variance”, iv.

[2] Tim Challies, “Spiritual Gift Assessments and The Bible” Challies.com Blog, 25 January 2005, http://www.challies.com/archives/000754.php (24 October 2005)

[3] Ibid.

[4] Roy M. Oswald and Otto Kroeger, Personality Type and Religious Leadership (Washington, D.C.: Alban Institute, 1988), 49.

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Friday, February 16, 2007

Layered-Category View of Spiritual Gifts

The following alternative to the three-list view of spiritual gifts would clarify many difficulties, but has its problems as well. Instead of strict divisions, the three lists could be overlapping aspects of the same phenomena. Like the Trinity, they should always occur together: Gift, service, and manifestation―in that order. We have a gift, we engage in service using that gift, and the Holy Spirit manifests His presence through that gift according to the service we are engaged in.

1.) Romans is a list of the actual gifts.
2.) Ephesians then lists the people with gifts as they become gifts to each other in service.
3.) I Corinthians then lists the manifestation of the Holy Spirit which is peculiar to the gift and to the service in which the gift is engaged.

Key verses : “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6).

If we view each of the three passages as three layers of one truth it will help explain the paradox. First that there are elements in each passage which are difficult to harmonize with the other two, and second that there are aspects of each passage which clearly tie them all together as speaking of the same phenomena. The three-layer view is a unified picture: The fluid and adaptable manner in which the Holy Spirit works through the fixed structure of the Body of Christ.

Each list focuses on one aspect of the whole. In Romans 12 we have the actual gifts which by implication become engaged in service giving the context for the Spirit to show His presence. In Ephesians 4 we have not gifts but gifted men, given to serve the church, usually as part of a local body. Then in I Corinthians 12 the manifestations or results are listed, and the gifts and service must be inferred. This perspective could give meaning to the odd terminology used in the “word of wisdom” and “word of knowledge.” The gifts of knowledge and wisdom lie behind them and when engaged in service give rise to the “utterance” or “word” of knowledge or wisdom manifested by the Spirit.

An analogy would be that each of the three gift passages is a lens. Each lens is incomplete in itself, so that we must layer the lenses, one on top of another, and view the Body of Christ through all three at the same time to have a proper focus. This will not only bring the Body of Christ into perspective, though, but will bring each individual gift passage into perspective. We can then see that there are missing aspects of each passage that can only be seen through the lens of the other two. The following two charts show the different conceptual framework of each spiritual gifts passage. The next three charts show the new perspective we can gain on each passage in relation to the whole picture.


Alternative Chart 1

Alternative Chart  2


Romans



Passage: Romans 12: 4-6

Focus: God the Father

Introduction to the List: “We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.” (Romans 12:6a, NRSV)

What the list consists of: Gifts / charismata

Action: Gifts are given to us

Distinctive aspects of the list: 1.) This is the only list where we are exhorted to “use” what is listed. 2.) All of the gifts except mercy are easily rendered into titles, i.e. giving : giver; leadership : leader; encouragement : encourager.


Alternative Romans Chart


Romans 12: 6-8 is a list of gifts. It is in fact our only list of gifts. There are no leaders or teachers, per se, only the things (gifts) that make people leaders or teachers. What is listed here are abilities—potentials that must be put to use, as Paul urges after each one. These gifts are the first stage in a triad that mirrors the trinity. The gifts can exist without the other two parts of the triad, but that is to waste their potential and their purpose.


Ephesians



Passage: Ephesians 4:7-16

Focus on: Jesus Christ (God the Son)

Intro to the list: “Therefore it is said, ‘When He ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.’” (Eph. 4:8, NRSV)

What the list consists of: Gifted people / domata

Action: People with gifts are given to each other to serve as part of a local body of believers

Distinctive Aspects of the List: 1.) This is the only list, with the exception of the supplemental lists of I Corinthians 12:28-29, which gives titles for gifted people. 2.) This is the only list completely lacking the term “charismata.”


