Bill Smart's Blog

Rate yourself, from one (lowest) to ten (highest), on the following statement: “I notice and value the strengths of others, not allowing envy to distort my perceptions.”

This statement is based on Paul’s exhortations in 1 Corinthians 13, where the apostle teaches us about love. One of his insights is that “love does not envy” (or “is not jealous”). How did you rate yourself? Are you being honest with yourself? Would you be willing to ask your closest friend their answer to that question about you?

This statement is also one of twelve areas for group or self-assessment in the Agape Evaluation in Spiritual Gifts Reimagined. (Agape is the Greek word for love.) An individual or small group can evaluate themselves according to the characteristics of love from 1 Corinthians 13.

Every person you know has amazing strengths. God delights in these strengths he placed in each one. But does your mind notice, and does your heart value, those strengths? Having strengths is another way to talk about being spiritually gifted. Paul talks about gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, and then links them to love in his next chapter. The characteristic of love listed as “does not envy” is one of twelve insights about why love and gifts are connected.

You’re in this church, work group, or fellowship group, with an array of God-gifted people, each with their unique kinds of strengths. Love notices, love values, and is thankful for these beautiful and powerful expressions of God’s gracious gifting.

But envy gums up the works, doesn’t it? Maybe you’re preoccupied with feeling poorly about yourself, so you don’t notice your friend’s strengths. Or you diminish their strengths in your mind by focusing on how they’ve (in your perception) had an easier life than you. Or you wish you got the attention they get from using their strengths. Instead of valuing the strengths God placed in them, envy disrupts your appreciation of their gifts.

The high standard for living in a diversely gifted group is love—love that notices and values. Envy or jealousy has no place there, does it? In the Agape Evaluation, each characteristic of love is described as Valuing (in our thoughts and feelings) and then as Nurturing (in our words and actions). We’ve been looking at the Valuing side of “love does not envy.” On the Nurturing side, here’s the statement for you to rate yourself (one to ten) on this love characteristic:

“My affirmations and challenges truly serve the other person. They do not express my own selfish feelings about that person’s strengths or weaknesses.”

Examples:

“You have such an amazing impact on the hurting people you serve! I could never be as effective as you are.” How is this attempt to affirm corrupted by envy? Who is the statement about? Is the speaker joining with God in delight and affirmation of this person’s gifts?

“I’m grateful for your leadership in our group, but you’ll need to grow out of your blind spots to be the right leader for us.” Who is being served in this attempt to give challenge? How may jealousy corrupt the gratitude that is expressed? Is this about loving nurture or about control?

On the nurturing side of love, we use our words and actions to give both affirmations and challenges to our potential-filled friends. This nurture is strategic, because we’ll always have room to keep growing in our areas of strengths. But often our self-preoccupation contaminates the affirmations and challenges we share with others. Envy, comparisons, and ulterior agendas detour us away from truly helping the other person on her journey of growth.

Here’s some positive nurture: “Keep stepping in to mentoring teens! I see wonderful impacts in their lives through your time spent with them!”

1 Corinthians 13 tells us that “love is patient, kind, does not envy,” and several other dos and don’ts of love. Paul puts this list in his letter to teach us how to relate in a diversely gifted group of people. It’s certainly an instance of Scripture revealing our hearts!

How well do you love? Learn about and use the Agape Evaluation on pages 198-206 of Spiritual Gifts Reimagined.

The Lord has specifically, creatively, and uniquely designed you to have an awesome impact on other people. Perhaps you’re someone who brings safe and tender care to children. Perhaps you’re someone who helps people’s computers function better. Or someone who teaches others useful wisdom for tasks and living. Or a manager who trains teams to work effectively.

When the Lord designed you with the characteristics and strengths for those ways of serving, he created a unique person who has the potential to reflect God’s love as you serve others. And if you use your strengths to love others through your unique package of characteristics, you can represent Jesus to others through your service to them.

But you didn’t enter into life with your strengths already discovered and developed. Early in your journey, your strengths are powerful potentials more than powerful realities. We’ve all had to learn and grow in order to discover and develop our strengths. In other words, life presents to each of us the opportunity—in phases—to grow into impacting others as the unique person we were each designed by him to be.

