The Spiritual Gifts
1 Corinthians 12:7-11
(To look up verse references go here)

This morning we are going to begin a study on the gifts of the Spirit that Paul talks about in this letter. Since most of these gifts are the more spectacular ones, I am keenly aware that this study may be painful for some of you. The reason for this pain may be because of envy.

The problem of envy over the different gifts of the Spirit was handled recently in one of the most theologically significant movies of all time. The movie was “Chicken Run.” For those of you who missed it, for theological reasons, it is a must see movie. In the movie dozens of chickens are held captive in the concentration camp known as Tweedy Farm. One of the chickens, Ginger, keeps devising new plans to help her fellow chickens escape. Hope appears one day in the form of Rocky the Flying Rooster, who one day sailed over the fence as a result of being shot out of a cannon from a nearby circus.
Since Rocky doesn’t want to go back to the circus, and since he quickly realizes how badly Ginger and the rest of the chickens want to escape the farm, he promises them that he will teach them to fly like he can. The chickens’ attempts to fly amount to a comedy of errors of clumsy take-offs and hard landings that cause the peanut gallery rats to yell out, “Poultry in motion. Over easy.” None of the chickens ever learn to fly. Instead, they learn the hard way: Chickens are not gifted to fly.

If you are trying to fly, when God never gifted you to fly, then I want you to notice the word “another” in verse 8. In the Greek, the word “another” literally means “of a different kind entirely.” It’s not that one person has all of these gifts. The point is that many people could have had any one of them. And yes, it is possible for one person to have several of them. But since all these gifts are tied to verse 11, Paul shows us that the choice of who gets what gift, or even how many gifts we get, is all up to the Spirit’s will.

God inspired Paul to use the same word another throughout this section because God knows that the problem we have is that we, like the Corinthians, want the most powerful
gifts. That is because we think that the more powerful our gift is, then the more spiritual
we will appear to be to others. So what we have to keep in mind as we go through this
study of verses 8 to 11, is that although they are of the more dramatic kinds of gifts, or should I say the more charismatic kind, they are not the only kinds of spiritual gifts. Neither is that this is an exhaustive list of the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to people. In
fact, look at v. 28.

Here Paul lists some of the gifts that we also find listed in Romans 12 & Ephesians 4.
Please keep in mind, as we go through this study of the more dramatic gifts of the Spirit,
that Paul’s main point of teaching us about the variety of the kinds of gifts, is that no matter what gift you have, they all have one common source, and that is the same Holy Spirit--v. 11.

I know that some of you are envious of others because you don’t have a gift that is as spectacular as other people do. This is why you either don’t do anything, or you try to do something that God hasn’t equipped you to do. I promise you, that there is nothing more discouraging than attempting to exercise a gift you don’t have. But on the other hand, there is nothing more rewarding than exercising the unique God-given gift he has given you through his Spirit.

Having said these things, let’s look begin our study on the gifts of the Spirit that Paul talks about in this book. As we do so, I would like to thank my pastor, Chuck Smith, for some of the biblical insights he has provided so we can see how these gifts were manifested in the lives of our spiritual forefathers. And I would like to thank him for his permission to use those insights.

The first gift we are going to study is the gift of the word of wisdom. One of the things we need to keep in mind, as we study the book of 1 Corinthians, is that the early church did not have the Bible as you have it in your hands this morning. In fact, no one had their own Bible. So when somebody had a problem, they couldn’t get together and look in the Scriptures to find an answer, the way we would do today. They couldn’t open their own Bible to see what the apostles had written down. Therefore the Holy Spirit had to give to the church gifts that met the needs of the people. And one of those gifts was the word of wisdom.

The phrase “word of wisdom” is made up of two Greek words. “Logos” & “Sophia.” The word “logos” means, “utterance.” And the word “sophia” “means full of intelligence.” From these 2 words we see that the word of wisdom is the thought the Spirit gives a person to make an intelligent decision in a situation which allows them to glorify God, and accomplish the desire of God for that situation.
Please understand that the word of wisdom is different from knowing a lot of biblical
truths. Therefore, knowing your Bible is not a prerequisite for receiving a word of
wisdom from God.

