12.Who assigns spiritual "talents"?.

Back to Study the Book of First Corinthians

The Holy Spirit of God and He assigns them only to members of the Body of Christ.

Sometimes the manifestations of the Holy Spirit are confused with human talents or personality types. They have nothing at all to do with human talents or with personality types. They are manifestations of the Holy Spirit of God, not of the soul or personality of people.

The true gifts of the Spirit are not inherited gifts of the fallen adamic soul as in the case of "second sight."

Soulish gifts, such as the ability to read minds, or the ability to tell fortunes or know of future events, or to contact the dead, are of the fallen adamic race and are never to be exercised by the believer. They are to be nailed to the cross along with the remainder of our fallen personality.

Human talents, such as art or music, are given at birth. Often it is obvious they are inherited. These talents belong to us and they are ours throughout our lifetime, whether or not we become a Christian.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit will anoint a work of art or a musical performance. Anointed music and anointed art works are blessed of the Lord. But they are not listed with the gifts of the Spirit.

Anointed expressions of human talent are a blessing in the churches of Christ, and they often are a useful part of the life and worship of Christian people.

But the gifts of the Spirit are supernatural abilities that are added to our spirit, and can be stirred up by us as we follow Christ our Lord.

Just as our redemption is not a blend of our striving to be good added to the Divine nature of Christ, so it is true that the manifestations of the Holy Spirit are not a blend of our natural gifts and personality added to the Divine wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit.

The word of wisdom is not the insight of a wise human aided by the Lord. Rather, it is an impartation of the wisdom of God for the solution of a specific problem. The word of wisdom can come to a wise man or a foolish man. It is independent of both. The righteousness of Christ can come to a righteous man or a wicked man, but it is independent of both.

The wisdom of God is Divine in origin and the wisdom of man is human in origin.

The same is true of the word of knowledge and the manifestation of faith. They have nothing to do with human knowledge and human faith. They are impartations of the knowledge and faith of God Himself.

The several examples of the gifts of healing that have blessed the twentieth century, such as the gifts of William Branham, Aimee Semple McPherson, Kathryn Kuhlman, were not given to medical students.

It can be freeing to understand that God is not limited by our human shortcomings and personality traits. How uplifting and faith-inspiring it is to realize God can take the weakest of men and women—the most unlikely candidates—and use them powerfully in the building of the Kingdom of God!

We can do all things through the wisdom and strength of Christ.

God uses the things of little consequence in order to bring to nothing the things that vaunt themselves.

Let us rejoice in the fact that the manifestations of the Spirit are wonderful, glorious, earth-shaking demonstrations of the all-powerful Spirit of God. We are commanded to covet them.

The reason the gifts of the Spirit are not more in evidence in the Christian churches is that we do not ask for them, not because we do not need them or it is not the will of the Spirit for us to have them.

The Christian churches have substituted music in place of the manifestation of the Spirit of God, not understanding, evidently, that music is of the soul and can be performed by wicked, worldly, rebellious people.

Music does not form Christ in us. Only the operations of the Spirit of God form Christ in us. Music entertains and provides a "religious" environment. The Word and Spirit of God create Christ in us—the Life in us that will raise us in the last day.

The natural man has a tendency to categorize people: this man is a born leader; that woman wins friends easily; he is sure to gain many souls for Christ because he is eloquent; she is timid and must never be placed in a position of responsibility.

The Lord can turn a meek Moses into the dauntless leader of several million people. God can take a self-seeking, merciless Saul of Tarsus and give him an unbounded love for people.

Christ does not select fishers of men, He makes them.

The limits on what we become in Christ are not established by our personality traits. They are determined by the amount of faith, obedience, and diligence we are willing to exercise.

In the Kingdom of God the rich are brought low and the poor are exalted. The ambitious learn to be at peace in the place of low esteem, while the shy are enabled to roar as lions.

Back to Study the Book of First Corinthians

Back to Chapter Twelve..