What is a spiritual gift? I didn’t have a clue back in the 1980s when I decided to become a Christ-follower at the age of thirty-four. More on that later.

A spiritual gift is a supernatural ability to serve or perform a task that God has called you to do that you normally could not accomplish. That is why it is a spiritual gift and not a learned skill or a natural-born gift. There are twenty-seven gifts mentioned in the Bible. More on that later.

Scripture teaches us that when we choose to follow the Inner Light—the Holy Spirit—together we become the living Body of Jesus Christ in this world. The Light or the Spirit endows us with spiritual gifts needed to perform whatever we are called by God to do. Even though twenty-seven gifts are identified in the Bible, there is no gift more important than another. The Body of Christ cannot function properly if any one of the gifts is missing.

Paul says it this way in Romans 12:4–6: “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.”

Multiple New Testament passages—including Romans 12:6–8, 1 Corinthians 12:4–11, 1 Corinthians 12:28, and Ephesians 4:11—mention several of the gifts. All four passages list prophecy. Three of the four list teaching. Two of the four list healing, miracles, tongues, interpretations of tongues, and apostleship.

Definition of Twenty-Seven Spiritual Gifts

As you read the following definitions, consider whether that gift might be yours.

1. Prophecy: to receive and communicate an immediate message from God to His people through a divinely anointed utterance—essentially what Quakers call vocal ministry.
2. Teaching: to communicate information relevant to the health and ministry of the Body and its members so that others will learn.
3. Service: to identify the unmet needs involved in a task related to God’s work, and to make use of available resources to meet those needs and help accomplish the desired goals.
4.  Exhortation: to offer words of comfort, consolation, encouragement, and counsel to others so that they feel helped and healed.
5. Giving: to contribute your material resources to God’s work with liberality and cheerfulness.
6. Leadership: to set goals in accordance with God’s purpose for the future and to communicate those goals to others so that they voluntarily and harmoniously work together to accomplish those goals for the glory of God.
7. Mercy: to feel genuine empathy and compassion for individuals who suffer distressing physical, mental, or emotional problems, and to translate that compassion into cheerfully done deeds that reflect Christ’s love and alleviate the suffering.
8. Wisdom: to know the mind of Christ in such a way as to receive insight into how given knowledge may best be applied to specific needs arising in the Body.
9. Knowledge: to discover, accumulate, analyze, and clarify information and ideas that are pertinent to the growth and well-being of the Body.
10. Faith: to discern with extraordinary confidence the will and purposes of God for the future of His work.
11. Healing: to serve as human intermediaries through whom it pleases God to cure illness and restore health apart from the use of natural means.
12. Miracles: to serve as human intermediaries through whom it pleases God to perform powerful acts that are perceived by observers to have altered the ordinary course of nature.
13. Discernment: to know with assurance whether certain behavior purported to be of God is in reality divine, human, or satanic.
14.  Tongues: to speak to God in a language you have never learned and/or to receive and communicate an immediate message from God to His people through a divinely anointed utterance in a language they have never learned.
15. Interpretation: to translate the message of one who speaks in tongues into the vernacular.
16. Apostleship: to assume and exercise general leadership over many churches with an extraordinary authority in spiritual matters that is spontaneously recognized and appreciated by those churches.
17. Helping: to invest the talents you have in a life of ministry to other members of the Body, enabling the persons helped to increase the effectiveness of their spiritual gifts.
18. Administration: to understand clearly the immediate and long-range goals of a particular unit of the Body and to devise and execute effective plans for the accomplishment of those goals.
19. Evangelism: to share the Gospel with others so that they become disciples of Jesus and responsible members of the Body.
20. Pastoring: to assume a long-term responsibility for the spiritual welfare of a group of believers.
21. Celibacy: to remain single and enjoy it; to be unmarried and not suffer undue sexual temptations.
22. Voluntary poverty: to renounce material comfort and luxury, and to adopt a personal life-style equivalent to those living at the poverty level in a society to serve God more effectively.
23. Martyrdom: to undergo suffering for the faith, even unto death, while consistently displaying a joyous and victorious attitude that brings glory to God.
24. Hospitality: to provide an open house and warm welcome for those in need of food and lodging.
25. Mission work: to offer your spiritual gifts in a second culture.
26. Intercession: to pray for extended periods of time on a regular basis and to see frequent and specific answers to your prayers to a degree much greater than is expected of the average Christian.
27. Exorcism: to cast out demons and evil spirits.

