Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

Chair, Division of Biblical Studies & Theology,

Bob Jones University

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7 Stabilizing Principles in a Chaotic World, Part 4

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Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Number 3: Giftedness. You can’t do everything, but you can do something. Do what you can.

A consequence of providence is that God has directed in your life as well as in the life of the planet. Your conception, birth, and life circumstances are not random or accidental; they are purposeful, and better yet, those purposes come from a good and great person, whose interest in you is entirely benevolent.

There are people in Scripture of whom that is said specifically. Jeremiah comes most easily to mind (Jer 1.4-10); God created him for a specific purpose. Of course, we’re not all formed for the same purpose he was; but if you’ll think about the arc of the biblical storyline, everybody fits into the story, bringing it to its next level of development. Purpose runs through all of it.

Now, we’re not part of biblical history; we’re a couple of millennia later. But the biblical story itself indicates that we’re part of the plan too. First, Jesus clearly thought of those of us who would believe on him later, and he prayed for our success in his plan (John 17.20-26). And second, the extensive biblical material on spiritual gifts (Rom 12, 1 Cor 12-14, Eph 4, 1 Pet 4) indicates that the Spirit has gifted each of us individually according to his purposes for us in his church, the body of Christ (1 Cor 12.4-11).

The fact that there have been some odd teachings about spiritual gifts over the years doesn’t mean that spiritual gifts themselves should be downplayed or viewed with suspicion. God has gifted you—if you are a believer—in specific ways to enable you to serve him.

You’re good at something. Or somethings. By divine design, and for powerful purposes. You may need to get some experience before you become really facile at what you’re good at (2 Tim 1.6), but the gift is there.

What does all this have to do with the chaos of the present?

Everything.

Perhaps you’ve experienced an event where everything was moving so fast that you just froze. Had no idea what to do. There are people whose professions put them in those situations all the time. EMTs arriving at a multi-car accident scene—what do you do first? They’ll tell you that they have to fall back on their training; they have to stay calm and work through the processes that they’ve been taught. Survey the scene to ensure that it’s safe to enter. Then survey the victims to determine which ones are beyond hope. (There are ways to do that, the details of which, for the sake of the squeamish, I won’t go into here.) Then move to those in need of the most rapid intervention—typically, those not breathing.

And so on. Do what you’re trained to do, one thing at a time. Make the difference you can make.

I suspect you’re not an EMT, but you’re very much in a parallel situation. You come across things every day that you find grievous, or fearsome, or enraging. How do you respond?

Well, you can be a sucker, and just get angrier, which is what the social-media poster likely wants you to do.

Or you can do something. You can make a difference.

What can you do? Well, that depends on who you are, and how God has gifted you.

  • Are you a bulldog, with a character that radiates rugged persistence? Then find a need that’s going to take some time and energy to accomplish—just one need—and work on that.
  • Are you characterized by mercy, a heart that breaks for the pain you hear about? Then pick one of those situations that’s within your reach—in your community, in your circle of acquaintances, connected to you in some way—and make the connection and help bring grace and peace to the hurting.
  • Are you more of a thinker than a doer? Then do some thinking about the thing that troubles you, and propose a solution or two, and get it out to the people who can make a difference. (As I’ve said before, if you’re not a thinker, shut up and do the things you’re good at. :-) )

You can sit there and stew, giving in to the fear or the anger or the frustration.

Or you can do some good, based on God’s kind providence in your life.

Which is the better choice?

Well, if everyone around you really is in the image of God, then I think the choice is obvious.

Bloom where you’re providentially planted.

Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Photo by Keith Misner on Unsplash

Those Spiritual Gifts Tests? Maybe You Ought to Ignore Them.

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Since in my last post I raised the issue of spiritual gifts, I’d like to engage in a little iconoclasm here.

Much of what you read in those spiritual gifts books, and in those online tests, is completely made up. It’s folklore, not based in Scripture. Might be true, but might not.

There. I’ve said it.

Now the hard part: I need to back it up.

The Bible lists the spiritual gifts in 4 chapters: Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12 (with a discussion continuing into chapters 13 and 14), Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4. The 1 Corinthians chapter contains 3 lists, while each of the others contains just one. 4 chapters, 6 lists, 5 by Paul, 1 by Peter. Here’s a chart that lays them out for comparison.

Some things to notice:

Thing 1: No list is exhaustive; there are blank cells in each list.

So if we combine all the lists, is that list exhaustive? Or, to put it another way, does the Bible name all the spiritual gifts?

The correct answer is “We don’t know.” It’s important to know when you don’t know something. Here’s why.

The Bible clearly states that every believer has at least one spiritual gift (1Cor 12.7, 11). Those online spiritual gifts tests typically assume that you have one of the gifts listed in Scripture; but what if there are other gifts? And what if yours is one of those? You take the test, and, assuming it’s accurate (more on that in a minute), it shows that you have “none of the above.” What’s a believer, particularly a new one, going to conclude?

Must not be saved. Must have done it wrong. Must have not really meant it. Must have …

We can do great spiritual harm when we think the Bible says something that it doesn’t—and when we teach others our unstated assumptions (Jas 3.1).

So are there spiritual gifts that the Bible doesn’t mention?

I don’t know. And neither does anybody else. And we ought to quit acting as though we do.

And if you’ve taken one of those tests, and you’ve scored a Big Fat Zero, freak out thou not.

Thing 2: We don’t even know what some of the gifts are.

Several of the gifts we know a lot about: prophecy, pastor-teacher, speaking in tongues. Lots of biblical information.

Word of wisdom? Not so much. We know what wisdom is—there’s a whole genre on that—but what “word of wisdom” specifically refers to? Nope. It occurs in only 1 list, and it’s not defined there. No mention of it elsewhere in Scripture, no account of someone who had the gift, nothing. Same thing for word of knowledge. And discerning of spirits.

Have you ever noticed that more than half of the listed spiritual gifts—12 of 21, by my count—appear in only 1 list? And that the lists don’t define anything, they just, well, list? How much can we possibly know about those gifts, unless we meet someone in Scripture who is specifically said to have that gift?

So what is discernment of spirits? We don’t know.

Now how are you going to write a test for that? What questions are you going to ask?

Here’s what I think the test authors did. They made up a definition for the gift out of their own heads, and they wrote test questions to identify those traits.

Fair enough.

But let’s not pretend that’s what the Bible teaches.

Are the tests helpful? Well, they might be. For certain gifts. If you have them.

But I wouldn’t take them very seriously on matters where they don’t have any biblical backup.

Thing 3: If we don’t know what some of the gifts are, is it possible that we don’t need to know for sure what our gift is?

Nowhere in the Scripture are we told how to identify our gifts. For that matter, nowhere in the Scripture are we warned to distinguish between spiritual gifts and natural abilities. Even though The Folklore seems to think that’s very important, God doesn’t seem to care at all.

If my gift is discerning of spirits, and I don’t know what that phrase means, how will I know I have that gift?

I suspect that a lot of Christians take those gifts tests for the same reason some people read horoscopes.

Oh, I’m a Virgo? Cool! I understand myself so much better now!

Oh, my gift is mercy? So that’s why I cry so much!

Your spiritual gift is not about you. In fact, you’re the only person in the world that your gift is not for. It’s for everybody else.

Here’s my Official Biblical Spiritual Gifts Test:

What can you do?
Do it for Jesus.
For the glory of God’s name and the edification of his people.

There.

That won’t sell a lot of books or generate a lot of web traffic to my gifts test site, but it’ll make a huge difference for God’s people, if we’ll just do it.

Photo by Matt McLean on Unsplash