June 18, 2025 • 22 mins
Myth-busting Spiritual Gifts! In this episode of the Church Revitalization Podcast, Scott Ball and AJ Mathieu tackle three of the most widespread misconceptions about spiritual gifts. They dig into where common beliefs miss the mark, how spiritual gifts assessments really work, and why understanding gifting is so important for engaging church members in meaningful ministry.
Your hosts, Scott Ball and AJ Mathieu, are church health experts with The Malphurs Group. Every week, they take practical, actionable topics and break them down into bite-sized episodes to help your church thrive. Whether you're a lead pastor, volunteer, or just passionate about church revitalization, this show is for you!
Here’s what you’ll learn in today’s episode:
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(02:20) Why spiritual gifts assessments are helpful but not authoritative
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(07:44) The Spider-Man analogy: You have to try out your gifts to know them!
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(12:25) Are Paul’s lists in the epistles exhaustive? What’s really being communicated?
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(18:07) Why spiritual gifts (and assessments) still matter in every church
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(20:32) Practical steps to help your congregation discover and use their gifts
Links & Resources:
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Try the Healthy Churches Toolkit free for 7 days: healthychurchestoolkit.com
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Read the full episode article and recap: malphursgroup.com/295
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Connect with The Malphurs Group on social: Facebook | Twitter/X
Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and let us know how you’re helping your church thrive!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Myth busting today on the Church Revitalization Podcast. Let's talk
about spiritual gifts right now. Hello, and
welcome to the Church Revitalization Podcast brought to you by
the Malphurs Group team, where each week we tackle important,
actionable topics to help churches thrive. And now,
here's your hosts, Scott Ball and AJ Mathieu.
(00:26):
Welcome to the Church Revitalization Podcast. My name is Scott Ball. I'm joined by my
friend and cohost, AJ Mathieu. Alright.
Speaking of busting things, I'm gonna bust some people's
bubbles to start off bubbles. Expectations.
Let's yeah. Yeah. So you might have
seen spiritual gifts and myth busting and thought. Now we're
(00:49):
gonna have an episode on cessationism, and sign
gifts. And I just have to tell you, it's not gonna happen. We're
not we're not diving into that.
Our team at the Malthus group is broadly evangelical,
and we've got people and listeners across the spectrum. This is not
for us one of those issues that's worth
(01:11):
the debate. It doesn't mean we don't have perspectives. Of course we do.
But is it really worth that debate? I don't
not for the purposes of this episode, at least. If we ever meet
face to face, maybe that's a brief conversation we'll
have together. Totally. Totally. But,
(01:31):
there are some myths about spiritual gifts that I think
are pretty pervasive and widespread across sort of
the spectrum, and it would be helpful for us to bust
those myths. So maybe we can hop straight to it.
However, before we do so, wanna mention to you healthychurches
toolkit Com. Last week, we were talking about temperament and how
(01:54):
important that is as it relates to,
helping people find a fit in volunteering. Another thing that can be helpful for
helping people find their fit in volunteering is, understanding their
spiritual giftedness. So,
though it might sound like I'm kind of
speaking against this through part of this episode,
(02:18):
hang on with us through the end. But spiritual
gifts tools have their place, and the Healthy Churches
toolkit has a great one that helps people understand their giftedness
so that you can apply that in the real world and getting plugged into a
volunteer role. So sign up for seven days for free at
malphorsgroup.com/toolkit, or, actually, go to
(02:39):
healthychurchestoolkit.com free for seven days. Try out
this divine design discovery tool with people in your
church and help them get plugged into a volunteer role based on their
temperament and their giftedness. Yeah. I think,
we would find little, little,
combat against the idea that everybody,
(03:02):
every follower of Christ should be, engaged in
the work of the ministry. We should be serving in the church somewhere.
And this is a component in helping people do that because God has designed us
in a way that would be of greatest benefit to
our local assembly and to the world at large
as believers in the world. And so, temperament
(03:25):
was a component of that. Today, we're talking spiritual gifts. The first
myth that I think some people say because some
people just they push back against spiritual gifts assessments.