When the Bible talks to us about spiritual gifts, the main scene it wants us to focus on is not new abilities added to us somewhere midstream in life. The main scene it’s pointing to is each of us having unique potential for serving others—by God’s creation and grace, and our need to grow into making those potentials real and effective.

Where does this leave each of us? We each need to grow, and the main power God gives us to grow is when his Spirit indwells us when we first trust Christ as Savior and Lord. This means that we’re each in one of three possible phases …

First, if you haven’t trusted Christ and received God’s Spirit, your unique package of potentials to lovingly serve others is either buried or misdirected. Potentials can be fully or partially buried because of life’s hurts and wounds. We cause some of those hurts, and sometimes they’re caused by people or circumstances beyond our control.

Sometimes people, even without knowing Christ, will have some success at overcoming life’s wounds and unburying their wonderful potentials. But often they’ll use their strengths more in the direction of serving self than others. In that case, their motives and priorities are not about lovingly serving others in Christ’s name.

Second, you may have trusted Jesus as Savior, but have not really engaged with growing as a human being and Christian. You have God’s Spirit living in you, but you’re not paying attention as he points out your areas of sin and immaturity. The great thing about having God’s Spirit in you is that you have the opportunity for authentic growth, not just the outward achievements and successes some of those outside of Christ display.

This authentic growth involves healing from life’s hurts and wounds. It points to living in the truth rather than covering up the truth. And the growth it leads you in becomes so thorough it is called in Scripture “transformation” (Romans 12:2). But if you’re not welcoming and working on this authentic growth, your gifts/potentials remain buried or you settle for a facsimile of your real strengths.

So, the third possible phase each of us can be in is when we have God’s Spirit and are pursuing the growth that involves real strengthening from the inside out, step by step. This growth is summarized by Paul when he writes that we are to be “speaking the truth in love, growing up into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). This is authentic growth, fueled by God’s Spirit, and brought home to us by the loving nurture and challenge we receive from one another.

The typical teaching about your spiritual gifts doesn’t point you to this growth process. Instead, it says you get added-on abilities when you receive God’s Spirit, gives you a test to determine which abilities you got, and then assigns you to a church role to use those abilities.

I submit to you, and describe in Spiritual Gifts Reimagined: The Journey View, that there is a process of gift/potential discovery and development that is more biblical, exciting, and true-to-life than that.

The core theme of Spiritual Gifts Reimagined (SGR) is that spiritual gifts must be integrated with spiritual growth. To be clearer, I teach that discovering and developing your gifts (the wonderful potentials God has given you) depend on whether or not you’re growing. But I have two questions for you. First, what is spiritual growth? And second, what is your level of interest in growing?

These two questions are intertwined, but that second one probes whether you or I truly want to grow. If I don’t have a desire to grow, I won’t be too interested in learning more about what growth is.

This question about whether you desire to grow (or not), isn’t simple. It involves you being honest with yourself. And most of us need to be pushed to get honest with ourselves.

To admit that I want or need to grow is to say I know my status quo isn’t what it should be. That takes humility. To admit I need to grow means I accept that I must apply myself to a process that takes time and work. That means making that growth more important than enjoying a satisfying life now. If you’re tempted to stop reading this blog at this point, you’ve just hit that strong pull in each of us to not bother with growing.

In the Bible, it is the New Testament epistles where we find the most explicit exhortations to grow spiritually, such as 1 Peter 3:18, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” These letters clarify that Christians are not born mature into God’s family—we each have a huge need to always be spiritually growing. But the challenge to grow is a theme that permeates all of Scripture, and we must bring our openness for growth to the Bible when we read and study it.

Just about everything in our human culture discourages you from growing. Focus on what you deserve, assert your rights, satisfy your wants, enjoy amusements. Growth is counter-cultural. Even in church, we often prioritize being comfortable over growing. You must decide: will you pursue growth or not?

So what is spiritual growth? First, it’s not just about growing in the “spiritual” area and not other areas of life. If you are growing in your relationship with God, it will impact what you do in all other dimensions of your life.

