Among the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in 1 Cor. 12:4 – 11 are: word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, prophecy, discernment of spirits, prayer in tongues and its interpretation.
These are gifts in which the work of the Holy Spirit becomes visible. They serve for the benefit of the individual Christians and for the congregation. Everything is done by the Holy Spirit, who assigns them to individuals as He wills.
The Body of Christ is built in such a way that we all desperately need the complement of each other’s gifts and they need the complement of our gifts.
If the Holy Spirit wants to give us certain gifts, He is obviously convinced that we really need these gifts for healthy growth for ourselves and our churches. Who are we to think that we ourselves know better than the Holy Spirit Himself! Perhaps we live in the illusion that our knowledge of the Bible and psychology, together with our prayer, are completely sufficient. We are in open contradiction to the biblical instruction to strive diligently for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially prophecy. (1 Cor. 14:1)
It is widely believed that the cessation of spiritual gifts after the 2nd century can be explained by the fact that we now possess the complete New Testament and therefore no longer need the special gifts of the Holy Spirit. This is refuted by the very fact that in the Old Covenant, after the making of the covenant at Sinai, in which Israel received its perfect law, God gave prophets for almost 1000 years. In particular, it is deduced from the Bible text in 1 Cor. 13, 8 – 12 that tongues and prophecy cease when the perfect appears. The perfect mentioned here is then seen as the complete text of the New Testament, and one concludes from this that since then there can be no more God-inspired prayer in tongues and no more God-inspired prophecy, and therefore fights the appearance of these gifts in the church. However, this interpretation of the text is wrong. For when the perfect appears, not only will the prophecies be ended, but also the knowledge, and we will see everything clearly and openly. We are still in the situation that all our knowledge about God is piecemeal. From this we must conclude that the perfect will appear when Jesus will be visible again on earth in His glory. Thus, even today, prayer in tongues and its interpretation and prophecy are legitimate gifts of the Holy Spirit that should be asked for and used.
So we should ask God to discern where we personally and our communities need which gifts in our current situation and ask God for these gifts. And we should ask that these gifts be lived out in a way that honors God and serves the church as a whole.
The part Christian ministry has the sections gifts of the Holy Spirit and ministries of Jesus Christ.
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