Most people would, I think, you know, if you're if you understand
scripture, you would you would have to say, yes. It does
speak to spiritual gifts. The problem that people
(03:47):
have is in the authority of an assessment. So the myth that
we're busting is that spiritual gifts assessments are authoritative. Worth
it. We're saying they are not authoritative. We're saying
they are a tool, created by
man to help people get into the
ballpark, into the realm of understanding of,
(04:10):
some of the gifting that we see called out in scripture so that we can
begin to understand ourselves and others. So the
truth is it's just a tool. It's just a tool created by
man, not divinely inspired, to try
to better understand this mystery of
how God, creates us
(04:33):
in his image and for his work in
service, so that we can, we can,
help build up the brothers and sisters in the in the kingdom and in the
church. AJ, are you, are you a superhero
fan? I am not, Scott. Yeah. I knew
that. Surprised. It was for the benefit of the audience to
(04:56):
under understand this. Did you
did you ever watch the old Tobey Maguire, Spider Man movies?
I think I saw that. But if this is helpful, I
just, night before last, turned on the
1989, Michael
Keaton Batman and showed it to my son. And
(05:17):
Yeah. Yeah. Can we use that? Can we use Batman? I'm pretty sure I
saw the Spider Man you're talking about, though. Yeah.
Batman's not a good example. Spider Man's a better example because Spider
Man has actual powers. Like, Batman's just
rich. Well He doesn't have any superpowers?
He he doesn't. Well, maybe he he seemed to be gifted in
(05:41):
technology. He was able to develop tools and
resources to fight crime. Fair enough. But it's
he's he doesn't have a superpower. So let's, let
me get this on track. So in in the movie,
Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker gets
(06:01):
bit by a spider. Right? And he starts to feel ill
and he goes to sleep. He's kinda, like, sweaty and kinda, like,
feeling bad. So he goes home and he goes to sleep. And then when he
wakes up the next morning, he's feeling better and not just better, but,
like, incredible. You know, he's he's got Super, you might say. He's got
yeah. He's got these muscles. You know? He,
(06:24):
he's got webs. This is the version where the webs actually shoot out of
his wrists. He doesn't have, it's not like the the later
versions of Spider Man where he's creates his own
web stuff. Like Batman. This is the version like Batman. That's
right. Yeah. This Peter Parker, he it actually comes out of his
wrists. Natural web creation. Okay.
(06:46):
Yeah. He's got these spidey senses. He can climb walls. He
has this sort of super strength. Right? But
the funny thing is it kind of is one of the fun parts of that
film, is when he first
gets these new superpowers, he doesn't know what
all of them are. Like, he's not sure. So he kinda goes
(07:08):
into a back alley, I guess, somewhere in Queens, and he's and
he's discovers all I can climb walls. Uh-huh.
Oh, how far can I jump? You know? And and the first time he tries
to swing across between buildings, he actually sort of face
plants and hits a a building and, you know, it's kinda funny. He's kinda laugh,
but, you know, you kinda just joke. Of course, it doesn't take long for until
(07:30):
he's swinging all around the city. Right? Your friendly neighborhood Spider
Man. Here's the point. The point is,
maybe Peter Parker could have taken some
sort of test. At the Healthy Churches Toolkit?
Yeah. HealthyChurchesToolkit.com. Free for seven days.
(07:50):
Maybe he could have taken some tests that might have suggested what
powers he has or doesn't have, but he doesn't
really know what they are until he tries.
Yeah. Until he builds the skill, but
also just tries it out and go, oh, can I do this?
Is this something that works? And I think that sometimes what people do is they
(08:14):
they they'll take a test like the one that we have on healthychurches toolkit Com
free for seven days, and and then go,
well, that's it. The test said. And
therefore it is. And it says I have the gift of teaching.
Therefore, I am an incredible teacher. Like, well, you might
have a a tendency for that, but when
(08:36):
you teach, do people listen? You know, if it says you have
the spiritual gift of leadership, is anybody following you?
And not just on social media, but like in your life, do do
people follow you? And if, if those
things aren't true, then you maybe don't have the gift of teaching and you maybe
don't have the gift of leadership. Like life proves what your
(08:59):
gifts are, not some test. Yeah.
So at best, it can get you in the ballpark, but it can't
tell you what you have until you actually try. So you gotta you gotta you
gotta be like Peter Parker, man. You gotta you gotta try some things, and you're
gonna hit your face a few times, and that's okay. Because when you're in a
loving community in a church, you can try things and fail and
(09:20):
it not be final. You know? Yeah. And then it cannot be fatal, and
people can pick you up and encourage you and help you figure out what really
is a good fit. Yeah. You know, I mean, so many I used to get
really frustrated in in my early less mature
years with spiritual gifts assessments because so many of them are written
in sort of like the the
(09:41):
the, position in which you have already tried, like, all kinds
of things. And, like, when you do this, x is the result.
