In recent years there has been a revival of interest among God's people in the subject of spiritual gifts. This has been a welcome and healthy development in churches where the effect has been that laypeople have seized ownership of responsibility to be “ministers” and are no longer mere spectators. A church full of believers ministering to one another and edifying one another in love with no prideful, ostentatious display or jealous emulation of another's gifts is indeed a beautiful sight to behold!
Wherever a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit exists, the “unholy spirit,” Satan, is sure to be present, seeking to produce abuse, confusion, and a counterfeiting of the true. One of the principal reasons for Paul's writing his first epistle to the Corinthians was to correct the abuse of spiritual gifts – primarily of the “sign gifts.” In this message, we will lay some groundwork for dealing later with the controversial question, “Are the sign gifts for today?”
A truly dynamic New Testament church is one that furnishes an environment conducive for nurturing and developing spiritual gifts among its members. Every member should be a “minister.” We should try to find out what our individual gifts are and then seek to exercise them for the good of the Body. We should not try to imitate someone else but be our unique self to the glory of God. We should know the scriptural functions and limitations of our gifts and the potential dangers of their abuse.
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Bob Vradenburgh is the senior pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has spent 40 years in full-time Christian service: the first 20 years as a missionary and the past 20 years in the pastorate. Bob’s passion is the expository preaching of God’s Word,...
