Nine Gifts for the Church
By McCandlish Phillips
“Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant.” –Paul to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 12:1)
- “To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom.
- “To another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit.
- “To another faith by the same Spirit.
- “To another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit.
- “To another the working of miracles.
- “To another discerning of spirits.
- “To another various kinds of tongues.
- “To another the interpretation of tongues.
- “To another prophecy.”
- The gift of tongues
- Interpretation of tongues
- The gift of prophecy
- The word of knowledge
- The word of wisdom
- The discerning of spirits
- The gift of faith
- The gifts of healing
- The working of miracles
The Revelation Gifts
They are called revelation gifts because they function by revelation received from God.
1. The gift of the word of knowledge
Note that this is not identified as the gift of knowledge but rather as the gift of the word of knowledge. A Christian may have a great deal of knowledge and yet never exercise the gift of the word of knowledge. Conversely, it is possible for a relatively ignorant Christian to bring forth the word of knowledge by the exercise of this gift.
It is vital at the very outset to understand that this gift has nothing whatever to do with human knowledge or acquired knowledge. It falls into an entirely different category – that of revealed knowledge.
The gift of the word of knowledge is “the God-given ability to receive from God by revelation the facts concerning something, anything, about which it is humanly impossible for you to know anything at all.”
This gift is very often linked with the next gift, the gift of the word of wisdom.
2. The gift of the word of wisdom
Again note that this is not the gift of wisdom. It is the gift of the word of wisdom. This gift has nothing to do with human wisdom. It stands entirely apart from insight, capacity, shrewdness of judgment or acquired wisdom. It is revealed wisdom.
The gift of the word of wisdom is “the God-given ability to receive from God a revelation of what to do about a situation, any situation, once you know the facts of it.” By the exercise of this gift believers are enabled to know how to proceed in meeting some difficult or urgent or perplexing situation.
One of the clearest Biblical examples of the use and exercise of the gift of the word of knowledge and the gift of the word of wisdom occurs in genesis chapter 41.
You recall that Joseph was sold by his brothers to a caravan of merchantmen who carried him off to Egypt where, at length, he was put into prison.
“And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed, and, behold, he stood by the river.” (Genesis 41:1). Pharaoh saw seven fat cows by the river and then he saw seven sickly and lean cows. He also saw seven ears of good thick corn and then seven thin ears. “And the seven thin ears devoured the seven good and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke.” (Genesis 41:7).
The ruler was troubled in spirit over what he had seen and he summoned “all the wise men” of Egypt and told them the dream, “but there was none that could interpret them to Pharaoh.”
The Pharaoh’s chief butler came forward and told him of a young Hebrew, named Joseph, who was in prison, suggesting that he would be able to solve the riddle of the dream.
Verse 14 says, “Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon, and he shaved himself, and changed his clothes, and came before Pharaoh.” The ruler said that he hoped Joseph could interpret the dream.
“And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, ‘It is not in me.’” Here Joseph, unlike the wise men of Egypt, did not search his own understanding or wisdom for an answer. “God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace,” he told Pharaoh.
Pharaoh then told Joseph his dream. He spoke of the cows and of the ears of corn.
“And Joseph said to Pharaoh, The dream is one. God has showed Pharaoh what he is about to do.” (Genesis 41:25).
At this point, Joseph exercised the gift of the word of knowledge, by which he told Pharaoh exactly what the cows and ears of corn signified. It is vital to understand that Joseph did not bring this information out of his mind – “It is not in me” – but he spoke forth a word of knowledge by immediate revelation:
“The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good ears are seven years,” Joseph said. “The dream is one. The seven sickly cows that came up after them are seven years. The seven thin ears blasted by the east wind shall be seven years of famine…. Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt, and there shall arise after them seven years of grievous famine, and the plenty shall not be known in the land because of the famine following. Since the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice, it is because the matter is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.”
With that, Joseph finished delivering the word of knowledge. But he went on immediately into the gift of the word of wisdom, by which he told Pharaoh exactly what to do to avert disaster. See verses 33 through 36 as an example of the gift of the word of wisdom.
It is wonderful to read the declaration by Pharaoh in verse 38: “Pharaoh said to his servants, Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom the spirit of God is?”
That is exactly the case. Joseph well said, “It is not in me,” but he brought forth the whole matter with clarity and with authority, by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, through the exercise of the gifts of the word of knowledge and of the word of wisdom.