Alternative Ephesians Chart


Ephesians 4:7-9 is a list of five titles. The gifts (charismata) are not listed here although we can infer that gifts lie behind the titles. We know from Romans 12 that prophecy and teaching are gifts, so the prophets and teachers from Ephesians 4 should have the matching gifts. This logic also tells us that the evangelists and pastors should also have gifts behind their titles. So while evangelism and pastoring are nowhere named as gifts, we can safely assume that the gifts do exist behind the titles of evangelist and pastor.


I Corinthians



Passage: I Corinthians 12: 1-31

Focus: Holy Spirit

Introduction to the list: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (I Cor. 12:7, NRSV)

What the list consists of: Manifestations of the Spirit / phanerosis

Action: The Holy Spirit manifests Himself through us according to our position in the Body of Christ.

Distinctive aspects of the list: 1.) The gifts which are “miraculous by definition” are listed only here. 2.) This is the only list containing double plurals: The four miraculous gifts plus “discernments of spirits.” 3.) The term “manifestation” or phanerosis in the Greek occurs in no other gift passage.


Alternative I Corinthians Chart


I Corinthians 12:4-6 contains a list of manifestations, the results of gifts yielded in service. This is the part the Corinthians struggled with, not the actual gifts (I Cor. 1:7). Paul told them “You come behind in no gift,” but they were not using those gifts to serve one another in the Spirit. The manifestation is the third part of the triad and can only occur when the other two parts are yielded in love through service.

The analysis so far suggests a picture of the Corinthian problem[1]. They may not have been exalting gifts at all, but manifestations, especially manifestations which are “miraculous by definition,” i.e. tongues, miracles, and healing. These would produce “awe and wonder” in the people witnessing them and would likely raise the status of the person acting as a channel for the manifestation. Pride, as noted by many commentators, might have been the central issue for these Corinthians, and Paul responded by pointing out that even the “ordinary” gifts produce manifestations which are just as vital to the health of the body as the supernatural manifestations.

This perspective would imply that the five “ordinary” gifts in I Cor. 8-12 were not considered miraculous or, for the most part, revelational in character, even in the early church. This would include faith, discernment, knowledge, wisdom, and prophecy. It may be that these gifts took on a supernatural character in the minds of many by their association with the more obviously miraculous gifts.


The List from I Corinthian 12: 28-30

The list of gifts found at the end of I Cor.12 seems to be a composite of the other three, including gifts, gifted people, and manifestations. This section may just be a summary of the whole picture of spiritual gifts, services, and manifestations; but it may also provide exegetical difficulties for the layered-category concept.

Reflections

• Each list is introduced by a correct label for the contents of the list; I Corinthians : manifestations (phanerosis); Ephesians : gifts (domata); Romans : grace-gifts (charismata). In other words, Paul uses basic rules of grammar in these passages by telling us what he is about to include in the list to follow.
• Every title (Ephesians) and every manifestation (I Corinthians) has a gift behind it. Therefore, all three lists, plus I Cor. 12:28, can be used to create a final gift list.

Footnotes

[1] So many ideas have been offered as to what the Corinthian “problem” was, that it may strike others as presumptuous to offer a new one built on a highly speculative idea. This may be so, but the idea is not entirely new—it is a derivative of a couple of ideas already in circulation, and one that seems to explain the evidence fairly well, given that the premise (layered-category view) is true.

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Categorizing Spiritual Gifts

Systems of categorizing gifts are prolific. One researcher lists 12 different methods and notes that even when the categories are similar, different authors have not agreed on which gifts to include in each category[1]. Following are typical examples of gift classification.

Ebbie Smith[2]

Ebbie Smith chart


Leslie Flynn[3]

Leslie Flynn Chart

James W. Zackrison[4]

James Zackrison chart


Useful vs. Fundamental Categories


Useful Categories
Most categories of the sort listed above could be considered “useful” categories, and they are designed to aid in understanding the gifts[5], not to create hard divisions. Principles and rules in scripture that apply to one category will also apply to the others. Many of these authors would probably tell you that they are not implying anything inherent in the text, but are only creating categories to aid in the learning process.