In the modern world we divide ourselves up into the psychological, emotional, educational, social, career, financial, character, physical, relational and other areas of our lives. But you are a whole person, not a “lego” person made of different colored blocks. God’s Word focuses on your spiritual growth, though, because the spiritual dimension is at the core of you. Growth in that area naturally leads to growth in all the other facets of your life.

Second, I mentioned that growth is counter-cultural. Paul is talking about spiritual growth when he tells us, in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” This clues us in that there is a great war going on. We are being fought over, and we each play the key role in which side will claim us. The world is seeking to claim us as mind- and heart-numbed robots. Growth means not conforming, but being transformed.

Third, that means that your life’s trials are battles God wants to help you fight. What is frustrating you right now? What is stretching you? What is angering you? What is discouraging you? What is tempting you? What is causing you to simply “coast”? Prioritizing growth means seeing that all these experiences are the necessary battles that must be fought in your journey of growth. (See James 1:2-4.) These are battles well worth fighting, and worth fighting well.

Finally, this journey of growth is also the journey of gifting. To become a person who powerfully displays your gifted potential, you must be growing. The amazing truth is that the more you grow into Christlikeness, the more you grow into who you uniquely are. This is an adventure you don’t want to miss! Grow into your gifts!

The Bible reveals that God has given you certain spiritual gifts. Would you like to know what they are? Read on!

In Spiritual Gifts Reimagined (SGR), I critique the “how-to” approach taught by the popular view of gifts. I believe that view has made gifts all about what you do. It says little to nothing about how the ways you serve (your gifts) connect with who you uniquely are.

The popular view also applies the “how-to” approach to the question of how to discover what your gifts are. You may respond, “What’s wrong with that?” In this blog, I’m about to tell you how to discover your gifts according to The Journey View. The popular “how-to” approach, however, is highly non-relational: it usually focuses on taking a test. The Journey View points to loving relationships as the environment for gift discovery.

I don’t think the popular view is all wrong. There’s a place for talking about the specific activities we do as we serve with our gifts. And the use of tests can sometimes be helpful. It’s a matter of emphasis. So here’s how that all shakes out in The Journey View.

Think of it like a target archers use when practicing with their bow and arrows—a target with three rings.  This target represents discovering your spiritual gifts.  You want to know the specific ways God has gifted you!  In the outer ring are some helpful ideas; in the middle ring are some even better ideas; but in the bullseye—that’s where you’ll hit gold in terms of discovering how you’re gifted.

So what is in each of these rings? In the outer ring are spiritual gift tests. There might also be tests that measure other aspects of your personality, strengths, and characteristics. The value of these instruments is that, among all the different types of people there are, you can clarify what category you’re in. This knowledge can be insightful and encouraging, and can help teams function better. But the focus is on knowledge and categories, and what we find in the other rings goes beyond that.

In the middle ring is serving. Some writers on the topic of gifts emphasize that if you will just dive into serving others, such as in your church, you will discover the specific ways you’re gifted to serve. The idea is that you’ll be quite effective in some serving roles, and not so effective in others. There’s a lot of wisdom in that, and it goes beyond just getting the head knowledge that tests can give you. It also tunes you into other people rather than just thinking about your own gifts.

So with tests you can clarify the categories you’re in, and through serving you can use trial and error to find specific ministries you fit well in. But consider this:

You are not simply a Christian who’s had some new abilities (called spiritual gifts) added to you. The whole you God created is a unique expression of himself. As that unique expression you can have an amazing impact on others for God’s glory. But because of sin and immaturity, all of us must grow into that amazing expression of God we each are.

The bullseye for spiritual gift discovery is loving relationships because it’s in those deeper relationships that your uniqueness becomes seen, affirmed, and celebrated.  It’s in those truth-in-love relationships (Eph 4:15) that we learn how to impact others by sharing our authentic Christlike selves with them. And it’s in those vulnerable relationships that others will fight for us as we fight the necessary battles in our own growth journeys.