The Holy Spirit is poured out on various Christians in varying measures, but the Bible tells us that God did not pour out His Spirit by measure upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Rather, in Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. The ministry of Jesus is filled with striking examples of the exercise of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, for it is by these gifts that Jesus ministered. Because the same Holy Spirit was to be poured out on believers, Jesus could say, “The things that I do you shall do also, and greater things.”
In Matthew 17:24 through 27, Peter had told some taxpayers that Jesus would pay taxes. Jesus mildly reproved Peter for this, but he said: “Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, you go to the sea, and cast a hook in, and seize the fish that comes up first, and when you have opened his mouth, you will find a piece of money in it. Take that and give it to them for both of us.”
This is the gift of the word of knowledge: “The God-given ability to receive from God by revelation the facts concerning something about which it is humanly impossible for you to know anything at all.”
In his conversation with the woman at the well – John 4:10-18 – Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband.”
Here he spoke not from his mind but by revelation through the use of the gift of the word of knowledge. In Acts 5:3, when Ananias brought an offering to the church and represented it as being the whole price of some land he had sold, the Apostle Peter immediately asked, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land??
Peter spoke by revelation, exercising the gift of the word of knowledge.
When the gifts of the Holy Spirit are exercised in a Christian church and an unbeliever comes in “the secrets of his heart are made manifest, and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.” (1 Corinthians 14:24,25). This is surely a very desirable condition for the church to be in, but some, accustomed to the dead ways of the modern church, would call it extreme, or disorderly, if it happened in that way.
3. The gift of the discerning of spirits
It is important to note that this is not called the gift of discernment. There is no such gift. Discernment is astuteness of judgment or insight. But the gift of the discerning of spirits is quite a different matter.
The gift of the discerning of spirits is “the God-given ability to detect the presence and ascertain the identity of spirits,” e.g., evil spirits.
The casting out of evil spirits, though it is related to this gift, is an exercise of authority and power in the name of Jesus Christ, by which evil spirits are commended to leave a person.
It is puerile to argue whether or not there are such things as evil spirits. Jesus said there were. The Bible record is full of cases showing the activity of evil spirits. It speaks of unclean spirits, dumb spirits, spirits of infirmity that bind human beings, deceiving spirits, spirits of fear, jealousy, depression and so on.
Jesus did not deal with such spirits as conditions but as intelligent beings.
Mark 5:1-13 shows Jesus’ attitude toward unclean spirits: He came upon a man who lived among the tombs and was “always crying out and bruising himself with stones.” The man had more than merely human strength, and that is a characteristic of demon-possessed people. (See Acts 19:16 for a case in which one possessed individual subdued seven men).
Jesus fixed His gaze on the man in the tombs and said, “Come out of this man, you unclean spirit!”
It is critically important to note that Jesus did not address the man. He went beyond the man and directly addressed the unclean spirit.
The man cried out, “What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure you by God that you torment me not.”
Again Jesus did not speak to the man, but he went beyond the man. “What is your name?” Jesus said, addressing the unclean spirit in the man.
He answered, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”
Verse 12 makes it clear that it was not the possessed man who was addressing the Lord Jesus, but the unclean spirits in the man: “And all the devils besought him, saying, ‘Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.’
Verse 13: “And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine, and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea (there were about 2,000) and drowned.”
When the real demons, though unseen to the natural eye, entered the herd of pigs, the man was perfectly sane and rational, but the pigs became self-destructive, as the man had been. Real demons had gone out of a real man and entered real pigs, and when they left the man and entered the pigs, their activity was transferred from the man to the pigs. There could be no more graphic illustration of the reality of demons and of the effect of demon possession.
In 1 John 4, Christians are warned: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come; and even now already it is in the world.”
A spirit that is not of God is a false spirit or an unclean spirit, evil spirit, demon or devil. Missionaries to lands such as China and India have brought back accounts to America of the activity of demonic spirits in those lands and of casting such spirits out of some individuals in the name of Jesus Christ.
Until relatively recently, this nation has seemed to be blessedly free of many of the worst effects of such evil spirits. But that is no longer so! There is now a veritable flood of evil spirits upon this nation. The effects of this invasion may be seen in rising rebellion, in the grotesque and unnatural behavior of such as the hippies, in the sudden and marked incursion of the mysticism of the East (gurus, swamis, etc.) into this land, and in many other things.
