Spiritual Gifts
Explore the spiritual gifts named in the New Testament, why the early church received them, how Paul said they should function, and why their purpose matters to the question of whether miraculous gifts continued.
THERE IS MORE THAN ONE LIST
Discussions of spiritual gifts appear in several New Testament passages, and the lists differ according to the point each writer is making.
First Corinthians 12 concentrates heavily on manifestations of the Spirit in a congregation struggling with rivalry and disorder. Romans 12 includes practical forms of service. Ephesians 4 discusses gifted people serving the maturity of the church. First Peter speaks broadly about serving one another with the gifts believers have received.
Reading the passages together gives a fuller picture than turning one list into an exhaustive inventory.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 12
Paul lists a message of wisdom, a message of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, miraculous powers, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, various kinds of tongues, and interpretation of tongues.
The emphasis is not on creating a spiritual ranking. Paul repeatedly says there are different gifts but the same Spirit.
The manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. Gifts are therefore presented as equipment for serving the body, not trophies proving the importance of the recipient.
Paul describes diverse gifts distributed by the same Spirit for the common good.
ROMANS 12 BROADENS THE PICTURE
Romans 12 warns believers not to think too highly of themselves and then describes different functions within one body.
Paul mentions prophecy, service, teaching, encouragement, giving, leadership, and mercy.
That is an important corrective to the tendency to make spiritual gifts synonymous only with spectacular manifestations. Much of the church's work happens through faithful service to other people.
Paul names a range of gifts and activities that are to be exercised faithfully rather than competitively.
EPHESIANS 4 LOOKS AT THE CHURCH'S MATURITY
Ephesians describes Christ giving apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers for equipping the saints and building up the body.
The goal is maturity, unity of the faith, and knowledge of Christ rather than permanent dependence on spiritual infancy.
Who Changed the Church? pays particular attention to this maturity language because it connects the work of foundational ministries with the movement from partial revelation toward a completed apostolic deposit.
The ministries Paul names serve the equipping and maturation of Christ's body.
NOT EVERY GIFT HAD THE SAME FUNCTION
Some New Testament gifts involve ordinary but Spirit-directed service. Others are plainly miraculous or revelatory: healings, miracles, prophecy, supernatural knowledge, tongues, and interpretation.
That distinction matters when asking whether 'spiritual gifts' continue. A person serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, or showing mercy is not automatically making the same claim as someone claiming supernatural revelation or miraculous power.
The book's cessation argument is specifically concerned with the miraculous and revelatory gifts associated with the apostolic foundation, not with the idea that Christians eventually stopped having abilities or stopped serving one another.
SIGNS ALSO CONFIRMED THE MESSAGE
Hebrews describes the message of salvation as first announced by the Lord, confirmed by those who heard Him, and testified to by God through signs, wonders, various miracles, and distributions of the Holy Spirit.
That provides an important purpose for miraculous manifestations: they did not exist merely to create extraordinary experiences. They accompanied and confirmed the message being delivered.
Who Changed the Church? builds on this distinction. If signs were connected to revelation and confirmation during the foundation period, then their purpose must be considered before assuming their duration.
God bears witness to the proclaimed salvation through signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
ACTS RAISES ANOTHER QUESTION
Acts 8 is important to Don L. Wood's argument. The Samaritans had received the gospel, but Peter and John came from Jerusalem and laid their hands on them in connection with the manifestations Simon observed.
Acts 19 records Paul laying his hands on disciples at Ephesus, after which they speak in tongues and prophesy.
The manuscript treats these accounts as evidence that imparted miraculous gifts were uniquely connected with apostolic ministry. That becomes significant once the apostolic generation passes from history.
Peter and John lay their hands on Samaritan believers in a scene involving the visible impartation Simon desires to purchase.
After Paul lays his hands on the Ephesian disciples, they speak in tongues and prophesy.
PAUL SAYS SOME GIFTS WOULD END
First Corinthians 13 says prophecy would be done away, tongues would cease, and knowledge would be done away.
The disagreement is therefore not simply between people who believe in the Bible and people who do not. Christians who accept the passage can still disagree over when Paul expected those gifts to cease.
Who Changed the Church? argues that the answer is tied to the completion of the apostolic revelation. The manuscript reads the partial gifts as serving a foundation that was moving toward completion rather than as permanent channels of new revelation.
Paul explicitly contrasts temporary partial gifts with the arrival of what is complete.
THE SCAFFOLDING QUESTION
Christ is the cornerstone, and the New Testament describes apostles and prophets in foundational language. Don compares the miraculous gifts to scaffolding used while that foundation and revealed message were being established.
Scaffolding is real, useful, and necessary for the work it performs. Calling it temporary does not mean it was fraudulent or unimportant.
The harder question is what happens after its work is finished. The book connects that question with Paul's 'partial' and 'complete' language, the apostles' laying on of hands, the confirmation of the gospel, and the completed body of apostolic teaching.
THAT LEADS TO THE REAL DEBATE
A broad list of spiritual gifts answers only the first question. It tells us what the New Testament church possessed and how those gifts were supposed to serve the body.
It does not by itself establish that every gift had the same purpose or the same duration.
Who Changed the Church? follows that distinction into a larger investigation: if the apostles were laying a once-for-all foundation and miraculous gifts helped reveal and confirm it, what does Scripture say happened when the foundation was complete?
Why It Matters
The spiritual gifts in the Bible include a wide range of service, teaching, leadership, revelatory, and miraculous functions given for the good and maturity of Christ's body. That broad answer matters because it prevents every kind of Christian ability from being forced into the same category. Who Changed the Church? then narrows the investigation to the gifts that involved supernatural revelation and signs. Don argues that those gifts served the laying and confirmation of the apostolic foundation. If that is right, the most important question is no longer simply, 'What were the gifts?' It becomes, 'What happened to the gifts whose purpose was tied to a foundation the apostles said would not be laid again?'