And I used to get really frustrated with that because I'm like, I I don't
know. I haven't tried that. And and so I think, you
know, to kinda support that it's not authoritative because it it's
not as we're saying. But you may not have even experienced
(10:03):
that. I mean, part of even a a divine design discovery is just is
life experience and ministry experience.
I would answer a lot of questions differently
now than I would have then because I've actually just had opportunities to try things
and and find out what what is a fit. You could be a gifted
teacher who has not yet had the opportunity to teach.
(10:26):
And so if an assessment is saying when you teach,
the place just explodes and everybody wants to be in your class. And you're like,
I've never taught anything, but I kinda feel like I would like to do that.
So as a part of this and as a part of getting people connected in
your church into serving areas, there in addition to any kind of
assessments that you do, there has to be a component for helping people to
(10:48):
have a way to kick the tires as we've said before. Yeah. And
and try things out, you know, under under adult
supervision, to see how things go. But or, or,
you know, maybe you never saw Harry Potter either, I bet. Did you? No.
Golly, man. Yeah. Get with the program. So
when Harry goes to Ollivanders, he's looking for his for trying to find his wand.
(11:12):
You know? Ollivanders? Is that an apartment store?
It's, the place that sells wands. Okay. And,
you know, you he just says give it a little swish. You know? He doesn't
know any magic yet, but just give a little swish. And the first few he
tries, you know, kinda blows things up like nothing's in
and, they're like and all of Andrew's like, nope. Not the
(11:34):
right one. You know? And, finally, he gets the right one,
and then it's like it glows behind him. You know, like, oh,
like and it's like, ah, the wand shows the wizard. There's a little bit
with that with spiritual gifts where it's like, if you think something might be right,
try it out. If things are blowing up around you,
probably not the right fit. Try something different. Blowing up in the bad
(11:57):
sense. Yes. Now if yeah. Yeah.
Most of the time, blowing up is a bad sense.
But this is 2025, and blowing up might be the most awesome thing that ever
happened. Let's move on
to number two. Just saying. Oh, he
(12:17):
started this class and just just blow it up. Like Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Alright. Number
two. Myth number two is that Paul has given us an
exhaustive list in the epistles of spiritual
gift gift. And no. I'm sorry to
bust your myth. Sure. You can
(12:39):
push back. You can comment below and give us a thumbs down on YouTube
if you want to and say this is it. There are
no other such gifts. But I don't know. I think we're kind of taking the
position that, there's there are a lot of ways
in which people can and may have been gifted. And I
think Paul is directing us towards having an open
(13:02):
view of this that gifts do exist. I think the bigger
point, gifts exist. We should
find what that is and use it for the glory of God and the benefit
of others, in the kingdom and beyond. So,
it's like And and distinction from and spiritual
giftedness as distinct from not divorced from,
(13:25):
but distinct from natural gifts and
talents. Right? Yeah. So
Paul was not born
an apostle. Right? Like that he didn't he may have had
some natural skills and gifts that
(13:45):
maybe enabled him to be an apostle, but
he received the gift of apostleship when
he was when he became, born
again. And that's that's the message of
spiritual gifts is these are special grace gift,
charasmata, that are given to people
(14:07):
for the benefit of building up the church. They are distinct
from natural skills and abilities that you have that
predate your conversion. They're not divorced from them. So
they be connected to them, but they're distinct from them, and it's a special grace
gift. And so I think what Paul is trying to do is he's trying to
paint a picture of what spiritual giftedness
(14:30):
is, which is a a special gift that Christ has
given to an individual for the benefit of the
collective so that it can be whole. And
depending on the person and depending on the congregation where that
person is, you may receive a
different gift than what's necessarily in some
(14:52):
specific inventory because the giftedness is tied not
only to the individual but to their contribution to the collective.
That's why the gifts are given. The gifts are given for the edification of the
whole. And so when there is a gap in
the maturity of the whole, God provides
an individual whose grace gifts edify the whole.
(15:14):
That's why it's so important that everyone be active in contributing because the
church cannot be whole until everyone is living out their
role, building up one another towards full maturity. So I
think it's just a category error to say we must
have an inventory. It must be a definitive list because I
think that what Paul is trying to do is not give us an inventory. I
(15:36):
I think he's trying to paint us a picture of what spiritual giftedness
is for. And that's why, honestly, the whole cessationism
and sign gifts thing is so to me it's just
it's just the wrong again, not that I don't have perspectives on these things, but
it's a category error to for for spiritual giftedness. What is what are spiritual
gifts for? They're for the edification of the body for the whole. Yeah.