Fundamental Categories
There is, however, a completely different type of classification used by both “charismatic” and “conservative” authors. These categories divide the gifts according to “fundamental” differences. “Fundamental” meaning that the rules, admonitions, analogies, and basic principles that apply to one category of gifts might not apply to the other categories at all. If the useful categories are “man’s categories”, then these fundamental divisions are an attempt to define “God’s categories,” or those that are inherently present in scripture. There are only two major methods of categorizing gifts into fundamental categories.

1. Miraculous / Non-Miraculous Categories[6]

a. Defining miraculous. The first step in creating a miraculous category is to define miraculous. Any gift can produce miraculous results with the Holy Spirit working through it, so we must be more specific. Instead of wading through the technical discussions on this topic, we can borrow a practical definition from theologian Wayne Grudem. Grudem’s common sense distinction of miraculous as “that which arouses awe and wonder[7]” is clear and to the point. Certain gifts clearly produce “awe and wonder” while others don’t. This is why searching for gifts such as healing and tongues in church history is much easier than searching for the gifts of service or mercy. The former produce awe and wonder, and reports of their use are therefore more likely to make their way into historical records. In fact, historical reports before 1850 of the less spectacular gifts may be virtually non-existent.

b. Distinguishing miraculous from non-miraculous gifts[8] . How can we distinguish the gifts that are always supernatural? Some gifts might have supernatural potential, but most gifts can be defined apart from any miraculous element. These gifts can be considered for comparison with personality types. Some disputed gifts are faith, prophecy, discernment, knowledge, and wisdom. Although many define these gifts as completely supernatural, many other writers define these gifts as typically natural. There is then a clear dividing line. Some gifts can be defined naturally and others cannot. The four gifts that cannot be defined naturally are inherently supernatural. These gifts are meaningless and incoherent[9] apart from an overtly miraculous nature, and cannot be exercised without producing “awe and wonder” in those who observe the gifts in use. These gifts fall under the distinction of “miraculous by definition.” The gifts that fall under this category are only detected by supernatural results and cannot be connected with personality types because the results do not derive from any known personality characteristics. This detachment from personality means that we have nothing recognizable in the natural world to attribute the results to, and so we infer a beyond natural or “supernatural” cause. This disconnect from the natural world of cause and effect and the inference of a supernatural source produces “awe and wonder” in observers.

Miracles. This gift may include several possibilities. It has been limited solely to exorcisms[10], has been attributed to raising the dead[11], or may be interpreted as any manifestation that is beyond the ordinary[12].
Healing. Every biblical example of healing is unmistakably supernatural.
Tongues. Both views of tongues, that of an unlearned language, and that of personal communication with God, are overtly supernatural.
Interpretation of tongues. This is the supernatural accompaniment to the gift of tongues, whereby a listener understands and interprets an unlearned language.


Each of these gifts[13] becomes meaningless when the miraculous is removed. This gives us one clear line of demarcation by which we can divide the gifts according to their nature.

Miraculous by def'n chart


2. Three-List View.

The second fundamental category view divides the three lists of Ephesians 4, Romans 12, and I Corinthians 12 into three categories which each contain very different kinds of gifts. The Romans list contains gifts that we possess, called “motivational” or “ministry” gifts. The Ephesian list contains “office gifts,” which are positions in the church which only some believers are called to fill, and the Corinthian list contains “manifestation” gifts, those we should be ready to “manifest” at any time. Perhaps 15 to 20 percent of the popular literature divides the gifts in this manner. Someone coming from this perspective would only search the list of Romans 12 to identify any gifts they might possess. The rest of the church would consider all three lists to be applicable to spiritual gifts discovery. Discussions between these two sides can be difficult because the vocabulary for each side is different, and the same word may mean something different to each. The following graphic is a visual summary of the three-list view.

Three List View


Of the views listed above, the three-list view is the most significant for the gift-type theory, and there are some legitimate reasons for not dismissing it too quickly.

