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Other Spiritual Gifts

Do you know your spiritual gifts? I remember taking spiritual gift inventory assessments when I was younger, a tool to help Christians identify and utilize their gifts from the 

Holy Spirit. Four places in the New Testament list a total of about twenty different spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:28, Ephesians 4:11-12, Romans 12:6-8, and 1 Peter 4:10-11). 

 

Something that jumps out at me when I read these four lists is that they are not uniform; some gifts appear more than once, while others do not, and some (I believe) are not in use today. I don’t believe, then, that we need to be so rigid about what the gifts of the Spirit are; there may be other gifts not necessarily listed, like those who use their giftedness with technology in the church. Consider what we read about the construction of the tabernacle in Exodus 35:

 

The Lord “has filled [Bezalel] with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft (v.31-33).”

 

And then, “He has filled [Oholiab] with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, or by a weaver—by any sort of workman or skilled designer (v.35).”

 

The next chapter begins by saying, “Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whom the LORD has put skill and intelligence to know how to do any work in the construction of the sanctuary shall work in accordance with all that the LORD has commanded.” 

 

Do you see what is happening here? These men were good at different kinds of craftsmanship. They could cut stone, carve wood, and sew fabric. Those might have been considered natural abilities, but they were gifts from God’s Holy Spirit, and the men were told to use those abilities for the sake of the Lord and the good of the nation.

 

You might not have the listed gifts of teaching, exhorting, or showing mercy, but maybe you are a mechanic or a seamstress; God gave you those gifts and expects you to use them for the kingdom. Make quilts for a nursing home, or work on a single mother’s car for free. Find a way to use your gifts for the betterment of the body. 

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