If the church has been able to do without the gift of the discerning of spirits heretofore, that is no longer the case. Spiritism, spiritualism, avowed witchcraft and the public pronouncements of false prophets (Bishop Pike and various famous women, false prophets) are all now loosed upon our culture and are freely and lavishly reported by newspapers and magazines. The psychedelic movement is primarily a manifestation of the increased activity of unclean spirits in North America. In such a time as this we need all the armor, as well as all the weaponry of God, for our warfare. The Bible tells us that we “do not wrestle against flesh and blood (human beings)…but against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” This is a supernatural warfare and it requires supernatural weapons. We are reminded in 2 Corinthians 10 that “the weapons of our warfare are not natural….”
The Power Gifts
They are called power gifts because they show forth the transcendent power of God. They are also properly called Impartation Gifts because those who exercise these gifts impart something to others.
1. The gift of faith
This gift should not be confused with the faith by which Christians live in their daily walk with God. The Bible says “the just shall live by faith,” but that is not the special gift of faith named here.
Nor should the gift of faith be confused with any other usual exercise of faith toward God by believers.
The gift of faith is a special impartation of faith by God to a man so that a man may believe for the evidently impossible to come to pass. The man exercising the gift of faith may also be able to impart that faith to others. By the gift of faith it is also possible for the evidently impossible to occur at the word of the one exercising the gift.
In the battle with the Amorites, Joshua said: “Sun, stand thou still at Gibeon and thou Moon in the valley of Aijalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon styed” at the word of Joshua.
The ministry of Jesus has many instances in which He exercised the gift of faith. Elijah exercised the gift of faith when he challenged the false prophets to a showdown on Mount Carmel and prayed “the fire of the Lord” down from heaven upon the altar. 1 Kings 18:17-40.
2. The gift of healing
The gift of healing is the “God-given ability to impart the healing virtue of Jesus Christ to others” – to the afflicted. Each healing thus imparted would seem to be the result of a new gift of healing, and that perhaps explains the plural term “the gifts of healing.”
Any gift of the Holy Spirit is:
- Imparted by God
- Through the Holy Spirit
- To the believer
- For the church or for other believers.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are social in their effect. They are not given to the believer for his own benefit, but they are given to the believer so that he may exercise them for the benefit of the church and its members. Smith Wigglesworth, a renowned evangelist, was greatly used of God to exercise the gifts of healing for numbers of seriously afflicted people. There was one period during his long ministry when he was painfully afflicted, and though he was used of God to heal many others in this period, he could not heal himself. Thus it became true of him that “he healed others; himself he cannot heal.” The only gift of the Holy Spirit that is not primarily social, but individual, is the gift of tongues. It benefits the person receiving the gift by building him up in the inward man.
3. The gift of the working of miracles
The gift of the working of miracles is “the God-given ability to bring to pass, to perform, acts that are contrary to, or that go beyond the realm, of the laws of nature.”
Examples:
- Moses turning the rod into a serpent. Exodus 4:4.
- Elisha causing the axe-head to float. 2 Kings 6:6.
- Jesus feeding 5,000 with five loaves and two fish. John 6:9-12.
- Raising Jairus’s daughter from the dead. Luke 8:54
Jesus referred to the casting out of a devil from a person as a miracle or as a “mighty work.” Mark 9:39. It would be proper therefore to say that the determining of the presence of a demon is the exercise of the gift of the discerning of spirits, while the casting out of a demon is a miracle.
The Utterance Gifts
They are called utterance gifts because their mode of operation is by utterance.
1. The gift of prophecy
The gift of prophecy is “the God-given ability to speak forth in your own language a message from God” to the church (or possibly to an individual).
Prophecy is not pre-meditated. It is spoken forth as it is given. The speaker does not know the message until it is all spoken out, any more than the hearers do. The prophecy is just as much news to the speaker as to the hearers.
It is a fatal confusion to equate the gift of prophecy with the act of preaching, for it is not the same thing. Preaching is the act of publicly discoursing on the Scriptures, showing forth their meaning to the congregation. Much of preaching may be pre-meditated, may be the result of careful study and preparation. But prophecy is the giving forth, by inspiration, a message straight from God, received as you are giving it forth. True prophecy serves to edify, exhort or to comfort the church. 1 Corinthians 14:3.
But though a prophecy comes by momentary inspiration and is received as it is given forth, the act of speaking the prophecy aloud is always under the control of the prophet. The Bible says that “the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet.” 1 Corinthians 14:31. The act of inspired prophetic speaking by momentary inspiration is not any kind of a seizure, nor is it any kind of an involuntary speaking out.
