Picturing Theology, Revised Edition

Picturing Theology, Revised Edition | 185

Areas of Disagreement among Christians Concerning Spiritual Gifts Rev. Terry G. Cornett

I. What is the relationship between “natural talents or capacities” and “spiritual gifts”? A. View #1 – Spiritual gifts are what the natural talents and abilities latent in every human being look like when they are energized, empowered, broadened, and redirected by the Spirit of God regenerating a person. This view is concerned to safeguard the fact that: 1. There is no discontinuity between the activity of the Spirit who creates and who recreates. (Salvation is restorative in nature making us the full human beings we were originally created to be.) 2. That God has chosen to work his gifts through human beings which includes using their minds, bodies, and personalities. He includes us in his work so that even though his power will enable us to do far more than mere human accomplishments, it is still at work in, with, and through us as we actually are. 3. God foreknew us and was at work prior to our salvation (cf. Jeremiah 1:5) a. Jeremiah 1:5 (ESV) – Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. b. Ephesians 2:10 (ESV) – For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. 4. That even those who are unsaved and in rebellion against God rely on his creation and gifts of grace (suppressed, corrupted, or misdirected as they may be) for their very being and productivity. a. 1 Corinthians 4:7 (ESV) – For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? (Cf. Psalm 104.)