Supporting Arguments for the Three-List View

1. Each of the three lists of gifts focuses on a different member of the Trinity.

(a.) Romans 12 looks to God the Father as the giver of gifts (Rom. 12:3).
(b.) In Ephesians 4 the focus is on Christ: “But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift” (Eph. 4:7, NRSV).
(c.) I Corinthians has a clear focus on the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 12: 7-11).

2. Each list carries a different tone in the types of gifts that are named:

(a.) Ephesians contains a list of five gifts which appear to be leadership oriented. Three of these gifts, apostle, prophet, and teacher, are the three mentioned in I Cor. 12:28 as the three that are most edifying to the church. The other two, pastor and evangelist, are known as prominent roles in the modern church, and were possibly so in the early church as well. To some commentators the “list in Ephesians 4 is exclusively concerned with gifts for ministry[14].”
(b.) I Corinthians contains a list of nine gifts which are clearly more supernatural than either the Romans or Ephesians list. Four of the nine were mentioned earlier as being “miraculous by definition: Miracles, healing, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. The other five have a more supernatural “feel” to them and are more often given a supernatural definition than the gifts in the other lists. Prophecy involved revelation at least some of the time. The fact that the gifts of knowledge and wisdom are literally written “word of knowledge” and “word of wisdom” invites speculation that both are characterized by direct revelation or a “word from God.” The gift of faith brings to mind the faith to move mountains or produce miracles, and discernment of spirits could imply beyond natural insight into the spirit realm.
(c.) The Romans list contains gifts which, except for prophecy, are more ordinary than the other two lists, and even with the gift of prophecy the revelatory aspect was not a necessary element in every instance.

3. I Corinthians 12:4-6 gives a break down of the whole subject of gifts that is strikingly similar to that of the three-list view. “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all” (NKJV). This division would match the gifts to Romans 12, the ministries to Ephesians 4, and the activities to I Corinthians 12.

Arguments against the Three-List View

1. The gift of prophecy occurs in all three lists implying that we must differentiate three different prophecy gifts for the three list view to be consistent. If, on the other hand, there is only one prophecy gift, then it ties all three lists together as referring to one type of gifting.
2. In I Corinthians 12: 28-29 Paul lists gifts and gifted people together as part of the Body of Christ.
3. The Body of Christ is the central theme of each passage with our gifts representing our role in the body (Rom. 12: 4-6; I Cor. 12: 12-30; Eph. 4: 4-16). In the body metaphor, every part has a fixed position. This is inconsistent with a transitory or manifestational view of the I Corinthian gifts. Even the office view of the Ephesians gifts does not convey the same sense of permanancy that comes across in the body analogy.

There is some weight to both the arguments for and against the three-list view, but it would seem that both sides cannot be correct. Is it possible, though, that both explanations hold truth and that a resolution could be found at another level? The following proposal (layered-category view) is one attempt to solve the dilemma.

References

[1] Kenneth John Stone, “Relationship Between Personality and Spiritual Gifts”, PsyD. Diss., (George Fox College: University Microfilms International, 1991), 22.

[2] Ebbie Smith, Member’s booklet: Discovering Your Spiritual Gifts (The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention: 1981)

[3] Leslie Flynn, 19 Gifts of the Spirit (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1994), 39.

[4] James W. Zackrison, Practical Spiritual Gifts (Boise, ID: Pacific Press Publishing, 1996), 56-108.

[5] Cf. Commission on Theology and Church Relations of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Spiritual Gifts (St. Louis: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, 1995), 12.

[6] Often a set of categories that are generally “useful” will have a separate category for the miraculous gifts as Flynn does above.

[7] Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2000), 109.

[8] This distinction was apparently made by the Puritans, who according to James Gorden King, Jr. “tried to distinguish between gifts which were characteristically supernatural and those which were not.” From “An Examination of Prevailing Beliefs Regarding Gift of the Spirit Immediately Preceding the 20th Century Pentecostal Revival,” a conference paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies at Fuller Seminary, Nov. 18-20, 1982, 6. King, however, provides no specific references.

[9] There have been attempts to define every gift naturally: Healing as psychological healing; miracles as seeing the miraculous in everday life; but these definitions are not taken seriously by most scholars.

