“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” (1 Peter 4:10)
by Pastor Patrick Cho
When I was in school, I remember taking a spiritual giftedness survey to help determine which gift God had bestowed on me. It was a list of questions about my personality and tendencies and I had to give myself a score for each question. After the scores were all added up, the test would help determine my spiritual giftedness. If I tended to respond to most of the questions with mercy, then I had the gift of mercy. If I was detailed and organized, perhaps I had the gift of administration. I suppose I don’t have a serious problem with these tests in general since they could be useful in helping people get a better idea of how they can best serve the church. But there might be a better way to assess this than a personality test.
One issue that I have with these tests is that they work off the assumption that we have a comprehensive list of spiritual gifts given to us in Scripture. There are several lists of gifts mentioned in the New Testament: 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, 1 Corinthians 12:28-30, and Romans 12:6-8. Interestingly, none of the lists perfectly matches another. All the lists have at least one gift that isn’t mentioned in the other two. Some gifts are listed in two lists but not the third. The only gift listed in all three is prophecy. It seems to be a fair conclusion that the Apostle Paul’s main concern was not to give the church a comprehensive list of gifts.
Even if you compiled all the gifts mentioned in these passages, there is still no real way of knowing whether you would have a comprehensive list of all the extant spiritual gifts. In fact, biblical evidence seems to indicate otherwise. Consider Ephesians 4:11, which serves not so much as a list of spiritual gifts as much as a list of those who have been gifted, namely apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. As an example, in this passage the Apostle Paul mentions evangelists, which is probably best understood as those who have a particular gift for evangelism. But there is no mention of the gift of evangelism in the lists of 1 Corinthians 12 or Romans 12. This could perhaps be seen as proof that there are gifts that exist that aren’t mentioned in the list passages of the New Testament. So while spiritual gift surveys might be received as helpful, there is no way that they could provide a complete list of gifts to choose from.
When you look at the lists of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians and Romans, the point of these passages isn’t so much about identifying one’s particular gift as it is about exercising one’s gift in order to benefit the body of Christ. Too many Christians excuse themselves from serving the church body because they don’t see themselves gifted in a particular way. For instance, someone might refuse to evangelize on a university campus because they don’t feel “gifted” to do so. Yes, we see certain individuals gifted specifically in evangelism (cf. Acts 21:8), but it is instructive that Paul would tell a young Timothy to do the work of an evangelist (2 Tim. 4:5). The assumption is that Timothy is not necessarily gifted as an evangelist, but this doesn’t excuse him from fulfilling that role.
The point is that as Christians we need to be busy exercising our spiritual gifts, abilities, and talents in a way that benefits and builds up the rest of the body of the church. I like the way the Apostle Peter simplifies it in 1 Peter 4:10-11. According to this passage, there are some in the church that are particularly gifted to serve with their speech and there are others that are gifted to serve with their hands. My encouragement to you is to find out how you best fit to serve the body, and then to put that into practice. This doesn’t mean that “hands” people are never going to serve with their speech and “speech” people are never going to serve with their hands, but each Christian is going to have a specific way that they best minister to the church.
The picture of a healthy spiritual body is one where the individual members are all functioning together to mutually edify the whole for the glory of Christ. No Christian is called to be a passive observer. God has designed the church so that the members are all dependent upon one other. So instead of trying to nail down specifically which spiritual gift you must have, it might be better to consider your abilities, interests, and desires and to serve the body in light of them. What are you good at? What do you really enjoy doing? Chances are the church could really use your help with it.