(15:59):
Yeah. Yeah. And and the and the gifts that are provided are not
time bound or time specific, but they're the grace gifts that are
given for the edification of that particular body of
believers, and it's not it's not tied to time.
Yeah. I I and I I also think they're generally
broad enough. That is cheating a little bit and kind of betraying my,
(16:23):
the point that we see in scripture is broad enough. I think, you know, we've
kinda found now two thousand years into this that most things
kind of fit into those areas pretty well. You know? I don't know that there's
necessarily anything new under the sun. That, you know, somebody
is like, none of those describe me at all. I have
this exact specific thing. You know? I mean,
(16:45):
sure. Maybe you don't need a spiritual gifts assessment to say
third grade teaching is exactly
your gift, you know, as opposed to eighth grade or adults
or early childhood. So we don't need
a detailed list of every single thing. I think we've been given
some really great examples, and and we
(17:08):
can we can, get you in the
ballpark, in a fairly small ballpark, probably,
to how how God has wired you. I just think that the myth
maybe myth two is tied to gift one. It's like, if
if a spiritual gifts test is authoritative, then it it
(17:29):
then that spiritual gifts test must include an
inventory of a definitive list of what the gifts are.
Yeah. I just I think that all of that's wrong. I
don't wrong not wrong as in, like, immoral or something,
but wrong as in you're kinda missing the point. Like,
missing Paul's point, missing the point of the
(17:51):
of of a test in the first place and what can and can't do
is just category errors and and and not really understanding
from from a theological level what spiritual gifts are. So,
which is maybe a good a good segue into into the myth number
three. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Here's the point. I think we kinda land this
plane with myth number three, and that's spiritual gifts have no value.
(18:14):
And we would say, no. We're busting that myth. They absolutely do have
value because, again, don't don't,
you know, not see the forest for the trees here. The idea
is that we are given gifts,
by the grace of God for for the benefit
of others and ourselves and to his glory. And so
(18:38):
let's take the time to investigate. And I would say, Scott,
we would say, have a method and a system for helping people
discover these things so that they can get employed.
Aubrey used to say the church had had, an an unemployment
issue. And, and, absolutely,
that is still true today. We need to help people. We need
(19:00):
to open their eyes to to the way God's gifted them into the
opportunities that there are for them in the kingdom
to be able to, to live this out,
because it I mean, it it is a life giver. It is a
joy bringer, and it is a benefit to others,
into the church. Churches thrive when they begin to employ
(19:24):
these these things, when they bring this to peep to people's minds and to
understanding. And, I I believe spiritual gifts
have great value in the church and in the kingdom. Spiritual
gifts assessments have great value. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
I mean, the the reality is that, when we work with
churches and do the church ministry analysis with them,
(19:47):
you know, if we see a church that's got,
a a rate of engagement for volunteers
above 50%, it's at 60% or
65%, we're thinking, man, they're killing it. They're doing a great
job. And the reality
(20:10):
is that that's not very good. That means that 35
or 40 or 50% of the churches is unemployed in the
church. That 35, 40,
50 percent of the gifts in the church are
inert, are not activated, are not being used, and
that is something that Paul would have a lot to say about. He would
(20:33):
say, this isn't good. Every single one of you has
been given a special grace gift. This is Ephesians four. The gifts
were given for the edification of the body, and so we
want every person to, use a
tool. Use it to if it if the tool is helpful for activation, then
the tool is beneficial. And I think that that's exactly what it
(20:55):
is. It's it's a helpful
step. It greases the wheels for a
conversation that gets someone moving, and,
so we would say it definitely does have value. It's not authoritative,
and the list is not exhaustive or comprehensive, but
it does get us moving, and that's what matters.
(21:18):
Yeah. Absolutely. Well, we wanna get you moving into the Healthy
Church's toolkit. So there's link below in the
podcast show notes or in the YouTube description
below, because, we've just have this amazing
tool that we want to share with you, and we believe it's gonna benefit your
church, to to activate it and and get it working.
(21:40):
And you'll see the you'll see the fruit come from it. I do wanna
mention, I feel like because I don't know that we've said this explicitly. These
this tool is is available for plus accounts, and,
we're not trying to gatekeep on that, but we have extra costs
associated with running this feature. And so that's one of the
reasons why it's on the on the plus side of things.
