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Romans 12:1-8

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8 the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Spiritual Gifts, Spiritual Ministries: Introduction

Back in the days of the French Revolution, three brothers were condemned to be executed by that infamous French device, the Guillotine. The brothers were great Christians, and known to be blessed with the spiritual gifts of Faith, Prophecy, and Helpfulness, respectively.

The first brother to be placed in the guillotine was the brother with the gift of great Faith. When asked if he had any last words, he boldly proclaimed, "I have faith that God will deliver me from this fate." When the executioner pulled the rope...nothing happened. The blade did not come down. Taking this as a miracle from God, the authorities released the first brother.

The second brother, the one with the gift of prophecy, was then brought forth, and placed in the guillotine. When asked if he had any last words, he said, "I predict that God will intervene and thwart your plans to execute me." Sure enough, when the executioner pulled the rope, once again nothing happened, and the blade did not come down. Taking this as a sign from God, the second brother was released.

The third brother, the one with the gift of helpfulness, was then brought forth, and placed in the guillotine, face up, looking right at the suspended blade above him. When he was asked if he had any last words, he paused for a moment, looking up at that blade, then replied in his most helpful voice, "Hey! I think I just found out what the problem is with your guillotine!"

Today we begin an eight-part sermon series focusing on spiritual gifts, spiritual ministries. There are several "lists" of spiritual gifts in different places in the New Testament, and plenty of debate among biblical scholars on which ones really count as "gifts" and which one don't, but we'll be focusing on the seven gifts listed in Romans 12:1-8. They are (in order) prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, and compassion.

Like many other contemporary theologians and pastors, I don't necessarily believe that Paul, when he wrote this letter to the Romans, intended for this to be an exhaustive list of all spritual gifts, but rather an example of some--perhaps even the most prominent, or the ones most needed by his audience. I like to think that there are other spiritual gifts that are eqully valid, but just didn't quite make the cut...like the spiritual gift of being able to stay awake all the way through a boring sermon...or the spiritual gift of flipping a hamburger without ever dropping it through the grill...or the spiritual gift of avoiding the pastor when you know he wants to ask you to sign up for something...

Prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, and compassion -- we'll spend each of the next seven weeks reflecting on each one of these gifts, and how God uses them for the benefit of the church and the wider community. But today, I'd like to lay a foundation for what exactly we mean when we talk about spiritual gifts.

In fact, that word, "gifts" is, in my opinion, responsible for a pretty serious misunderstanding of this passage, and a problem in the way I see a lot of churches and Christians approach spiritual gifts.

You see, in English, the word "gift" can have two possible meanings: One is a present--something freely given from one person to another. But the secondary meaning of gift (and the one that is responsible for the misunderstanding) is that of a special ability or talent--as in, "you're such a gifted person" or "he has the gift of always saying the right thing at the right time."

Over time, we've come to associate the spiritual gifts described in the Bible with this secondary meaning of the word "gift" in English. Spiritual gifts, according to this stream of thought, are "special abilities" or "secret superpowers" that each person possesses...all you have to do is discover which one you have, either by taking one of those five-minute facebook tests, or else by asking your friends or your pastor to tell you which gift they think you have.

It's a neat idea, a popular teaching, and there are thousands of books and Sunday-school classes out there which promise to help you find your special spiritual gift and put it to use. The problem is, all of that is based on a misunderstanding, a mistranslation of the Greek word χαρίσμα -- which does indeed mean "gifts," but in Greek it only carried that first meaning, something freely given from one person to another, and not the sense of a special ability or power belonging to an individual. In fact, there is another word in Greek, δύναμις, that means power or ability, and this word is never used in connection with spiritual gifts, in Romans or any of the other lists of spiritual gifts.

One of the dangers of this kind of thinking is the tendency, once someone has "found" their special spiritual gift, to exclude all of the others. For example, in our list of seven, "generosity" is listed as a spiritual gift. What would it be like if we said, "Ok, ____ has the gift of giving generously to the ministries of the church...all of the rest of you, you're off the hook. Not your spiritual gift." I don't think so. God calls on all of us to be generous in giving of our time, our abilities, and our resources.

So up to this point, I've described what a spiritual gift is not: It's not a special ability or power that belongs to a particular individual. What is it then? Let's go back to the first meaning of "gift" in English, which is the only meaning in the original Greek that Paul wrote in. It is something freely given from one person to another. It's tempting to think of spiritual gifts as something that God gives to each one of us. But that's not what our scripture passage today teaches. In fact, it's almost the other way around. Listen again to verse 1: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God to present (give) your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."

First of all, I love this idea: What is worship? Is it three songs/hymns, two prayers, a sermon and an offering? No...it's all of us presenting our bodies, our very selves, as a sacrifice to God. It's us sacrificing our time, our abilities, our resources to be part of God's family, to participate fully in the life of his church--that's worship!

But notice which way the gift goes--from us to God. That's not to say that God doesn't give anything to us. In fact, everything we are, everything we have comes from God. But when it comes to Spiritual Gifts, this is about us, by the mercies of God, presenting ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God...our spiritual worship.