In most cases, the Holy Spirit places within the consciousness of an individual a word or a couple of words or a phrase – a fragment of the message that is to be spoken forth. It is important that these words be spoken, but it is not necessary that they be spoken immediately. The individual may wait for the appropriate time – a few minutes, perhaps half an hour or more.
At the opportune moment, the person must speak out by faith, starting with the word or phrase the Holy Spirit has planted in him and then continue speaking the message as it is given until it is finished. A prophecy is not in being until it is uttered. It is important that the speaker not run on beyond the words given by inspiration, adding words of his own.
A Lutheran minister told me: “Prophecy comes something like a container of paper cups. You only see one paper cup, but as you take that one, another comes, and another and another, until the supply is exhausted. You may only have a word or two of your prophecy, but as you speak it out the others will come until the prophecy is over.”
Prophecy can be a great blessing in a congregation; by it, the Lord speaks an immediate and pertinent word to His people. It is fresh and compelling. It may, or may not, foretell future events, but it will edify or comfort or exhort the people.
But prophecy is not to be accepted without reasonable inspection. The Bible says that prophecy is to be judged. In 1 Corinthians 14:29, Paul writes: “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.” If the content of a prophecy at any point departs from, or contradicts, the Scriptures, it is to be rejected.
In its attitude toward inspired utterance today, the church lamentably tends to disobey the Scripture injunction that directs us to “Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings.” If prophecy were not a very good thing, Paul would not tell us to “earnestly desire to prophesy.” If it were not an excellent gift for the church in its public worship meetings, Paul would not say to “Let two or three prophets speak.”
Prophecy is a message from God to the people. It comes not by the will of man. “Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” 2 Peter 1:21.
“The Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded,” the Bible says in 2 Chronicles 15:1, and Azariah spoke forth a prophecy to Asa and to “all Judah and Benjamin” – very much to edification, exhortation and comfort. Verse 8 shows the immediate and beneficial result of the prophecy.
It is interesting to note, in Acts 21:8,9 that the evangelist Philip had four unmarried daughters “which did prophesy.” Acts 2:17 tells us that “In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy…. Yes, on my menservants and on my maidservants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and
THEY SHALL PROPHESY.”
In Acts 11:27-30 we read of a man named Agabus prophesying to the church and in Acts 21:10-13 we read of the same man prophesying to the Apostle Paul.
If we do not have prophecy in the church today, something major, and important, is missing in our public worship.
See John 11:51 for a very interesting instance of a prophecy by a Jewish high priest.
2. The gift of tongues
The gift of tongues is “the God-given ability to speak in” a number of other “tongues at will.”
This is the least understood of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and it is the one that the fleshly mind is most repelled by.
The person who speaks or prays in other tongues speaks in tongues, or languages, that he does not comprehend.
The carnal understanding likes to dismiss tongues as an emotional act. In sheer fact, it is not an emotional act; it is a spiritual act.
Speaking or praying in tongues edifies the individual who exercises this gift of the Holy Spirit: “He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.” 1 Corinthians 14:4.
This edification is not mental edification, it is the spiritual edification of the inner man. A person who prays or speaks in tongues does not mentally understand what he is speaking or praying.
“For if I speak in a tongue, MY SPIRIT PRAYS, but my understanding is unfruitful,” Paul writes in verse 14.
“For one who speaks in a tongue speaks NOT TO MEN, but to God. No one understands him, but HE UTTERS MYSTERIES IN THE SPIRIT.” Verse 2.
The act of speaking or praying in tongues is the volitional act of the speaker; he may speak or pray in tongues at will. The person who speaks in tongues is never seized or compelled to speak. Nor does speaking or praying in tongues have to be loud. It is just as useful for the speaker in tongues to speak quietly as out loud.
In speaking in tongues, starting, stopping, volume and pitch all remain in the control of the speaker. He may start when he sees fit, stop when he wishes, speak as quietly or as loudly as he desires to do.
The one thing that is not controlled by the speaker is the form of the words. The form of the words – the kind of language that is spoken – is given by the Holy Spirit.
This is perfectly revealed in the account of the day of Pentecost when, the Bible says, “THEY SPAKE” – that is, the individuals themselves spoke, making use of their own vocal apparatus to do so – “AS THE SPIRIT GAVE THEM UTTERANCE.”
The Bible does not say that the Holy Spirit spake. It says the men spake. But it says that, as they spoke, the Holy Spirit gave them the utterance – the form of the words, the syllables and accents of the language.
Anyone who expects God to come down and seize motor control of his speaking apparatus and speak through him does not understand the operation of this gift. He must speak, but as he does so, the Holy Spirit will provide the language. But the Holy Spirit will only provide the language if and as and when he speaks.