[10] John MacArthur, Jr., Charismatic Chaos (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 245-246.

[11] Harley H. Schmitt, Many Gifts One Lord (Fairfax, VA: Xulon Press, 2002), 106.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Leslie Flynn comes to the same division of gifts from another perspective. He notes that the gifts of miracles, healing, and tongues, do not have commands associated with them as do most of the other gifts, 41.

[14] Donald Bridge and David Phypers. Spiritual Gifts and the Church (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1974), 46.



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Thursday, February 15, 2007

The Nature of Spiritual Gifts

Determining the nature of a spiritual gift is a very practical matter. It helps us determine what to look for so that we can identify the gift. If two people disagree on the nature of a gift, then they will not identify that particular gift in the same people and the process of learning more about the gift will be curtailed. There are really only two natures a gift can have. One is a manifestation that passes through us; the other is an ability that we possess. Intermediate positions have been attempted but are difficult to defend[1].

Ability-Manifestation 4


There is a very rough correlation of the manifestation view with the charismatic movement, and of the ability view with non-charismatics, or conservatives, but there are very few authorities in either camp who believe that all of the gifts belong to one category or the other; most assign (at least implicitly) some gifts to the manifestation category and some to the ability category, and both groups now are so diversified that there is often more overlap than difference between charismatic and conservative authors, with many in both groups agreeing in substance and only disagreeing in area of focus.
The decision of how to group gifts according to category generally falls into four patterns. The following chart represents the continuum of opinion from "all gifts are manifestations" to "all gifts are permanent abilities" with the two intermediate positions in the middle.

Opinions on Nature of Gifts 4


Four positions on the nature of gifts


All gifts are temporary manifestations

•Charismatic: The most quoted source for this position is James D. G. Dunn[2] from the charismatic position. He believed that none of the gifts are possessed by believers and that all of the gifts are expressed as events in time. Gifts cannot be used but only manifested as the Holy Spirit chooses. This would appear to be the default position of some early charismatic authors, but few explicitly applied the category to the gifts of Romans 12 and Ephesians 4[3].
•Conservative: While this is an uncommon position for conservatives, it can be found in the work of cessationist[4] Richard Gaffin:
Probably the most important and certainly the most difficult lesson for us to learn is that ultimately spiritual gifts are not our presumed strengths and abilities, not something that we “have” (or even have been given), but what God does through us in spite of ourselves and our weakness.[5]

Three-List view

The three-list view defines each of the three major gift lists as containing completely different types of gifts. The list in I Corinthians is of manifestation gifts, the Romans list of ability gifts, and the Ephesians list contains office gifts. This position has enough evidence for it that it should not be quickly dismissed, but the pros and cons will be examined in more detail in the next section. It is held by many in the charismatic community and by a few conservatives.
•Charismatic: For the charismatic David Ireland, the focus of his book Activating the Gifts of the Holy Spirit is on the nine gifts of I Corinthians 12:8-10, while the “motivational gifts” of Romans 12 and the “ministry gifts” of Ephesians 4 get only a brief mention.
•Conservative: From the conservative side, Charles Stanley’s Ministering through Spiritual Gifts, and Don and Katie Fortune’s Your God Given Gifts both focus almost entirely on the seven gifts of Romans 12, while only mentioning that the gifts of I Corinthians and Ephesians belong to other categories. One author who treats the 3-category position in a more even-handed manner, giving appropriate space to each category, is Harley Schmitt[6].

Most Gifts are Abilities

This position is not as easily defined as the others, and is seldom if ever stated as a position. It must be inferred from an author’s various descriptions and can be found among charismatics and conservatives. Typically, the obvious supernatural gifts such as healing and miracles are defined as manifestations, and most of the other gifts as abilities. A few gifts such as wisdom, faith, and discernment can fall into either category depending on the author.

All gifts are abilities

•Charismatic: Wagner takes this view from the charismatic side, believing that all of the gifts still exist as “lifetime possessions[7].”
•Conservative: MacArthur takes the conservative position that even the four miraculous gifts were abilities used “at will[8]” but no longer remain.

