UPTOWN

Lately I have been thinking about spiritual gifts- probably because someone had recently asked about them, particularly the gift of speaking in tongues.That’s always the one that gets asked about, and the questions that get asked about it are always: are tongues for today, and are tongues for everyone? And since were going down that road anyway, what about all of the often called “supernatural gifts”, ie.- the ones that don’t have a natural, human element to them- are they for today or did they somehow ‘cease’ at the death of the last of the Apostles as some insist. It seems that spiritual gifts like teaching, preaching, administration, helps and giving (all that have a natural talent/ability component to them) are easier for us to accept as still functioning in the church today. It might even be that anytime one of those natural abilities is exercised within the church instead of in the secular world, then it is considered to be a spiritual gift rather than a natural one. So, an educator who makes their living teaching is just exercising their natural gift and training when they teach in a secular school setting; but if that same teacher teaches in the children’s church or Sunday school of their church then they are exercising a spiritual gift. All that really changes is the venue in which the ability is being applied.

I wonder if we don’t often gravitate towards this kind of an understanding of spiritual gifts because it makes these gifts from God both easier to understand as well as keeps them within our ability to control. After all, who wants divine, supernatural, beyond “us” abilities and powers running wild within us and among us? Abilities and powers that flow through us but are actually controlled by the very Spirit of God Himself- that can be a little unnerving and more than a little unpredictable. Far simpler to have spiritual gifts simply be our natural talents and abilities that we ourselves are exercising within and for the service of God’s Kingdom. And in that case, spiritual gifts that don’t really have a natural human application- like the gift of tongues or miracles or prophecy or healing- well, it’s far simpler and (we might even think) safer to consider those gifts ended or concluded, ceased and deceased along with the last of the twelve apostles. Okay for those wild and crazy things to happen in the pages of the Bible but not among me and my friends at church please! Well, the only problem with this safe, controlled perspective on spiritual gifts is that it is just not what those spiritually gifted apostles taught in the early church or wrote on the pages of New Testament Scripture. Nowhere are we told that the so called ‘supernatural’ gifts will cease before the end of this earthly age nor, actually, that there even is a distinguishable class of supernatural and non-supernatural gifts.

Really, are not all spiritual gifts supernatural- even if they happen to be skills and abilities that have natural human applications? When even our natural abilities are taken, blessed, endowed and spiritually heightened to accomplish supernatural purposes in the hands of God within His Kingdom- are they not then suddenly and even miraculously supernatural gifts accomplishing things quite beyond the natural and ordinary? I have seen the God touched, spiritually heightened gift of hospitality used in very powerful ways in peoples lives- miraculously beyond what would be natural or human- spiritually opening them up and drawing them into the very Kingdom of God. The ALPHA course relies heavily upon God’s gifting and empowering hospitality around a simple shared meal as key cog to its evangelistic success. There is far more to the ALPHA meal than just a good food and far more to the hospitality around the ALPHA table than just good company- there is something spiritual and God touched about the whole event and the ALPHA program realizes it. No, I believe every authentic spiritual gift is supernatural. There are not supernatural vs. non-supernatural spiritual gifts, not really. If we treat some as natural rather than supernatural I fear that all we really are doing is functioning in our own natural ability and curtailing the power that the Holy Spirit would add far beyond our ability if we were surrendering to and depending upon Him for it.

Since Paul instructs the Thessalonians to “not put out the Spirit's fire”, I guess that we can be in danger of doing exactly that- and functioning as the church and in our personal lives of faith in our own natural ability and gifting rather than in His supernatural gifting would be one way to do that.No, all spiritual gifts are supernatural or they are no Spiritual gifts as all, and we in the church and in our lives as followers of Christ need to continually seek to give ourselves to and even desperately desire to be filled with, led by and supernaturally gifted by the Holy Spirit if we hope to be a part of advancing His spiritual kingdom.