Evangelicals make a recurring mistake when it comes to spiritual gifts. When they talk about gifts, they invariably think in terms of abilities and talents only. This is a repeated problem of people separating gifts from the roles that those gifts are for.
The result of thinking about gifts only in terms of abilities or talents is that people can claim that they are unqualified for roles simply because they can display a talent.
The gift lists of 1 Corinthians, Romans and Ephesians link one’s ability with the intended role to be carried out. When Paul employs the analogy of body parts in the twelfth chapters of Romans and 1 Corinthians, he connects one’s ability with the use of gifts. For example, he said, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them” (Rom 12:6). After this comment, Paul lists various abilities that are intended to be used in their respective roles.
When Roles Exist to Serve Talents
Most people will agree that if you have spiritual gifts, you are to use them, just as Paul said. However, it is different to say that having a certain talent automatically qualifies you for the role which you aspire to.
Should the person with stage oratory automatically expect that there is a role in the church that they should have? Should the articulate woman expect to be a preacher on Sunday mornings? Should the young man with strong rhetoric expect to be fast-tracked to church leadership, regardless of his personal life?
Paul addresses this phenomenon when he wrote to the church in Corinth. He noted that when someone claims to have a talent or gift, that ability won’t matter if they are disqualified from the role which that gift is for. So Paul said, “Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:3). In other words, a talented speech or an eloquent talk cannot be said to come from a spiritual gift, if the content of what is spoken, or the speaker themselves is disqualified. The purpose of the gift is to fulfill the role of magnifying the true Christ in a true way.
Remember that the ‘super-apostles’ (2 Cor 11:5) had great abilities, and made claims to have authoritative roles in the church on the basis of those abilities. Paul, on the other hand, had the authentic apostolic role, even though his list of comparables looked relatively untalented compared with the super-apostles. He had the spiritual gift of apostleship, which corresponded to the role which he carried out. But his surface appearances didn’t look as “blessed” as those other talented pseudo-leaders (cf 2 Cor 11:12).
The Talent Show Approach
Evangelicals tend to look for anyone that has a public, visible talent, and then they automatically redefine that talent as a spiritual gift. It doesn’t matter if the person is disqualified from carrying out the biblical intention of that giftedness. All that matters is that they’ve ‘got talent’. As a way of understanding the problem of separating gifts from roles, let me call it the talent show approach.
In this environment, it’s no wonder that people will start to claim talents for themselves. Like the overconfident shower-singer, some evangelicals will view themselves as spiritually talented, even though they have nothing objective to support them as fulfilling the appropriate role in the kingdom.
My Gift, My Calling
One of the most frequent areas of false separation between gifts and roles is found in the area of pastoral calling. For years, evangelicals with the talent show approach have said that they are looking for speaking talent. If a person can speak with the rhetorical power to hold crowds, then they must have a spiritual gift.
Unfortunately, many people have lost the wisdom articulated by Robert Murray M’Cheyne who said, “it is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus”. Often churches have been left in shambles after a pastor with great rhetorical talents has shown how disqualified he is by unethical or immoral behaviour.
One of the keys for identifying a new pastor is to discern whether there is both an internal self-awareness, as well as an external, discerning, corporate scrutiny that affirms the connection between talents and a role or calling. This two-fold examination is often confusingly described as the internal call and the external call. The confusion comes when both the individual and the church looks only at the talents but ignores the qualifications for the role.
Eloquent, Yet Unqualified
For churches, there is a hard test they must face regarding this issue. They must resist the soothing allure of eloquence and instead connect claims of spiritual giftedness with the role which those gifts play in the body of Christ.
For example, the engaging young man who can hold a crowd enraptured with his bible talks cannot automatically be assumed to have the gift of pastoring, or prophesying (Eph 4:11) if he is ungodly or not a ‘one-woman-man’ (1 Tim 3:2).
Likewise, we cannot suggest that because someone shows talents for empathy or care for others, that they have a ‘pastoring’ gift, and are therefore qualified to be a pastor. Unfortunately, many mainline denominations will ordain women with what they deem the pastoral ‘gift’, even though to do so places them into roles which contradict clear passages such as 1 Timothy 2:12 and 3:2.
Shutting Down the Talent Show
If there was a concerted effort to connect spiritual gifts with qualified roles in the church, we could succeed in shutting down the talent show. We would have a greater degree of clarity when talking about controversies such as:
●Should eloquent women preach on a Sunday morning?
●Are there apostles, prophets and healers today because we might claim to see evidence of these talents in operation?
●Should famous public figures (celebrities) be quickly given leadership functions in the church when they are newly converted?
●Should large attendance at events or large publishing platforms qualify a speaker as a theologian of the church?
When we shut down the talent show, and reorient ourselves to the harmony and beauty of the body of Christ, with Jesus himself as our head, then all of us will forsake pride, and humbly enter the roles in the kingdom of God which God assigns for us, without trusting in our talents, but in him alone.