References


[1] David Lim identifies a continuum of four positions, favoring the view that “God makes full use of the vessel—his mind, thoughts, background, and current situation. The vessel himself is part of that message, thus his life and way of sharing the gifts are vital parts of what builds up others.” Spiritual Gifts: A Fresh Look (Springfield: Gospel Publishing House, 1991), 50. This is an insightful attempt at a moderate view, but it is difficult to maintain. Any positions other than “gifts equal abilities” turn out to be variations on the “gifts equal manifestations” theme. The believer’s attributes are not necessary for the gift to occur, but the manifestation is. From this perspective, the manifestation is always the defining aspect of the gift and any contribution from the believer is supplemental. See also, a similar argument by Charles Hummel, who believes that while some gifts make use of natural ability and others do not, none are “personal possessions.” Fire in the Fireplace (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1993), 88-91.

[2] James Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (London: SCM Press, 1975), p. 209, 221. Dunn’s works carry considerable weight among scholars, especially in the charismatic community, but this particular position is routinely refuted, e.g. D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1987), 21-22; Max Turner, The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 262-275. Turner attributes the source of this position to F. Grau, ‘Der Neutestamentliche Begriff “Χάρισμα”’ (Tübingen: unpublished PhD dissertation, 1946).

[3] In 1970, Frederick D. Bruner could write, “The gifts listed, for example, in Eph. 4:7-11 and Rom. 12:6-8 receive, it would be fair to say, little attention in Pentecostal literature.” A Theology of the Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience and the New Testament Witness (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1970), 131. See also Kinghorn, 18.

[4] Total cessationists are rare. The term is virtually always a reference to someone’s position on the more spectacular gifts.

[5] Richard Gaffin, Perspectives on Pentecost (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1979), 53-54. Gaffin represents the cessationist position in the debate book Are Miraculous Gifts for Today?

[6] Harley Schmitt, Many Gifts One Lord (Fairfax, VA: Xulon Press, 2002).

[7] C. Peter Wagner, Discover Your Spiritual Gifts (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2002), 33.

[8] John MacArthur, Jr., Charismatic Chaos (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 263.


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The Consequences of our Spiritual Gifts Theology

Most people approaching the subject of spiritual gifts genuinely desire to use what they learn to better focus their service to the church. They want to contribute to their local group of believers in the best way possible, which they surmise, is through their gift(s). Their first glimpse into the literature on spiritual gifts, however, may be one of confusion where every expert is contradicted by another and no aspect of the doctrine is without dispute. The major result of this confusion is the implicit belief that spiritual gifts are unknowable except in a vague, oblique manner. The Holy Spirit moves as He will and cannot be pinned down on any question regarding the gifts, including how many gifts there are, how many a person can have, and are any of Paul’s terms simply two words for the same gift?

The consequences for this lack of clarity may not be apparent, but we do have a model for comparison regarding consistency of viewpoint: The psychological type community. Within the circles of those who teach or just study MBTI types, there has been a consistent view about how many personality types exist and the basic definition of each one. The results of this have been profound in two areas. First, it has led to a sustained enthusiasm for the topic and its applications. Second, there has been a progressive understanding of the personality types over time, as authors build incrementally on the work and insights of others.

Sustained Enthusiasm

Personality type enthusiasts are common enough to have generated the very term “type enthusiast.” Spiritual gift enthusiasts are fairly rare. This is unfortunate because we would expect the very idea that we’re all gifted to bring about a passion for the subject. There is an initial excitement when the subject of spiritual gifts is introduced to a congregation, but rarely will we find the same people discussing the topic a year later. This enthusiasm is dampened mostly because we seldom identify clearly defined gifts. It’s not that they don’t exist, but preconceived ideas cloud our perception. The largest culprit in this case is the belief that most of us have two or three gifts, often called a “gift-mix.”

