Unique Facts about Individual Spiritual Gifts

1. Service In I Peter 4:10-11 we learn that we are to carry out the purpose of our own gifting through the vehicle of service. So a leader serves by leading, and an encourager serves by encouraging. So then with the gift of service we get the redundant sentence, "A server serves by serving." There must be a lesson in this for the other gifts about how to serve.

2. Prophecy This is the only gift to match one of the three Old Testament Offices fulfilled by Jesus: Prophet, priest, and king.

3. Shepherding This is the only gift claimed as a title by Jesus. "I am the Good Shepherd" (John 10:11).

4. Discernment The only gift outside of the miraculous gifts to be given as a double plural, literally "discernments of spirits" (I Cor 12:10).
The other examples include (a) Workings of Powers (miracles) (b) Gifts of healings (c) kinds of tongues

5. Faith (a) This has to be the most interesting one to me. This is the only gift which matches one of the three eternal qualities of I Cor. 13 "These three remain: faith, hope, and love." It is especially interesting that Paul is specifically contrasting these eternal qualities with the temporary qualities of the gifts. So how can faith end up in both categories? Gift-I Cor 12:9; eternal quality-I Cor 13:13. (b) Faith is also the only gift that is a fruit of the spirit as well (Gal 5:22).

6. Hospitality This is the only gift listed outside the writings of Paul (I Peter 4:9).

7. Encouragement The only gift used as a title of the Holy Spirit (John 14:16).

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Another look at the gift of helping

Some of the spiritual gifts listed in scripture leave us with only a single word to discern their meaning. This has led some careful thinkers to legitimately question how detailed gift descriptions could be derived from one Greek word. So I started thinking through the Greek word behind each of the gifts, wondering if just one word might contain more insight than we expect. For some of the words it did not, but a couple seemed to be worth writing about, specifically the compound words that contain a preposition as a prefix. Prepositions often imply either a position or a direction, either of which are reference points providing a kind of logical interplay between the preposition and the main word stem to which it is attached. This analysis is not meant to be taken too seriously and is certainly not meant to imply any exegetical content. And the overall context, as always, will be the framework of the gift-type theory of spiritual gifts and personality.



For the gift of helping I'll borrow the Greek analysis of Tim Blanchard from the book A Practical Guide to Finding Your Spiritual Gifts.

The biblical word for “helps” (I Corinthians 12:28) is translated from the compound Greek word antilapsis. The word is made up of two parts: anti, “opposite, instead of and in exchange for”; and lambano, “to grasp, seize or take up helpfully.” The parts combine to mean in the noun form, “to seize something in front of one for the purpose of helping.” This implies responding to a request to do a certain job.[1]

Opposite in this case would seem to imply in front of, so that what needs to be grasped is directly in front of the person grasping. It would also be at arms level, otherwise the direction to grasp would be down toward the ground or up over ones head. So what needs to be grasped is at arms level, probably something someone else is carrying. Here is where the person centered distinction of helping vs. serving comes in. The helper sees someone carrying something and reaches out to take it from them.



The very act of grasping implies someone who works with their hands, or a practical sensing type vs. an intuitive. The fact that they are taking what someone else is carrying implies that they are willing to carry it themselves. This suggests a steady, hard working type, probably SJ. Someone willing to take the burden of another is not seeking attention or a prominent role, probably an introvert over an extrovert. So from this one word we have a non-prominent (I), practical (S), hard-working (SJ), who is person-centered (F) or ISFJ. All 16 gift correlations can be found in my paper on gifts and personality.



References



[1] Tim Blanchard, A Practical Guide to Finding Your Spiritual Gifts (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1983), 26.

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