Most people meet the phrase “spiritual gifts” attached to a questionnaire: answer sixty items, receive your top three. Nothing like that appears in the New Testament. What appears is four short lists, one stated purpose, and repeated instruction to use the gifts.
What the lists actually say
Romans 12:6–8 opens with “We have different gifts according to the grace given us.” It names seven: prophecy, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leading, showing mercy.
1 Corinthians 12:4–11 opens with “There are different gifts, but the same Spirit.” It names nine: the message of wisdom, the message of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, speaking in various tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. A second list in the chapter mixes people and abilities: “first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, and those with gifts of healing, helping, administration, and various tongues” (1 Corinthians 12:28).
In Ephesians 4:11–12 the gifts are people. Christ “gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for works of ministry and to build up the body of Christ.”
Peter writes that “each of you should use whatever gift he has received to serve one another” and then names two kinds, speaking and serving (1 Peter 4:10–11).
No two lists match, and none claims to be complete. Nor do they separate the spectacular from the everyday: administration shares a sentence with miracles, and giving shares one with prophecy.
What they are for
Here the passages agree. “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). Each one, so nobody is left out; the common good, so the gift is not for its holder.
Nor do you choose. The Spirit “apportions them to each one as He determines” (1 Corinthians 12:11), and Paul’s run of questions in 12:29–30, “Are all apostles? Are all prophets?”, expects the answer no. Yet the next verse tells the church to “eagerly desire the greater gifts.” The Romans list follows a warning: “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought” (Romans 12:3).
Where Christians differ
On one question Christians part company: whether every gift Paul lists is still given.
Pentecostal and charismatic churches, and many Christians outside them, hold that all the gifts continue until Christ returns. They point to 1 Corinthians 13:8–10, where prophecies cease and tongues are restrained “when the perfect comes,” which they read as that return; to Paul’s instruction, “be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:39); and to the lack of any passage announcing a withdrawal.
Many Reformed and Baptist Christians, among others, hold that the sign gifts (tongues, prophecy, healing, miracles) were given to confirm the apostles and their message while the church’s foundation was being laid, and ceased once it was. They cite Hebrews 2:3–4, where salvation “was affirmed by God through signs, wonders, various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit”; 2 Corinthians 12:12, “The marks of a true apostle—signs, wonders, and miracles—were performed among you with great perseverance”; and the description of God’s household as “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets” (Ephesians 2:20). They do not say God no longer heals or answers prayer; they say the gift as a standing ability given to a person belonged to that period.
Catholic and Orthodox Christians have not taught that miracles or healing ended with the apostles; both honour wonder-working saints from many centuries. The Catechism of the Catholic Church counts miracles and tongues among the charisms, and gives the testing of any charism to the Church’s pastors (paragraphs 801 and 2003).
All agree that the Spirit still gives gifts, and that serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leading and mercy are among them.
Lists, and no test
No passage explains how to discover your gift. What the texts give instead is an instruction to get on with it. Romans is blunt: “if it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach” (Romans 12:7). Peter says whoever serves “should serve with the strength God provides” (1 Peter 4:11). Paul tells the Corinthians to “strive to excel in gifts that build up the church” (1 Corinthians 14:12).
The practical course is unglamorous. Find out what your church needs done this month. Do some of it. Afterwards, ask two people who know you, and will be honest, what happened when you did. If others were built up, do it again.
Where this connects
Whether the sign gifts continue is one of the six axes of the Theology Compass. Its axis page sets out both positions at greater length, each in its holders’ own terms.