In SGR I explain how Scripture teaches that gifting is a journey. And in each of the main New Testament sections about gifts, agape love relationships are highlighted. They are the bullseye for spiritual gift discovery and development, and I devote many pages in SGR to explaining how those relationships work. Check it out, talk to your pastor about this idea, and let’s together grow into our gifts!

I remember a weekend evening during college. I was sitting on a stair in an echo-y metal and rubber institutional dorm stairwell. All alone. Everyone else was out having fun with friends. I was wailing within. Didn’t know who I was. Didn’t believe I had any worth. Had no idea how to take the next breath, let alone enjoy relationships. No idea what love is. Imprisoned in fear. I felt all this in the bottomless pit that was my gut. This was my reality.

It was a very long journey from that painful reality to becoming a leader of people, a preacher and teacher, and one who’s helped individuals deal with the intimate spiritual and emotional issues holding them back. I spent my 35-year career as a pastor, chaplain, and workshop leader, using gifts I’d had since birth, placed in me by God when he created me. But I had to experience my gifting journey to get there.

You are unique! When God dreamt you up and created you, he drew out of his heart the artistic expression of his creativity that you are. And every one of us is such a unique masterpiece! That makes each of us gifted. We’re each gifted to share with the world the beauty, power, and wisdom of our God of love in our own distinctive ways. The Bible is referring to this when it speaks about each of us having spiritual gifts.

The popular teaching about spiritual gifts, however, wants us to believe that at a certain point in life we each get zapped with some added abilities we didn’t have before—and those are our spiritual gifts, it is said. In Spiritual Gifts Reimagined (SGR) I present a different way to interpret the Bible’s teachings about gifts. And it’s more about God’s creativity, your uniqueness, our love for one another—and how we grow through life’s struggles.

In this blog I’m touching on the “when” and “how” of being spiritually gifted. You are uniquely gifted by God, and he wants you to realize it, enjoy it, and share it. But what does the process of gifting look like? When and how does it happen?

As described above, I used to be a painfully withdrawn, fearful, and socially awkward young man. I mean, it was bad. I was scared to death of people. When I was growing up, I experienced social interactions at school, church, or wherever as a living nightmare in which I felt like the target of people’s derision. Worse, I allowed this experience to inform my understanding of who I am. I believed I was a big fat zero. Unworthy. A loser.

Now the potentials (gifts) I would later use in ministry were in me from birth. But I’m a sinner; and everybody I’ve known in life is a sinner. So my gifts were layered over—multiple layers—with the hurts and wounds life dished out to me. I caused some of them; others caused some. But those hurts and wounds didn’t teach me that I was a wonderfully gifted young man. I had a lot to grow out of, and a lot to grow into.

By the grace of God, I grew. Part of my growth was becoming grounded in God’s Word. Added to that was diving into serving others and feeling people’s affirmations. Then there was forming some healthy Christian relationships in which I was accepted yet challenged in love. And finally, I took advantage of opportunities to work through my past hurts and wounds, learning to welcome God’s love deeply into my heart to overcome those stings.

My growth journey has sometimes been 3 steps forward and 2 steps back, but it continues today. And those formative steps I just described happened over a 20-to-30-year period. During that time, I was gradually peeling back the layers that covered my buried gifts. More and more I was realizing and effectively using my unique mix of potentials to serve God and people.

So though I remember crying in shame and pain when I was young, I now remember more vividly sharing tender and powerful words with others caught in shame more recently. This is the transforming work of God, and his power is available for each of us to fight the battles we must fight in our growing and gifting journeys!

When and how do we become spiritually gifted by God? In a true sense, you were born gifted. But also in a very true sense, you become gifted as you grow. That’s why I write in SGR, “No growth, no gifts.” Yes, there are battles you must fight in your journey of growing into the unique Christlike you. Those battles are well worth fighting, and worth fighting well.

Grow into your gifts!

There is a connection between Christmas and spiritual gifts. But you must use your imagination to see it. And that is what Paul asks us to do when he teaches about gifts in Ephesians 4. In this blog I only have space to slightly open that door and let you peek in to glimpse the wonder. But isn’t that what children do at Christmas?