Book source: Discover Your Spiritual Gifts: The Easy-to-Use Guide That Helps You Identify and Understand Your Unique God-Given Spiritual Gifts by C. Peter Wagner. You can purchase this book and a companion spiritual gift test, Finding Your Spiritual Gifts: The Easy-to-Use, Self-Guided Questionnaire on Amazon.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s important to note that none of these gifts are more important than another. Sadly, some Christian sects don’t follow that Biblical guidance, frequently valuing flashy gifts like speaking in tongues or prophecy more than gifts like administration or teaching.

It’s also important to note that you may receive different gifts from time to time as an aid to the different tasks God calls you to throughout your lifetime.

My Own Story

I opened my life to Christ when I was thirty-four and had no idea that there were spiritual gifts or that I had received the Holy Spirit, what Quakers call the Light. Now, I had always tried to read the Bible, but I had started in the Old Testament and never got past the first book, Genesis. But I received a leading from God to start in the New Testament. Now I couldn’t put it down and I realized—after getting through the gospels, Acts, and Romans—that I had received the Holy Spirit and that through the Spirit, God would gift me with spiritual gifts to serve. I continued reading the New Testament and realized I didn’t have a clue what gifts I might have. As I received callings from God, gifts started appearing in my life that gave me the Christ-confidence to do what God was calling me to do.

I was quiet and shy back then—for those who know me, I know it is hard to believe! My first calling was to lead the annual financial campaign at my church at that time. Gag me! I wasn’t about to ask people for money. Scared me to death. Why me, a pew sitter? I wasn’t a community leader, either.

Moreover, Glenn and I had made every financial mistake possible. God was showing me that we needed to get our finances in order, first by opening our eyes to the need for us to give. Not only as a matter of obedience, but to grow our trust in the Lord to provide—and that wasn’t going to be easy!

My church had a very unspiritual way of carrying out the campaign. A budget was presented, people determined what they “owed,” and they filled out a pledge card. Someone would show up at their home with a cardboard saddlebag. They were to put their pledge in it and deliver it to the next person on the list. A very worldly and business-like approach.

I went to my pastor and told him I couldn’t do the campaign that way. He had nothing to offer me. Two weeks later he called and said that a program showed up in his mail that sounded like the spiritual approach I was looking for. It was called Consecration Sunday. It was perfect. God would lead the campaign. The prior ten years had produced a 2–3% increase in giving each year. The year God ran the campaign, the giving increased by 16%!

The gifts that appeared to me during this time were Administration, Leadership and Evangelism. I had never spoken in church before. I was awakened one night at 2 A.M. and the Spirit led me to write a message to the congregation. It was entitled “A Calling.” God told me that I was not going to pick the next person to lead the next campaign as was the custom. God would choose that person Himself. The pastor told me that he normally doesn’t let the lay people speak from the pulpit. But after reading the message, he said, “You’re in!” I gave the message from the pulpit the next Sunday and waited in the lobby for the person to lead the next campaign to come to me. No one came that Sunday. But the next Sunday, a man with tears in his eyes came to me and said that he was the one called. He also let God lead the campaign, and again another 16% increase!

After that project, I led many other projects that used the same gifts. Church dinners, fundraising dinners for Habitat for Humanity and the local Pregnancy Center, a food drive, serving as the front desk volunteer secretary at the church, leading Bible studies and all-church journeys, and other behind-the-scenes projects using the gift of Helping. I developed a list of the spiritual, natural, and trained gifts of every member of our church so that when it came time to nominate people for positions, they would have information that would lead them to the correct person, not just a warm body that would say yes.

I have been using my gift of Administration in my budget ministry, which gives hope and peace to the people that I help. I have an education in accounting, experience in banking, and a natural gift for numbers. God is using my whole being in my budget ministry.

Recently, I’ve added Hospitality to my own list of spiritual gifts. I love cooking and sharing food with people. I’ve always felt the need to open my home to fellowship, Bible study, couples’ groups, and whatever other purposes God calls me to use my home for. I have been blessed in order to bless!

Conclusion

In conclusion, a spiritual gift is the supernatural ability to accomplish what God calls us to even though we feel unable. There are twenty-seven gifts mentioned in the Bible. You’ve read the definitions of the gifts and you’ve started thinking about which ones you might have. When you tell others what your gift or gifts might be, and someone says that they have seen you use a specific gift, then you have received a confirmation of that gift.

My hope is that each of you prays for God to reveal the tasks He has for you as part of Christ’s Body on earth, and to take confidence in the fact that no matter what you are called to do, you will be gifted with the skills to make it happen.

 Print This Post