Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Spiritual Gifts, week 2

Spiritual Gifts

week 2, October 17, 2008

This week looked a lot different than the last week. It was interesting to study scripture that didn't actually use the term spiritual gift.


We reviewed what we talked about last week with the "1st mention concept" and figuring our where we can first clearly see the use of spiritual gifts and the purpose of that giftedness. During this time we got a little bit into the explanation of the dispensations of scripture. We discussed where we are in these dispensations, and found out that we are currently in the dispensation of grace. Here is a list of the dispensations.
  1. The Edenic Covenant and The Dispensation of Innocence
  2. The Adamic Covenant and The Dispensation of Conscience
  3. The Noahic Covenant and The Dispensation of Human Government
  4. The Abrahamic Covenant and The Dispensation of Promise
  5. The Mosaic Covenant and The Dispensation of the Law
  6. The Davidic Covenant and The Dispensation of Grace
  7. The Palestinian Covenant, The New Covenant, and The Messianic Dispensation

Last week we looked at 1st mention concept and old testament examples of spiritual gifts. This week we went to the gospels. What can we learn from the life of Christ? What do we see about the giftedness of Christ? What spiritual gifts did He display? Here is a small list of things we thought of that we remembered Christ doing in the gospels.

  • Miracles
  • Prophecy
  • Healing
  • Teaching - as early as the age of 12
  • Discernment
  • Faith
  • Service - washing feet

We discussed that if Christ is God and all gifts come from God, then He has the ability to use them all.

We also took a look at John 15 and 16. At first glance very little of this looks like it has anything to do with spiritual giftedness. Reading these chapters can you imagine being the disciples that Jesus was speaking to? They had never heard anything like this. Imagine what the disciples must have felt and thought when Jesus said "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing."



What would you think of this? What would you do? Well, we learned what Dan would do. Dan says "I'd jump into Jesus" I can just see Dan in all his fervor leaping on top of Jesus with this look like "what? you said I had to be in you."

But really imagine it. What is Jesus telling the disciples? Read it. Then read further. In John 15:9-17 Jesus tells us how to abide in Him. We discussed how that word abide in verse 10 tells us that to abide we will obey His commands, and therefore abide in His love.

Abide = Obey = Love

In John 15 we found that "The deeper the root, the more the fruit" or, as Dave put it "The more we abide, the more oodles and oodles of fruit we produce." But how could all of this apply to spiritual giftedness? The fruit He is talking about, could it be the fruit of the Spirit? Is this the fruit of the giftedness the He has given us? If so, what could this mean? Does this mean that we will become more effective with our gift(s)? Maybe it means that we will be given additional gifts. Either way this tells us that the more we abide in Him, the more we will receive from him in some way. What else is Jesus trying to communicate through these passages?

Throughout chapters 14-16 of John Jesus addresses some things that we may want to take note of.

  • In 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."
  • and John 15:26 says "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, {that is} the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me,"
  • and John 16:7-15 "But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 8 "And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; 11 and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. 12 "I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear {them} now. 13 "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 "He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose {it} to you. 15 "All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose {it} to you."

What do we see here? Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit coming after Jesus goes to the Father. But what does he say that the Spirit will do? These are permanent works of the Spirit's indwelling.

  • teach you all things
  • bring to your remembrance all that I said to you
  • He will testify about Me
  • convict the world concerning sin
  • and concerning righteousness
  • and concerning judgment
  • He will guide you into all the truth

We must also remember that in John 14:18 "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."

The author of the bible indwells us.

No other religion has a God that died for them and rose again from the dead, and therefore gives part of Himself to indwell in them. Christ followers are the only ones that have a God that big.

Assignment for next week. Read John Chapters 13-17

Monday, October 13, 2008

Spiritual Gifts, Questions we'd like to answer

Spiritual Gifts Questions
Friday, October 10, 2008
Do you have any questions about spiritual gifts? Really? We came up with a small list of 17 things we'd like to find answers to. If you think of more please add them. I am listing them here instead of in the first day's notes so it will be easier to refer back to. I know I am going to want to look at it again later. So, here goes, in no particular order.
  1. Are spiritual gifts for inside or outside the church?
  2. Are we all required to, but some gifted to do certain things?
  3. Do we all have spiritual gifts?
  4. Am I limited to specific gifts? Are the gifts fixed or do they have fluidity to come and go?
  5. What are my gifts?
  6. Does the bible list them all?
  7. Should we label our gift?
  8. Can we look beyond scripture for more?
  9. What is God's process in revealing our gift(s)?
  10. Why do we have them?
  11. Is the giving of spiritual gifts only a New Testament concept?
  12. Is there a difference in spiritual gifts, such as sign gifts?
  13. Can I ever lose my spiritual gifts?
  14. Do you develop them or just have them instantly?
  15. Does someone who is predestined have these gifts before they are saved?
  16. Can I use my gifts to "make tents" like Paul?