In Ephesians 4:7-11 Paul reveals that we are showered with spiritual gifts by Jesus out of the dramatic journey of his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Paul shortens it to Jesus “descending” (the incarnation we celebrate this season) and then “ascending” in victory. Our gifts, he reveals, come to us from Christ out of that journey. Paul wants you to visualize this picture when you think about spiritual gifts.

In Spiritual Gifts Reimagined (SGR) I present why we should imagine this Christ-centered picture rather than the popular idea that spiritual gifts are simply about identifying which ones you have and using them. Paul invites us to wonder: “Look! This Jesus! He descended to earth, from manger to cross, and emerged victorious, ascending again higher than all the heavens and giving us gifts!”

The other day I sat looking at the nativity set we put up for Christmas. It was sewn by my wife several years ago, and our grandchildren love to play with it. My mind went to the wonder of love: this child, this incarnation of God’s Son, was born to walk a journey that would go through pain and sorrow, suffering and execution, all because God’s love magnificently moved to meet our need.

Having descended to earth, Jesus did not dodge the battles in his journey here. His victory in those battles bought our salvation, and the spoils of his victory are our spiritual gifts. In SGR I show you how that way of thinking about gifts is revealed in Scripture. This is the big story connected with spiritual gifts, and it includes Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and Ascension.

I think if Paul were to show up in a spiritual gifts class in your church or mine, where the focus is defining each gift and testing for them, he’d ask, “Why are you ignoring the big picture?” This story calls for humility as we consider his descent to the manger, incredulity as we see him engage the battles in his journey, astonishment and grief as we behold his sacrifice on the cross, and amazed joy and worship as we see gifts flowing to us from his resurrection and ascension.

His descent to earth inspires us to wonder in silence. “Silent night, holy night; all is calm, all is bright….” Christmas is at its best when we wonder at his love in silence, only then breaking into joyous carols of worship. The silent wonder is first that he is here: this baby is really him, from on high! But then it continues, mouths hanging open in disbelief at what he endured once he revealed who he is, what he came to do, and what he experienced in his journey here.

The giving of our spiritual gifts, Paul teaches, arises out of this dramatic story of battles and victory. And our silent awe as we imagine this gift-giving story is to be matched by our listening fascination with each other’s gift-receiving stories. For as we follow Christ, we each fight our own battles in our journeys, just as Jesus did in his. And the spoils of our victorious battles of growth are the spiritual gift potentials Jesus won for us in his victory.

We are invited to listen attentively to one another’s journeys into and battles for these gifts. We each need others who will be silent enough in their hearts to hear our stories and to help us follow Jesus as we grow into our uniquely gifted selves. May we in this season be silent enough to wonder at the Jesus story and to give the gift of listening attentiveness and wonder to one another.

This is why my book is called Spiritual Gifts Reimagined: The Journey View. Learn explanations and details about this fresh perspective in the book.

You’re probably familiar with the idea of taking a spiritual gifts test, discovering which gifts are yours, and then finding ways to serve others using those gifts. In Spiritual Gifts Reimagined (SGR) I call this the Mechanical View of spiritual gifts. It’s all about how you function, not about who you are.

Is this what God intended for us to learn from the Bible passages about spiritual gifts? When Paul wrote about gifts, he strongly emphasized love and unity. Those are values that go deeper than simply understanding how we each function differently. Paul is urging us to deepen our connections within the body of Christ—knowing and loving each other in sincere and devoted ways (Romans 12:5-10).

If we’ll go to deeper levels of relating with a handful of fellow believers, we’ll see more and more of the uniqueness of each person, appreciating the ways God’s grace is expressed through each one. And we will be deepening our unity in the body of Christ. This is a big part of the Journey View of spiritual gifts taught in SGR.

But how do we actually do that? Taking a spiritual gifts test is superficial as compared to deepening relationships in which we discover each person’s gifted uniqueness. In this month’s blog I want to point you to a key skill set we need to share among ourselves if we want to discover one another’s spiritual gifts. That skill set is listening.

