If you have been a believer very long you will have heard of “spiritual gifts” If you are a believer in the Baptist or Evangelical traditions, this may be a topic you’ve only heard of and never explored; if you are a believer in the charismatic or Pentecostal traditions you may have heard of it all too frequently. This week I hope to demystify for some, and correct the thinking of others, about a reality that is imperative for Christian maturity.

Before we begin the discussion of spiritual gifts, it is important to recognize to whom the gifts are given. To put a fine point on it, these gifts are only given to the redeemed. The word redeemed carries three ideas:

• First, to buy or purchase or pay a price for something.
• Second, with the prefix added, the meaning is intensified and means "to purchase out of' something. To illustrate, the process is like going to the market and purchasing a mango. Not only do we purchase it, but we take the mango out of the market altogether.
• Third, the mango purchased is also released and set free in the fullest sense of the word. Though it is a bit difficult to liberate a Mango, it is important to point out that this redemption sets us free.

We are valued above all other created things. God has set up a way to purchase us from the market of sin, taking us off the market, so to speak, and liberating us. The love He bestows upon us can never be thought too highly of. The point of making this distinction is that, if you have not been purchased out of the market of sin by faith in God’s son Jesus Christ, then the rest of this series will not be helpful to you.

So what is a Spiritual Gift? The word used for this concept in the New Testament is  (charisma), and is defined as: a God-given ability for service. For examples of this word used in the New Testament see Ephesians 4.11-.13, 1 Corinthians 12-14, Romans 12.4-.8, Hebrews 2.3-.4, 1 Peter 4.10. Interestingly, in every one of these passages the gifts are always used in service of the church body.

The word ability could be a synonym for gift in this definition. The important parts of the definition are that the gift/ability is God-given, and that they are to be used in serving the body of Christ. Though there is a close analogy between gifts and talents (both are God-given, 1 Corinthians 4.7) talents may or may not be used in serving the body.

It is helpful to define the active gifts to the believer this way:

• Natural Abilities: God-given at birth, they include such things as I.Q., a measure of health and strength, musical talents, linguistic abilities, mechanical aptitudes, etc.
• Acquired Abilities: These include such skills as cooking, sewing, driving a car, learning a language, learning to play an instrument, etc.
• Spiritual Gifts: Examples of spiritual gifts in the New Testament include topics that we will discuss in more detail later, like discerning spirits, evangelism, hospitality, and wisdom.

While it wasn’t always true (there were spiritual gifts given in the Old Testament, more on this later), in the current age we could expand our definition of a spiritual gift as: a God-given ability to serve the body of Christ wherever and however He directs. This will be our definition for the rest of this study.