But please don’t walk away from here this morning thinking that I just said that you
shouldn’t seek God’s wisdom that is found in the Bible. Wisdom is one of those things
which all believers are to seek after whether we are given the word of wisdom or not. I find it interesting that Paul couples wisdom with knowledge. This is something that many of the writers of the Bible did. What is so interesting is that in the 32 times these words are listed together, about 90% of the time the word “wisdom” is listed before the word “knowledge.” I believe the Spirit is trying to tell us something, don’t you.

The truth of the matter is that you can know a lot of information, but still be clueless when it comes to knowing how to use all that information. The reason that God moved most of the writers of the Bible to list wisdom before knowledge is because knowledge has to do with facts, while wisdom tells you what to do with those facts. In other words, wisdom is the application of knowledge.

While in seminary, I majored in counseling. And the area I’m most interested in, and
have studied the most, is in marriage counseling. I have acquired a lot of knowledge on
how to have a good marriage. I’m trained to teach couples how to communicate effectively, so I myself know how to communicate to Carol. I know how to bring about a peaceful resolution in the midst of a heated battle. Plus, I have extensively studied what the Bible has to say about marriage. With all that knowledge, you would think that I should have the best marriage in all the world.

While I have a great marriage, there are still sometimes when I don’t put into practice what I’ve learned. There are times when I don’t love Carol like Jesus loved the church. There are times when I don’t love Carol like I love my own body. For if I did, she would literally be worshipping the ground I walk on. And have any of you seen her do that? I don’t think so.

So what I need to make my marriage better is not more knowledge. What I need is the
ability to apply that knowledge so that my marriage will reflect God’s love for his church. And this is where wisdom comes in. Wisdom tells me to make sure that when I leave for the office that I don’t pat Carol on the head and kiss the dogs good-bye.

There were times when I have made such mistakes. When we first got married, I came home one day, and found Carol crying. I asked her what was wrong. She told me that my dog wouldn’t get out of the chair, and when she tried to get him to move, he growled at her. She said it was either her or the dog. Now the opposite of wisdom is foolishness.

 

Foolishness took over, and I said, “Honey, it doesn’t cost much to feed the dog, and he keeps my stuff from getting stolen. I’m sure gonna miss you.” While I was kidding, she didn’t think that remark was one bit funny. And every since that day, wisdom has told be to make sure she knows that she is more important to me than my dogs are. In fact, since I know that the only way I’m going to have a happy life is to have a happy wife, I’ve finally gained enough wisdom that when Carol says good-night, it’s not her way of telling me she’s ready to go to sleep. Rather, it’s her way of letting me know that I’d better tell her that I love her one more time.

Let me once again remind you that I’m not giving you a way out of reading your Bible.
The truth of the matter is that God normally combines this gift with the truths he has
revealed to us already in his Word. That is why when the gift of the word of wisdom is
properly manifested with the truth of the Bible, it has the ring of truth, which causes
others to be blessed. But that doesn’t mean that in order for the Spirit to manifest this gift
that we need to open up the Bible and go looking for a verse, or for a story, that will give
us an answer. Rather, what you need to do is to be open to the Spirit giving you the right
answer when you find yourself in a situation in which there appears to be no human
answer.

We see happening in the life of Solomon. Most of you know that once God said to
Solomon, “Ask what you wish Me to give to you.” (1 Kings 3:5) And the implication is that no matter what Solomon had asked for, God would have given it to him. Now if God were to make such an offer to you, what would you ask for? A sports car, a new bass boat, a bigger house, or tons of money? Solomon said, “Give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people to discern between good and evil.” (I King 3:9)

This pleased God so much that he told Solomon: “I have given you a wise and discerning heart . . . And I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there will not be any among the kings like you all your days.” (I King 3:12-13)

As believers in Jesus Christ we, like Solomon, must continually seek wisdom. That is why the Bible encourages us by saying: “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” (James 1:5) And then comes the hard part: We must apply that wisdom to our own lives! True godly wisdom, rightly applied to all areas of our lives, will dramatically affect the way we live our lives. Worldly wisdom, which denies Jesus’ right to be one’s Lord, will not cause us to grow to full spiritual maturity, but only feeds the selfish ambition in our hearts. However, God’s wisdom causes us to truly honor him in our lives.

