Hey all. Tara had a question awhile ago that we never got to, so I'm gonna throw it out there and see if anyone is still alive enough to answer.
What are spiritual gifts? How do they work in the Church? Do they work in your Church at all?
Have at it!
What are spiritual gifts? How do they work in the Church? Do they work in your Church at all?
Have at it!
3 comments:
I sort of feel bad, but I have more questions instead of comments. The Bible talks about spiritual gifts, but does it say that we get them after we put faith in Christ? Or do you think that these gifts are part of our personality from the day we are concieved and in that respect can still be seen as God-given/spiritual?
Do you think that perhaps the teaching about gifts is not so much a personal aptitude assessment, but more a teaching about the nature of the community? Maybe it is about recognizing that we all have gifts…which, by the way, I think might change depending on the needs of our community…and that some of those gifts come with more recognition, but often times the perceived “lesser” gifts are as, or sometimes more, important than the more honored parts. We sometimes forget that losing an arm or a leg might not kill you, but losing your small intestine will…but I digress. I think that the teaching about gifts is more about respecting and valuing the other people in our community. It is a corrective if I am over or under valuing myself or the others. I think it is so wonderful how God gives us all a little bit of ability, one piece of the puzzle, that is really quite useless on its own. But in the community all these little pieces come together and something greater than the sum of the parts emerges. I realize that I have gifts, but I am dependent on the gifts of other people in order to really do the best with those gifts. I need the other people and they need me...how beautiful is that?
Lola
I like Lola's comments very much. She raises points well worth considering. Have we lost the community hermeneutic when reading about spiritual gifts? It would be an interesting study to check out correlations between the rise of gift inventories and the rise in popularity of personality-type indicators, such as Myers-Briggs.
I think what Lola suggests fits well with passages on the gifts, specifically Romans 12, 1 Cor 12, and Eph 4: All three stress unity (in and through diversity); all three use the metaphor of "body"; all three emphasize grace.
This a community in which people (by the Spirit and grace of Christ) complete and perfect (mature) each other. They complete each other as relational beings, drawn and united by the Spirit into a larger, communal mode of being, which is neither an assimilative collective nor a loose association of individuals (gathered simply to pursue a common cause or share a common experience).
I think the Spirit dimension also points to the "becoming" of both individuals and the community. It points beyond the present to our destiny in Christ (the Spirit being the One who makes the future a present reality in our midst). This helps us see that the gifts are not static (nor is personality, for that matter) but can change and grow. I think that the Spirit often takes aspects of our "natural" identities and capacities and directs us beyond themselves to their destiny in Christ. This does not rule out "disruptive" acts of the Spirit, but it does rule out simple material/spiritual, non-Christian/Christian, natural/supernatural dichotomies.
Great question...so much more to consider!
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