To discern how God has gifted your friend you must pay attention to what God has done and is doing in that person’s life. The reasons that is true are explained in SGR, but it has to do with being aware of the “scenes of gifting” in that person’s journey. These scenes are the life experiences God uses to grow your friend, and the wonderful potentials coming to light through that growth.

In order for you to give this attention to your friend, you must have in your heart devoted love for him or her. Out of such love you dedicate time to spend with your friend. And during those times, the attention you give is called listening.

None of us are born as good listeners. Most of us rarely receive good listening from others. And the world around us, especially the barrage of all the media in our world, doesn’t encourage us to give and receive good listening. Most of us move from one distraction to another—distractions around us and within us.

Listening involves a handful of basic skills. It takes study and practice to learn skills like giving uninterrupted attention, using your eyes, body, and voice to invite your friend to share, and checking with your friend to see if you’re really hearing them. It’s difficult to learn those skills if you’ve never paid attention to how you don’t give quality attention to others!

And it’s more difficult than taking a gifts test. But which way of discerning each other’s gifts do you think God wants us to prioritize? It’s not wrong to use a test, but God is much more interested in the discovery of gifted uniqueness in relationships of loving listening. In those relationships we’ll be amazed to see how God is growing each of us in the “scenes of gifting” in our journeys.

You are a fascinating and unique hue on the spectrum of God’s grace we call spiritual gifts! So are each of your friends. The first way we’re called to respond to that beautiful truth is by attentive listening. As explained in SGR, that leads to sharing with each other the valuing and nurturing that is characteristic of New Testament agape love.

Which would you prefer to talk about? If you were sitting down with your closest Christian friend, would you be more drawn to talk about the spiritual gifts of each of you, or your spiritual growth? What is your preference and why, and which is more important?

As you think about that, I’d like to address this topic by sharing with you why I wrote Spiritual Gifts Reimagined (SGR). Here’s what I say about that in the book’s conclusion, followed by a few further comments about gifts and growth (and explanation of the butterfly).

“My deepest desire in publishing this book is not to introduce a different view of spiritual gifts. Years ago, that might have been my main desire. But then I spent years working with people to help them realize their true identity and potentials in Christ. It became clear to me that their journeys of healing and growth were the gifting journey I had discerned in Scripture. I saw that in my own journey as well.

“I’ve felt too much joy and gratitude in watching people grow to make just sharing an alternative view of gifts my main reason for publishing this book. It is a fresh perspective on spiritual gifts, but only as a means to the end of knowing that people are fighting the heart battles, and retrieving the spoils, God has intended for them.

“Those heart battles can be fought whether one adopts the Journey View or not. But if the church moved from a utilitarian understanding of gifts to a more substantive journey perspective of gifting, I believe that integration of gifting with growth could be a powerful motivation for people to fight the battles involved in becoming who God created each one to be.

“My prayer is that God would bless each of us with a depth of agape with one another that links us together as strategic fellow journeyers, as we move closer and closer to the perfected grace-expressions of God that we each are. Together, we are his spectrum of grace.” (SGR, 197)

As a student of Scripture and theology, I get very excited about interpreting God’s Word—and teaching the concepts that come from a growing understanding of it. But the other side of me is the pastoral side, including the passion I developed during my ministry career to help people relate authentically to God, self, and others. That moves beyond head knowledge into growing deeper in those three relationships.

I love to explain to people the details of the Journey View of gifts, and I’m excited to present it to the world in SGR. But your heart, your growth, and your relationships are a lot more important than my ideas about spiritual gifts. That’s why I clarify in the conclusion that my purpose in publishing SGR is to encourage people to engage in the battles in their journeys of growth—which I believe is also the journey of gifting.

You see, I don’t think gifting and growing are two separate topics. That’s the core theme of SGR: spiritual gifts must be integrated with spiritual growth (SGR, 213). But here’s the rub … most of us would rather talk about gifts than growth. For a while, in the late 20th century, Christians were very excited about spiritual gifts. It was fun to take the tests and find out each other’s gifts. It’s similar to the picture with this blog. The colorful butterfly is what draws our eyes.