Please notice that Paul calls the word of wisdom a gift. Since it is a gift that the Spirit gives when the situations arise, the gift the word of wisdom will not make you suddenly become, for the rest of your life, the wisest person who ever lived. While at the time the gift is manifested you might become the wisest person in the world, after the Spirit has used you, you might revert back to being the stupidest person in the whole world. At least that is what happens to me. So if you are seeking the gift of the word of wisdom because you want to be the wisest person in the world, you will be greatly disappointed. Rather it is an anointing of the Spirit that comes upon you in a time of need giving to you the wisdom to make good, godly decisions in a given situation, to accomplish God’s will in such a way that it ensure that he gets the glory, and not ourselves.

As we look at the biblical examples of the word of wisdom, we see that it in many cases it may be a timely word that is spoken which defuses tension, resolves an issue, or settles differences. We see this especially in the life of Solomon. Because Solomon had received wisdom from God, he truly was the wisest person that ever lived. But even he came upon a situation where he needed a word of wisdom.

The problem was that two women came to Solomon claiming to be the mother of the same child. Both mothers had recently given birth to babies. But one mother rolled over in the night and accidentally suffocated her baby. So she took the other woman’s baby.
This lead to a dispute where each lady was claiming that the baby was hers, and that the other lady stole her baby. Solomon responded by saying, “Bring me a sword . . . cut the baby in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.” (1 Kings 3:24-55) The false mom said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours: divide him.” But the real mom said, “Oh my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him.” (1 Kings 3:26)

This was a word of wisdom, because I don’t care how smart we, we just don’t come up with things like this. Because, what if they both said: “OK, cut the baby in half!
I'll take the top half, and she can have the bottom half.” Obviously, the baby would have died. Solomon didn’t know for sure what their decision would be. But God did.

And that’s the necessity of the gift of the word of wisdom. There are those times when we need God to tell us what to do. And through the gift of the word of wisdom, we will always come up with the right solution, because God’s Wisdom always works!
We also have a glimpse of how God will give a word of wisdom in the New Testament through the lives of Jesus and his apostles. It’s interesting to see how Jesus was able to confound the Jews while at the same time expressing truths which pointed people to the Father who sent Him. On many occasions Jesus manifested the gift of the word of wisdom. And through His example we see how this works itself out practically in real life.

Once a bunch of Pharisees brought a woman was caught in the act of adultery to Jesus. They wanted to know what this great teacher had to say about what to do with her. After all, according to the law of Moses, women guilty of committing such sins were to be stoned.

John lets us know that in reality they didn’t care what Jesus had to say, rather, “They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing Him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger. When they kept on questioning Him.” (John 8:6-7) What was needed in this situation was extraordinary wisdom. And that is exactly what the Spirit gave to Jesus so he could diffuse the situation: “Jesus straightened up and said to them, ‘If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’ Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.” (John 8:7-9)

Not only did Jesus need a special word to diffuse the dangerous situation, but he needed a special word so he could properly minister to this woman. After all, she was committing a sin. And there is no way Jesus, who is God incarnate, could ever excuse her sin. Once again the Spirit gave Jesus the perfect words for this sinful woman: “Jesus straightened up and asked her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one, sir,’ she said. ‘Then neither do I condemn you,’ Jesus declared. ‘Go now and leave your life of sin.’” (John 8:10-11)

In those times when extraordinary wisdom is needed, the Spirit will give you the supernatural wisdom you need to minister to someone. It maybe an answer to a problem that arises. We see this happening in the early church. In the book of Acts we read about a problem that had arisen among the believers in Antioch because of certain men who had come from Jerusalem that were legalistic Jews. They didn’t like the liberties that the Gentile believers had in Jesus. So they told the believers in Antioch that they could not be saved unless they were circumcised.

This was not something that the Lord wanted. Rather, this was a rule that a bunch of legalist were trying to enforce upon the church. Even though these guys weren’t called to be either apostles or prophets, they were going around representing themselves as official representatives of the Church in Jerusalem. So Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem to meet with all of the elders & settle this issue once and for all.

Now this was a very sticky problem. If not handled quickly, and rightly, it could turn out to be a very divisive issue in the Church. Having been in many church leadership meetings, I’m sure that there was some heavy discussion going on. On the one side you had Paul, the champion of grace, who said that you did not have to keep the Mosaic Law to be saved. But on the other side, you had those who were insisted that you must keep the Law to be saved.

This dispute could have caused a major split in the early Church. In an effort to save the unity of the church Peter first stood up and testified of how God had worked to save the Gentiles. In doing so Peter said, “Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.” (Acts 15:10) That statement was a word of Wisdom given to Peter.