(22:03):
But, you can get seven days for free if you go to
healthychurchestoolkit.com and try it out. Yeah. Nothing. Yep.
So last week, we talked temperament, and specifically in the
disc. This week, spiritual gifts. These are just components of what we call divine design,
and that's what, this this tool is designed to help you,
help your people see how God has wired them for, the work
(22:27):
of the ministry in the kingdom. Hope you'll do that. We wanna hear about the
fruit that it bears in your church, so be sure to reach out to us.
Let us know. And we're glad you are with us. We'll be see you we
will see you again next week on the church revitalization
podcast.
Myth busting today on the Church Revitalization Podcast. Let's talk
about spiritual gifts right now. Hello, and
welcome to the Church Revitalization Podcast brought to you by
the Malphurs Group team, where each week we tackle important,
actionable topics to help churches thrive. And now,
here's your hosts, Scott Ball and AJ Mathieu.
(00:26):
Welcome to the Church Revitalization Podcast. My name is Scott Ball. I'm joined by my
friend and cohost, AJ Mathieu. Alright.
Speaking of busting things, I'm gonna bust some people's
bubbles to start off bubbles. Expectations.
Let's yeah. Yeah. So you might have
seen spiritual gifts and myth busting and thought. Now we're
(00:49):
gonna have an episode on cessationism, and sign
gifts. And I just have to tell you, it's not gonna happen. We're
not we're not diving into that.
Our team at the Malthus group is broadly evangelical,
and we've got people and listeners across the spectrum. This is not
for us one of those issues that's worth
(01:11):
the debate. It doesn't mean we don't have perspectives. Of course we do.
But is it really worth that debate? I don't
not for the purposes of this episode, at least. If we ever meet
face to face, maybe that's a brief conversation we'll
have together. Totally. Totally. But,
(01:31):
there are some myths about spiritual gifts that I think
are pretty pervasive and widespread across sort of
the spectrum, and it would be helpful for us to bust
those myths. So maybe we can hop straight to it.
However, before we do so, wanna mention to you healthychurches
toolkit Com. Last week, we were talking about temperament and how
(01:54):
important that is as it relates to,
helping people find a fit in volunteering. Another thing that can be helpful for
helping people find their fit in volunteering is, understanding their
spiritual giftedness. So,
though it might sound like I'm kind of
speaking against this through part of this episode,
(02:18):
hang on with us through the end. But spiritual
gifts tools have their place, and the Healthy Churches
toolkit has a great one that helps people understand their giftedness
so that you can apply that in the real world and getting plugged into a
volunteer role. So sign up for seven days for free at
malphorsgroup.com/toolkit, or, actually, go to
(02:39):
healthychurchestoolkit.com free for seven days. Try out
this divine design discovery tool with people in your
church and help them get plugged into a volunteer role based on their
temperament and their giftedness. Yeah. I think,
we would find little, little,
combat against the idea that everybody,
(03:02):
every follower of Christ should be, engaged in
the work of the ministry. We should be serving in the church somewhere.
And this is a component in helping people do that because God has designed us
in a way that would be of greatest benefit to
our local assembly and to the world at large
as believers in the world. And so, temperament
(03:25):
was a component of that. Today, we're talking spiritual gifts. The first
myth that I think some people say because some
people just they push back against spiritual gifts assessments.
Most people would, I think, you know, if you're if you understand
scripture, you would you would have to say, yes. It does
speak to spiritual gifts. The problem that people
(03:47):
have is in the authority of an assessment. So the myth that
we're busting is that spiritual gifts assessments are authoritative. Worth
it. We're saying they are not authoritative. We're saying
they are a tool, created by
man to help people get into the
ballpark, into the realm of understanding of,
(04:10):
some of the gifting that we see called out in scripture so that we can
begin to understand ourselves and others. So the
truth is it's just a tool. It's just a tool created by
man, not divinely inspired, to try
to better understand this mystery of
how God, creates us
(04:33):
in his image and for his work in
service, so that we can, we can,
help build up the brothers and sisters in the in the kingdom and in the
church. AJ, are you, are you a superhero
fan? I am not, Scott. Yeah. I knew
that. Surprised. It was for the benefit of the audience to
(04:56):
under understand this. Did you
did you ever watch the old Tobey Maguire, Spider Man movies?