The growth process leading to that beauty is not as attractive to us. To talk about our spiritual growth means to get honest about the areas we need to work on. It means to press deeper than the smiles we share on Sundays, opening ourselves to being challenged. It means engaging with the battles that must be fought in our journeys of growth and gifting.

In those journeys, we need one another, for challenge, accountability, encouragement, affirmation. A focus on growth therefore also means deepening our Christian relationships to more vulnerable levels. Can you see how it feels safer and easier to just focus on gifts? And most of the books and classes on gifts have left out the necessity of growth and interpersonal connections for development of your gifts.

The Journey View of gifts presents a more robust and broad—integrated—understanding of spiritual gifts. And it’s more challenging. Because it’s not about more information, tests to be taken, etc. It’s the disclosure that you’ll never fully develop into the unique gifted person God made you to be unless you’re growing. Check out SGR for more background and clarity on this integrated understanding of spiritual gifts.

Eugene Peterson, the insightful pastor and spiritual guide, wrote: “A favorite theme of C. S. Lewis was that ‘heaven will show much more variety than hell.’  All our mistakes turn out to have a sameness about them.  There is nothing quite as unoriginal as sin.  But … the Spirit is inventive and the forms of grace are not repeated” (Peterson, “Working the Angles,” 113).

Indeed, Lewis writes that God’s “unfathomed bounty” propels us toward a reunion with him “in the perfect freedom of a love offered from the height of the utter individualities which he has liberated [us] to be” (Lewis, “The Screwtape Letters,” xii).

This is a far cry from the world’s perception and indictment of Christianity.  The idea that following Jesus includes progressively becoming more uniquely who God created you to be sounds absurd to many.  What about becoming conformed to Christ?  What about denying yourself?  What about saying “no” to your many desires that are unpleasing to God?  Doesn’t that all sound like a whip cracking, telling you to fall in line and forsake individuality?

Sages like Peterson and Lewis say that if we think that way, we’ve missed a truth God has revealed in Scripture.  And guess what?  Spiritual gift teaching in the Bible actually points to this truth about becoming who we uniquely are in Christ.  Rather than the popular idea that gifts are just about what you do, and rather than the modern emphasis on categories and testing, spiritual gifting introduces us into the journey of growth into our “utter individualities.”

I develop this theme in Spiritual Gifts Reimagined: The Journey View (SGR).  My understanding of Scripture is that we’re not supposed to focus on gifts per se.  We’re supposed to focus on people—who are gifted in diverse ways.  That may seem like a subtle shift, but it results in fascination with unique individuals, who need to be known at a deeper level than “which category are you in?” or “which new ability (spiritual gift) was added to you?”

The idea that a biblical understanding of spiritual gifts should focus on unique individuals is a premise that needs to be supported from Scripture.  I present my arguments for that in SGR.  But in this blog, I want to instead mention four dimensions of this insight.

First, this emphasis on uniqueness is frowned on by some Christians because it sounds like the world’s idea that the way to fulfillment is by “finding yourself.”  Christian teachers sometimes stress that discipleship is not about being authentic to yourself, but about becoming conformed to Christ.  This either/or thinking misses that sin is so often a counterfeit of something that is good—God’s idea pursued outside of the wisdom of God.

Yes, seeking your authentic uniqueness outside of Christ will lead to a sinful distortion of who God made you to be.  We must be seeking the Lord first and foremost, which involves many facets of repentance and submission to God.  This results in a growing Christlikeness.  Yet the way you display that Christlikeness, and the way I display it, will have a glorious diversity through our uniquenesses.

Second, Jesus’ call to discipleship includes this nod to individuality, and implies the wisdom of discerning one’s true and false selves.  “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34).  Whose cross am I to carry?  It is not incidental or simply semantic that he calls each of us to our own crosses.  His cross was his unique mission, and our crosses are our unique missions.

His unique mission arose out of his unique identity, and so do ours.  Yet seeing and embracing that unique identity and mission requires engaging in the battles of your true self with your false self.  This is why he exhorts us to deny ourselves.  Jesus denied the false self the world pressured him to be.  Your unique gifted contributions to this world arise out of growing into the true self God created you to be.