And the most important one of all.

17. What will we use to determine the answers to these questions?

We did answer one of these questions. We decided that to look for answers to these questions in any other way other than through God's word would be at least inappropriate. So we are going to look in one place to attempt to find the answers to these questions. The Bible!

If you have more questions or comments please post them.

And if you are not already, but would like to be involved in this process, it is open for all to attend. I can give directions to anyone who needs them. Otherwise, be at Dan and Kristie Cook's house on Friday nights at 7pm.

See you there!

Spiritual Gifts, week 1

Spiritual Gifts

week 1 - Friday, October 10, 2008



To prepare for our study we were to read the following chapters of the Bible. I am not going to include them this time as they are pretty long.

Ephesians 4
Romans 12
1 Corinthians 12
1 Corinthians 13
1 Corinthians 14

We covered quite a bit of ground last week, talking about questions we have about spiritual gifts, the reasons God may give us these gifts, and about the first uses of these gifts.

Where do we first see the use of spiritual gifts? Acts? James? It never really occurred to me that the miracles we see in the old testament could have been the use of spiritual gifts. They may not have been spoken of as spiritual gifts, but gifts none the less. It's amazing when you think about the men of old. So, where was the first account of the use of these gifts? We didn't figure out for sure the first usage, but we think it's safe to say that we can at least go as far back as Moses and see gifts used.



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So, what can we learn from these instances? What is God doing? Why is God giving these gifts to be used?

Moses

We see in Exodus 3 that Moses comes to the burning bush and gives excuse after excuse as to why God can't use him. For each excuse God gives something to Moses. For his speech problem he gave Aaron, and for those who don't believe God sent Moses, God gives Moses a staff. Moses use this staff to work miracle after miracle.


  • Plagues in Egypt
  • Parts the Red Sea
  • Strikes Rock and water flows from it

Why did God use Moses and these gifts in combination? What was the purpose of these miracles? We know that God didn't NEED to use these miracles to move his people from Egypt to Israel. So, what purpose did these instances have? What did this do?

I think it proved who God was. It showed Israel, and Egypt that He is the I AM. The gifts Moses used proved to everyone who God is.

Joshua

After Moses died Joshua is left in charge. One of the first things Joshua does is to lead the Israelites across the Jordan. When they got to the Jordan river it was basically in flood stage. They had a couple options, they could build a bridge or they could wait for the river to recede so that they could walk across. But what does Joshua do? In Joshua 3 he tells the priest to walk into the river and when the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the ark touch the water it starts to back up upriver. The ark has what in it? It carries the ten commandments and, that's right, Moses staff, the one he used to part the Red Sea.

Why would God have Joshua do this when they could have just waited for the water level to drop? What was God's purpose? This sign helped establish to the people that Joshua was truly God's appointed leader.


Elijah

Elijah does miracles over and over.

  • Raises the widow's son
  • Prophecies the drought
  • Challenges Baal's priests
  • Outran a Chariot

Why did God choose to do these things through Elijah?


Elisha

Elisha was Elijah's successor and does about twice as many miracles as Elijah. One of them is parting a river with Elijah's cloak

Samson

Samson kicked butt and took names, burned fields of the Philistines by lighting foxes tails on fire, etc.


David

Was stone slinging a spiritual gift? Well, maybe not, but it was surely a talent. But in this instance was David using a different spiritual gift? What about the gift of faith? It had to have taken an astounding amount of faith to stand before Goliath and proclaim that God had delivered him from bears and lions in 1 Samuel 17 and David says to Goliath

1 Samuel 17:45 Then David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. 46 "This day the LORD will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the LORD does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the LORD'S and He will give you into our hands."


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We have amazing examples of old testament characters that used spiritual gifts. But, what was God's purpose in these situations?

Here are some of the conclusions we came to about spiritual giftedness in the old testament.

  • The giftedness proves who God is
  • The giftedness proves who God's people are
  • It is used to defeat the enemy
  • They are freely given to ordinary people
  • The gifts further His kingdom
  • These gifts inspire His people

So why does God give us spiritual gifts? One common denominator in all of these conclusion is that the end result glorifies God. So let's put the focus back where it belongs, off of me and back on God.

As Dave said "It's not what gifts we get, but how God is using us for His benefit"

Our little group

On Friday night there is a small group of us that get together. Why? We get together because there is something inside us that drives us to find out more about this one little book that has stood the test of time for thousands of years. One book that has shared historical facts, scientific anomilies, and war. But through it all this book give hope, brings understanding, and explains the love of a savior willing to die for people that would crucify Him. This book is the Holy Bible. As we study this amazing book, we talk, learn, grow, and sometimes sit on the couch a little befuddled.



I am mostly going to write about those things we discuss and wrestle through in our humble little study. Feel free to add to this with your ideas, thoughts, scripture, and questions. Obviously I won't remember everything we discuss, so please add anything you think of.