I think I saw that. But if this is helpful, I
just, night before last, turned on the
1989, Michael
Keaton Batman and showed it to my son. And
(05:17):
Yeah. Yeah. Can we use that? Can we use Batman? I'm pretty sure I
saw the Spider Man you're talking about, though. Yeah.
Batman's not a good example. Spider Man's a better example because Spider
Man has actual powers. Like, Batman's just
rich. Well He doesn't have any superpowers?
He he doesn't. Well, maybe he he seemed to be gifted in
(05:41):
technology. He was able to develop tools and
resources to fight crime. Fair enough. But it's
he's he doesn't have a superpower. So let's, let
me get this on track. So in in the movie,
Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker gets
(06:01):
bit by a spider. Right? And he starts to feel ill
and he goes to sleep. He's kinda, like, sweaty and kinda, like,
feeling bad. So he goes home and he goes to sleep. And then when he
wakes up the next morning, he's feeling better and not just better, but,
like, incredible. You know, he's he's got Super, you might say. He's got
yeah. He's got these muscles. You know? He,
(06:24):
he's got webs. This is the version where the webs actually shoot out of
his wrists. He doesn't have, it's not like the the later
versions of Spider Man where he's creates his own
web stuff. Like Batman. This is the version like Batman. That's
right. Yeah. This Peter Parker, he it actually comes out of his
wrists. Natural web creation. Okay.
(06:46):
Yeah. He's got these spidey senses. He can climb walls. He
has this sort of super strength. Right? But
the funny thing is it kind of is one of the fun parts of that
film, is when he first
gets these new superpowers, he doesn't know what
all of them are. Like, he's not sure. So he kinda goes
(07:08):
into a back alley, I guess, somewhere in Queens, and he's and
he's discovers all I can climb walls. Uh-huh.
Oh, how far can I jump? You know? And and the first time he tries
to swing across between buildings, he actually sort of face
plants and hits a a building and, you know, it's kinda funny. He's kinda laugh,
but, you know, you kinda just joke. Of course, it doesn't take long for until
(07:30):
he's swinging all around the city. Right? Your friendly neighborhood Spider
Man. Here's the point. The point is,
maybe Peter Parker could have taken some
sort of test. At the Healthy Churches Toolkit?
Yeah. HealthyChurchesToolkit.com. Free for seven days.
(07:50):
Maybe he could have taken some tests that might have suggested what
powers he has or doesn't have, but he doesn't
really know what they are until he tries.
Yeah. Until he builds the skill, but
also just tries it out and go, oh, can I do this?
Is this something that works? And I think that sometimes what people do is they
(08:14):
they they'll take a test like the one that we have on healthychurches toolkit Com
free for seven days, and and then go,
well, that's it. The test said. And
therefore it is. And it says I have the gift of teaching.
Therefore, I am an incredible teacher. Like, well, you might
have a a tendency for that, but when
(08:36):
you teach, do people listen? You know, if it says you have
the spiritual gift of leadership, is anybody following you?
And not just on social media, but like in your life, do do
people follow you? And if, if those
things aren't true, then you maybe don't have the gift of teaching and you maybe
don't have the gift of leadership. Like life proves what your
(08:59):
gifts are, not some test. Yeah.
So at best, it can get you in the ballpark, but it can't
tell you what you have until you actually try. So you gotta you gotta you
gotta be like Peter Parker, man. You gotta you gotta try some things, and you're
gonna hit your face a few times, and that's okay. Because when you're in a
loving community in a church, you can try things and fail and
(09:20):
it not be final. You know? Yeah. And then it cannot be fatal, and
people can pick you up and encourage you and help you figure out what really
is a good fit. Yeah. You know, I mean, so many I used to get
really frustrated in in my early less mature
years with spiritual gifts assessments because so many of them are written
in sort of like the the
(09:41):
the, position in which you have already tried, like, all kinds
of things. And, like, when you do this, x is the result.
And I used to get really frustrated with that because I'm like, I I don't
know. I haven't tried that. And and so I think, you
know, to kinda support that it's not authoritative because it it's
not as we're saying. But you may not have even experienced
(10:03):
that. I mean, part of even a a divine design discovery is just is
life experience and ministry experience.
I would answer a lot of questions differently
now than I would have then because I've actually just had opportunities to try things
and and find out what what is a fit. You could be a gifted
teacher who has not yet had the opportunity to teach.
(10:26):
And so if an assessment is saying when you teach,
the place just explodes and everybody wants to be in your class. And you're like,
I've never taught anything, but I kinda feel like I would like to do that.
