Other Gifts

According to Christian theology, the spiritual gifts (or charismata) are gifts that are supernaturally bestowed on Christians, each having his or her own proper gift (or gifts) to strengthen the church. more...

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They are described in the New Testament, primarily in First Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4.

Many believe their operation was limited to early Christianity. According to some Protestant denominations, some of the spiritual gifts, for example speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues, were enjoyed only for a short time and were suited to the Church's infancy, not to later times. This view is known as cessationism.

Pentecostalism, along with Charismatic, Pentecostal, Apostolic, and other Holiness denominations of Christianity take an opposing view, believing that the spiritual gifts are still given by the Holy Spirit today, and Pentecostal meetings often involve ordinary parishioners displaying the use of these gifts (1 Cor 14).

Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and many other Protestant denominations also continue to believe in and make use of spiritual gifts.

Enumeration of the gifts

Some Christian scholars say that there are nine gifts and others say there may be as many as twenty-seven. Bill Bright, C. Peter Wagner, Jack Deere, Billy Graham and D.A. Carson have various opinions on the very number. Other Christian scholars say that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are limited in number or they are not active today like in the early church. Commonly called Cessationism, this opinion is held by John F. MacArthur, Jr., Robert L. Thomas and many other conservative main line Christian denominations. Some Christian scholars such as Zola Levitt maintain that the number of gifts cannot be determined, because, as Levitt puts it, "A spiritual gift is anything that a person can do supernaturally well."

The teaching on there being nine gifts of the Spirit originated from Dr. Howard Carter, an early Pentecostal evangelist. This is based on the text from 1 Corinthians 12:27-30 giving the gifts and listing them as the "gifts of the Spirit". They were later taught and popularized by Dr. Lester Sumrall, who accompanied Carter on many missionary journeys in his youth. Modern Bible teachers and scholars have came to the conclusion that there are other gifts of the Spirit listed in Scripture, as seen in the chart below.

Biblical lists of the gifts

Note: Some authorities distinguish between Pastors and Teachers in list contained in Ephesians.

List of Spiritual Gifts

There are various opinions as to the number of spiritual gifts. There are also different ways of categorizing the gifts proposed.

Read more at Wikipedia.org