Next, Barnabas and Paul began to “Declare how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles.” (Acts 15:12) The crowd was respectful enough to listen to them. But judging by what happened next, they still weren’t sure of what needed to be done to make things right. At this point we see a powerful manifestation of the word of wisdom.

Luke tells us that “After they were done James arose & spoke, ‘Men and brethren, listen to me: Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name . . . Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.” (Acts 15:13, 19-20) The reason I know this was a word of wisdom is by the response it had upon the people. Luke goes on to tell us that James’ words “Pleased the apostles and elders, with the whole church.” (Acts 15:22)

The Holy Spirit may also give you a word of wisdom so you can share your faith with an unbeliever. He did this with Stephen. The Jewish didn’t like Stephen because the Spirit was using him to manifest many miracles among the people. So some of leaders from the synagogue tried to debate Stephen. Stephen soundly defeated them because “They were unable to cope with wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking.” (Acts 6:10)

I’ve seen this happen in my own life. Once, when I was taking a psychology class at college, the professor started up a discussion about God. He stated that he saw nothing wrong with any of the religions of the world, except for Christianity, since most Christians claim that the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ.
The class got into a lively discussion. Even though there were a few believers in the class, none of them dared to take a positive stand for the Lord Jesus. Then the professor claimed that he thought there was nothing wrong with worshipping nature. I think he belonged to the 1st Tree Hugging Church of Aiken. At this point I couldn’t take it any longer.

A boldness welled up inside of me, and I said, “If all religions lead to heaven, and if it’s okay to worship a tree, then why did Jesus Christ have to die on a cross?” The professor got madder than a wet hen. His face turned red, and he said, “That’s the end of this discussion.”

But that wasn’t the end of the discussion. A few weeks later, he came up to me and asked me to explain why Jesus had to die. So I shared the gospel with him. Although he didn’t give his life to Jesus that day, he did say he was going to investigate the claims I made in further detail. During the discussion, I could have tried to sound intellectual, but God gave her me a special word of wisdom for that situation, and the Lord used it to open up the door for further discussion with this man who was so hostile towards Christianity.
It was wisdom in simplicity which turned out to be profound as God used it.

Now, I used these biblical examples, and personal examples, to illustrate how this gift is manifested in various ways. But did you notice that in all the cases the people may not have even be aware of the fact that they were manifesting this gift until after the fact. We don’t see any of the people in the Bible going into some kind of trance, or standing up and acting real holy, and speak in a very eloquent voice. Rather, these great pearls of wisdom just flowed out of their mouths and ministered mightily to the recipients of the gift.

Many times while I’m preaching, I get a word of wisdom. Now I’m not aware of it at the time, but I know afterwards. The way this gift is manifested in my preaching is that sometimes I will be led by the Spirit to say something that he hadn’t previously told me to say during my study of the passage.

What may seem like a rabbit trail turns out to be the perfect solution to a problem going on someone’s life. I’ve had people come up to me and say, “The application you made of that passage really helped me to see what I couldn’t understand before.” I love it when that happens because in most cases, those applications were applications that the Spirit told me to say while I was preaching. When that happens, the Spirit, through the gift of the word of wisdom, makes a truth of God’s Word come alive in your life!

My final point relates to what I said when I first started, by once again speaking to those of you who suffer from envy. As I said earlier, to manifest this gift you don’t have to have any kind of formal training. You don’t have to have a Bible college or seminary degree. Neither do you need to be some kind of spiritual giant who has read through the Bible a gazillion times, and has memorized most of it. All you need is to be open to when the Spirit gives you the ability to discern what is the proper solution in a situation that seems to be un-solvable. And when he does, take that step, or for some of you, that leap of faith and speak out the words of wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit, which will bring about clarification & encouragement.

Let me finish by saying that if you’re not yet a Christian, the only wisdom you need right now is to be smart enough to give your life to Jesus Christ. And that really is the smartest thing you can do. The reason why I said that is the smartest thing you can do is because of all the religious leaders who have died claiming to provide a way to heaven, only Jesus Christ came back to life after he died. And if you are willing repent of you sinful ways, which simply means to turn away the life you’ve been living, and turn instead towards God, and believe that Jesus is no longer dead, you can be saved. I hope that today you will give your life to the lordship of Jesus Christ, so you too discover the joy that comes from being used by God through the spiritual gifts he will give you the moment you get saved.

Let’s pray

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