So as a part of this and as a part of getting people connected in
your church into serving areas, there in addition to any kind of
assessments that you do, there has to be a component for helping people to
(10:48):
have a way to kick the tires as we've said before. Yeah. And
and try things out, you know, under under adult
supervision, to see how things go. But or, or,
you know, maybe you never saw Harry Potter either, I bet. Did you? No.
Golly, man. Yeah. Get with the program. So
when Harry goes to Ollivanders, he's looking for his for trying to find his wand.
(11:12):
You know? Ollivanders? Is that an apartment store?
It's, the place that sells wands. Okay. And,
you know, you he just says give it a little swish. You know? He doesn't
know any magic yet, but just give a little swish. And the first few he
tries, you know, kinda blows things up like nothing's in
and, they're like and all of Andrew's like, nope. Not the
(11:34):
right one. You know? And, finally, he gets the right one,
and then it's like it glows behind him. You know, like, oh,
like and it's like, ah, the wand shows the wizard. There's a little bit
with that with spiritual gifts where it's like, if you think something might be right,
try it out. If things are blowing up around you,
probably not the right fit. Try something different. Blowing up in the bad
(11:57):
sense. Yes. Now if yeah. Yeah.
Most of the time, blowing up is a bad sense.
But this is 2025, and blowing up might be the most awesome thing that ever
happened. Let's move on
to number two. Just saying. Oh, he
(12:17):
started this class and just just blow it up. Like Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Alright. Number
two. Myth number two is that Paul has given us an
exhaustive list in the epistles of spiritual
gift gift. And no. I'm sorry to
bust your myth. Sure. You can
(12:39):
push back. You can comment below and give us a thumbs down on YouTube
if you want to and say this is it. There are
no other such gifts. But I don't know. I think we're kind of taking the
position that, there's there are a lot of ways
in which people can and may have been gifted. And I
think Paul is directing us towards having an open
(13:02):
view of this that gifts do exist. I think the bigger
point, gifts exist. We should
find what that is and use it for the glory of God and the benefit
of others, in the kingdom and beyond. So,
it's like And and distinction from and spiritual
giftedness as distinct from not divorced from,
(13:25):
but distinct from natural gifts and
talents. Right? Yeah. So
Paul was not born
an apostle. Right? Like that he didn't he may have had
some natural skills and gifts that
(13:45):
maybe enabled him to be an apostle, but
he received the gift of apostleship when
he was when he became, born
again. And that's that's the message of
spiritual gifts is these are special grace gift,
charasmata, that are given to people
(14:07):
for the benefit of building up the church. They are distinct
from natural skills and abilities that you have that
predate your conversion. They're not divorced from them. So
they be connected to them, but they're distinct from them, and it's a special grace
gift. And so I think what Paul is trying to do is he's trying to
paint a picture of what spiritual giftedness
(14:30):
is, which is a a special gift that Christ has
given to an individual for the benefit of the
collective so that it can be whole. And
depending on the person and depending on the congregation where that
person is, you may receive a
different gift than what's necessarily in some
(14:52):
specific inventory because the giftedness is tied not
only to the individual but to their contribution to the collective.
That's why the gifts are given. The gifts are given for the edification of the
whole. And so when there is a gap in
the maturity of the whole, God provides
an individual whose grace gifts edify the whole.
(15:14):
That's why it's so important that everyone be active in contributing because the
church cannot be whole until everyone is living out their
role, building up one another towards full maturity. So I
think it's just a category error to say we must
have an inventory. It must be a definitive list because I
think that what Paul is trying to do is not give us an inventory. I
(15:36):
I think he's trying to paint us a picture of what spiritual giftedness
is for. And that's why, honestly, the whole cessationism
and sign gifts thing is so to me it's just
it's just the wrong again, not that I don't have perspectives on these things, but
it's a category error to for for spiritual giftedness. What is what are spiritual
gifts for? They're for the edification of the body for the whole. Yeah.
(15:59):
Yeah. Yeah. And and the and the gifts that are provided are not
time bound or time specific, but they're the grace gifts that are
given for the edification of that particular body of
believers, and it's not it's not tied to time.