Speaking in tongues, therefore, is not any kind of a seizure whatever. It is an act, a volitional act, by which the individual exercises the God-given ability to speak in tongues, primarily in private devotions, but occasionally in public worship.
The ability to pray in another tongue that every believer receives when he is baptized in the Holy Spirit – an ability that remains in him from that time on, to be exercised at will – is not identical with the gift of tongues, which is the God-given ability to pray and speak in a variety of tongues. This is more rare.
Only those who have never spoken in tongues record it as an emotional act or exercise. They confuse the act with the effect upon the emotions. Those who pray in tongues know that it is possible to speak in tongues at some length, without it having any effect on the emotions at all. There are times when praying in a tongue leaves the emotions entirely untouched.
Some, knowing the account of the day of Pentecost, think that there ought to be somebody standing around who can understand the language being spoken in a tongue. If that were true, Paul could not have told us of the parallel gift of the interpretation of tongues. Speaking in tongues is out of place in public worship by itself; it is in place when it is accompanied by interpretation, because tongues plus interpretation equals prophecy.
Everything in a worship service must have as its aim and purpose to edify the church. Tongues without interpretation edifies only the speaker, so it is out of place. Tongues with interpretation edifies the church, so it is in place. “He who prophesies is greater than he who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be edified.” 1 Corinthians 14:5b.
But to take this chapter – as many unfortunately do – as a warrant to ban speaking in tongues is to commit the folly of casting the baby out with the bath water.
“I would that you all spake in tongues,” Paul writes. He would not say that if it were an undesirable thing.
Paul goes so far as to rejoice in the gift of tongues. “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all,” he writes. And he adds, “But in church, I would rather speak five words with my understanding, in order to teach others, than ten thousand words in a tongue.”
The trouble was not that the Corinthians spoke in tongues; it was that they spoke in tongues in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, in the right time at the right place – that is, in his private devotions – the Apostle Paul spoke in tongues more than all the Corinthian believers. As someone has said, Paul was so edified and built up in his inner man by his much praying in tongues to God that he became more mighty in word and deed than some Apostles. “I will pray with the Spirit and I will pray with the mind also,” Paul affirms. “I will sing with the spirit (in tongues) and I will sing with the mind also.” That is the right balance, the Scriptural balance. The Corinthians were overbalanced on one side; the modern church is just as badly overbalanced on the other side.
The Bible says, “FORBID NOT to speak in tongues.”
The very same Holy Spirit Who gives the gift of faith to one and the gifts of healing to another also gives “to another various kinds of tongues.” And Paul tells us that “God has appointed in the church…apostles, prophets,…teachers,…healers,…speakers in various kinds of tongues.” 1 Corinthians 12:27,28.
As a Lutheran minister wisely put it: “The cure for abuse is correct use, not disuse.”
3. The gift of the interpretation of tongues
The gift of the interpretation of tongues is “the God-given ability to bring forth, in your own language, the sum and substance of what has been spoken in another tongue.”
It is not the ability to understand what has been spoken in another tongue. It is not the gift of the “translation” of tongues. It is not even the gift of interpretation. There is no such gift. It is the gift of interpretation of tongues, and of tongues only. Just as in prophecy, the interpreter does not know what word he will utter next. The interpretation is given as he speaks.
The Bible says that “he who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret.” 1 Corinthians 14:13.
If a person who speaks in tongues does not have the power to interpret, and if no one else is present who is gifted by the Holy Spirit as an interpreter, the person who feels moved to speak in tongues is to speak inaudibly, or under his breath.
See 1 Corinthians 14:28. He is not told not to speak, you will notice, but to keep silence and to speak to himself and to God in tongues.
That is because speaking aloud, without interpretation, would not edify the church. But speaking inaudibly or under his breath in tongues will edify him. If an interpreter is present it is perfectly appropriate to speak aloud in tongues, to be followed by interpretation.
The baptism in the Holy Spirit is the gateway into the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Christians who have not received the baptism in the Holy Spirit by and large do not exercise the gifts of the Holy Spirit; those who have, quite often do. The baptism in the Holy Spirit equips and empowers a believer to minister the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the good of his fellow believers.
Some Christians fear to obey the Scriptures in the exercise of the gifts of the Holy Spirit because they have an ill-founded idea that they may receive something other than that which is of the Holy Spirit. But Jesus said:
“Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For what father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” Luke 11:9-12.