For example, if we look at a person with a single gift, encouragement, believing she has both the gifts of encouragement and mercy[1], we will falsely identify some of her behavior as arising from the gift of mercy, which will cloud our perception of both encouragement and mercy. With the gift of encouragement we will limit our understanding of it by explaining away some of the gifts empathic abilities to the gift of mercy. With the gift of mercy we will skew our understanding by falsely attributing behavior to it which does not actually arise from the gift of mercy. This error will make it more difficult then to correctly identify the gift of mercy in the future, because we will likely be looking for traits that we saw in the encourager[2]. This also makes it more likely that we will identify someone with the gift of mercy as having other gifts in addition to mercy in order to explain the new behavior that we had not previously associated with mercy, further confusing the picture. We find this creeping vagueness of perception as one foggy observation of a gift leads to another.

The very enthusiasm generated around the MBTI, by contrast, suggests that the sixteen types actually exist, not fourteen or twenty or some other number. If the theory did not match the reality, the observed evidence would have to be distorted to match the theory and much of the enthusiasm for the MBTI would wane as it has for most other typing systems. The MBTI, then, provides a view of what happens when we look for clearly defined types that actually exist. The observer looks at those around him as if each person has a specific personality type. He may not know that type immediately, but believes that behind the observed behavior there is a type which holds a great deal of explanatory power regarding the behavior. If the observer has a fellow type enthusiast to compare notes with the process of type identification is greatly accelerated.

Progressive Understanding over Time

Each time a person’s type is discovered there is an “aha, that makes sense” moment, with even mistakes in identification providing fuel for later understanding. The process leads to a cycle of increasing clarity that type-watchers understand well: The theory sharpens our observations, and our observations confirm and increase our understanding of the theory. As we understand the theory better, we sharpen our observations even further. This progressive understanding of personality types displayed in individuals is seen to an even greater degree in the community as a whole as the leading authors in the field build on the works of others to see ever-deeper levels of structure in the personality types.

The study on spiritual gifts has progressed much slower than its secular cousin. The work of Peter Wagner from 1979 provides definitions of spiritual gifts that are borrowed often but seldom improved. In contrast, the work of David Keirsey on the sixteen types, also from 1979, while still a favorite of many, has provided a springboard for others in the field to provide more refined and comprehensive portraits of the various personalities. Lenore Thompson’s descriptions of the functions expand the portraits by showing major distinctions in the introverted and extroverted versions of each function. A sensing function that is focused inward (Si), as in the ISTJ or ESTJ, has profound differences from a sensing function that is focused outward (Se), as with the ISTP or ESTP. Another extension of the theory comes from Jonathan Niednagle and his understanding of the body mechanics of each type and its application to sports.

These major advancements in our understanding have no parallel in the study of spiritual gifts. Two reasons were discussed in the last section also apply here: A lack of sustained enthusiasm and a lack of clear definitions for the gifts. A third reason is our narrow application of the gifts to our lives as a whole. We tend to limit our knowledge of spiritual gifts to what we see in the moral and spiritual realms[3]. With personality types there are no such limitations. Our choice of careers, hobbies, marriage partners, and just about everything else we do is seen as impacted by if not primarily explained by our personality type. With the amount of raw material considered applicable to our insight of personality types, it is not surprising that the field of study would progress much faster than its religious counterpart.

References

[1] Mercy is especially susceptible to being claimed as a “second” or “third” gift by any of the feeling types, who often see their own empathy, or ability to identify with others, as a form of mercy. It is also, along with discernment, an introverted feeling gift, and these two gifts are less likely than others to assertively stake out and define a social territory, leaving the ground open to claims by those who may be sincere but don’t actually have the gifts.

[2] It is possible and understandable to associate mercy primarily with extraverted feeling, the dominant function of the ENFJ and ESFJ and the secondary function of the INFJ and ISFJ, and thus entirely overlook the quiet kindness of the ISFP whose feeling function is focused inward and is more difficult to see.

[3] An exception to the rule is Lloyd Edwards who recognizes that our gifts affect everything we do, Discerning Your Spiritual Gifts (Boston: Cowley Publications, 1988), 5, 12.

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