Yeah. I I and I I also think they're generally
broad enough. That is cheating a little bit and kind of betraying my,
(16:23):
the point that we see in scripture is broad enough. I think, you know, we've
kinda found now two thousand years into this that most things
kind of fit into those areas pretty well. You know? I don't know that there's
necessarily anything new under the sun. That, you know, somebody
is like, none of those describe me at all. I have
this exact specific thing. You know? I mean,
(16:45):
sure. Maybe you don't need a spiritual gifts assessment to say
third grade teaching is exactly
your gift, you know, as opposed to eighth grade or adults
or early childhood. So we don't need
a detailed list of every single thing. I think we've been given
some really great examples, and and we
(17:08):
can we can, get you in the
ballpark, in a fairly small ballpark, probably,
to how how God has wired you. I just think that the myth
maybe myth two is tied to gift one. It's like, if
if a spiritual gifts test is authoritative, then it it
(17:29):
then that spiritual gifts test must include an
inventory of a definitive list of what the gifts are.
Yeah. I just I think that all of that's wrong. I
don't wrong not wrong as in, like, immoral or something,
but wrong as in you're kinda missing the point. Like,
missing Paul's point, missing the point of the
(17:51):
of of a test in the first place and what can and can't do
is just category errors and and and not really understanding
from from a theological level what spiritual gifts are. So,
which is maybe a good a good segue into into the myth number
three. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Here's the point. I think we kinda land this
plane with myth number three, and that's spiritual gifts have no value.
(18:14):
And we would say, no. We're busting that myth. They absolutely do have
value because, again, don't don't,
you know, not see the forest for the trees here. The idea
is that we are given gifts,
by the grace of God for for the benefit
of others and ourselves and to his glory. And so
(18:38):
let's take the time to investigate. And I would say, Scott,
we would say, have a method and a system for helping people
discover these things so that they can get employed.
Aubrey used to say the church had had, an an unemployment
issue. And, and, absolutely,
that is still true today. We need to help people. We need
(19:00):
to open their eyes to to the way God's gifted them into the
opportunities that there are for them in the kingdom
to be able to, to live this out,
because it I mean, it it is a life giver. It is a
joy bringer, and it is a benefit to others,
into the church. Churches thrive when they begin to employ
(19:24):
these these things, when they bring this to peep to people's minds and to
understanding. And, I I believe spiritual gifts
have great value in the church and in the kingdom. Spiritual
gifts assessments have great value. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
I mean, the the reality is that, when we work with
churches and do the church ministry analysis with them,
(19:47):
you know, if we see a church that's got,
a a rate of engagement for volunteers
above 50%, it's at 60% or
65%, we're thinking, man, they're killing it. They're doing a great
job. And the reality
(20:10):
is that that's not very good. That means that 35
or 40 or 50% of the churches is unemployed in the
church. That 35, 40,
50 percent of the gifts in the church are
inert, are not activated, are not being used, and
that is something that Paul would have a lot to say about. He would
(20:33):
say, this isn't good. Every single one of you has
been given a special grace gift. This is Ephesians four. The gifts
were given for the edification of the body, and so we
want every person to, use a
tool. Use it to if it if the tool is helpful for activation, then
the tool is beneficial. And I think that that's exactly what it
(20:55):
is. It's it's a helpful
step. It greases the wheels for a
conversation that gets someone moving, and,
so we would say it definitely does have value. It's not authoritative,
and the list is not exhaustive or comprehensive, but
it does get us moving, and that's what matters.
(21:18):
Yeah. Absolutely. Well, we wanna get you moving into the Healthy
Church's toolkit. So there's link below in the
podcast show notes or in the YouTube description
below, because, we've just have this amazing
tool that we want to share with you, and we believe it's gonna benefit your
church, to to activate it and and get it working.
(21:40):
And you'll see the you'll see the fruit come from it. I do wanna
mention, I feel like because I don't know that we've said this explicitly. These
this tool is is available for plus accounts, and,
we're not trying to gatekeep on that, but we have extra costs
associated with running this feature. And so that's one of the
reasons why it's on the on the plus side of things.
(22:03):
But, you can get seven days for free if you go to
healthychurchestoolkit.com and try it out. Yeah. Nothing. Yep.
So last week, we talked temperament, and specifically in the
disc. This week, spiritual gifts. These are just components of what we call divine design,
and that's what, this this tool is designed to help you,
help your people see how God has wired them for, the work
(22:27):
of the ministry in the kingdom. Hope you'll do that. We wanna hear about the
fruit that it bears in your church, so be sure to reach out to us.
Let us know. And we're glad you are with us. We'll be see you we
will see you again next week on the church revitalization
podcast.
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