Third, this growth into your unique gifted self is a journey.  Lewis implies that when he says that we finally stand on the “height of the utter individualities” God liberates us to be.  I explain in SGR how Scripture points to spiritual gifting being a journey.  The journey involves battles, and the spoils of victories are Christ’s gifts to us.

Fourth, as I mentioned above, the fact that we’re each a unique gifted expression of God urges upon us the importance of knowing one another at deeper than superficial levels.  The love of fellow journeyers strengthens us as we fight the battles in our growth journeys.  In SGR I clarify how loving community is emphasized in the Bible’s spiritual gift passages and lay out what it looks like in actual practice among those on the gifting journey.

I discuss many more nuances to these dimensions in SGR.  Spiritual gifts are about more than what you’ve imagined.  It’s time to reimagine.

Christians’ lack of interest in spiritual gifts in the last couple decades raises this question.  It’s an interesting question because, if you’re a Bible-believing Christian, you probably think that the teachings of the Bible are important.  But if you look at how much attention gifts get anymore in church teaching and preaching, Christian books sold, or just in discussions among believers, you’ve got to wonder if they deserve our attention.

I mentioned that the lack of interest in gifts describes the last couple decades, say since around 2000.  Before that, in the late 20th century, interest in gifts was high:  books sold, classes taught, and tests taken.  But then it all wound down.  Christians who were interested in discerning which people category they’re in moved on to other systems and tools.  The most popular one today seems to be the Enneagram.

It’s also interesting that, prior to about the 1970’s, there wasn’t much interest in using the scriptural categories we call spiritual gifts to help understand ourselves and how and where to serve in ministries.  From roughly 1900 to 1970 those who were interested in spiritual gifts mainly focused on the supernatural gifts.  That interest, among some but not all Christians, has continued up through the present.

But the coming, and then going, of interest in spiritual gifts for discerning how we’re each gifted to serve has acted more like—well, a fad.  What caused interest in gifts to rise, and what caused it to decline?  And how are Christians to think about spiritual gifts?

The focus on gifts that took hold beginning in the 1970’s was exciting—it was called by some a “second Reformation!”  That was because it was a shift from clergy-centered ministry in the church to all Christians being gifted to do ministries in the church.  That was wonderful, needed, and important!  But then it got more and more systematized.  Tests were devised, and then test results were used to assign people to roles in church ministries.

It all began to have a modern, sometimes even corporate, feel.  Then gift categories got paired with other categories, like passions or strengths.  (Apparently the gift categories weren’t helpful enough.)  Secular categories and tests became more popular.  And churches and pastors began to feel that there were other areas of Christian living more strategic to focus on.  Our interest in gifts came and went, and we didn’t want to argue with each other about the supernatural gifts.  So we moved on.

My new book is called “Spiritual Gifts Reimagined” (SGR).  So you might “imagine” that I have an opinion about what went wrong.  You’d be right.  Spiritual gifts were never intended to become a system for staffing church ministries.  They were never intended to be used impersonally in tests that establish what gifts God has given you.  And they weren’t to be understood as new abilities tacked onto you when you got saved.

These aren’t bad or worthless ideas; they just fall short of the values to which Scripture is pointing when it talks about spiritual gifts.

I think the idea that every Christian is gifted to serve in ministries is true and important.  But after that, when we started seeing gifts through the testing and staffing template, we set aside the biblical lens for understanding spiritual gifts and picked up a modern lens.  Seeing gifts through a biblical lens will guide us to reimagine spiritual gifts, and that reimagined perspective will reveal why seeing ourselves as uniquely gifted by God is important, even strategic, for what he is doing in our lives.

As Christians, we usually understand and agree on the importance of spiritual growth.  In SGR, I present the Journey View of spiritual gifts, showing you how Scripture integrates spiritual gifting with spiritual growing.  If the discovery, development, and use of your spiritual gifts is part of your journey of growing, it’s important to understand how your gifting develops along the journey of your growth.

The popular modern approach to spiritual gifts set us up for interest in gifts to end up as a fad that was here, then gone.  Check out SGR to learn the Journey View of spiritual gifts from Scripture, and why it matters in your journey.