What Are the Nine GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT?

The Bible lists the nine gifts of the Spirit in this passage:

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. ⁵ There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. ⁶ There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

⁷ Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. ⁸ To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, ¹⁰ to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹ All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

1 Corinthians 12:4-11

On a side note, notice that verses 4-6 point out the tri-unity of God: The Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ and Father God.

Now please take note that nothing is said about a person having to be a fivefold minister to function in any of these charismatic gifts. They’re available to the body of Christ in general, which includes you. Look no further than Stephen (Acts 6:8).

But what is the purpose of these nine spiritual gifts? Verse 7 emphasizes that any manifestation of one of the gifts of the Spirit is for “the common good” of believers (or potential believers) — “the common profiting,” as the Berean Literal Bible puts it — whether the manifestation is for the benefit of one person or a group. In short, these gifts aren’t for selfish, fleshly purposes, but for good (1 Peter 4:10-11). Meanwhile verse 11 plainly points out that these gifts are distributed to believers as the Spirit determines. In other words, a believer cannot turn on a gift of the Spirit at will; rather they manifest as the Spirit wills and in response to the faith of the believer. Let me explain…

For gifts of the Spirit to manifest in your life and at your local assembly, small or great, (1) believers have to know about them because faith comes by learning what God’s Word says on a topic (Romans 10:17) and (2) you have to “eagerly desire” them, as Paul put it as led of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:1, 31, 14:1, 39). This is why you have to stay away from the false doctrine of cessationism because it encourages believers to eagerly deny spiritual gifts, which is the very opposite of what the Scriptures instruct us to do.

Keep in mind that the believer’s New Covenant with God is a covenant (contract) of faith and so we receive from the LORD based on our faith (Hebrews 11:1, 11:6 & Luke 8:43-48). This explains why Christ was hampered from performing miracles in his hometown when he ministered there (Matthew 13:54-58). The passage closes with “And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.” It goes without saying that gifts of the Spirit will manifest more in an environment of belief as opposed to an environment of unbelief. I’ve experienced this in attending different fellowships: In assemblies where the group in general believed in gifts of the Spirit and expected them to manifest, they would, whereas in fellowships that “explained away” such manifestations due to the doctrine of cessationism or what have you, they would never manifest, and understandably so.

This doesn’t mean, by the way, that those who embrace cessationism aren’t genuine Christians loved by the Lord and worthy of fellowship; it just means that they’re not ‘eating’ everything the LORD has provided to bless & empower the Church. I encourage such dear brothers & sisters to open up to what God’s Word says about charismatic gifts and their benefits.

Now reread the list of nine gifts of the Spirit in verses 8-10 and you’ll notice that there are…

Three Categories of the Gifts of the Spirit

The nine gifts of the Spirit fit into three distinct categories, as follows:

1. Revelational: Three gifts that reveal something — a message of wisdom, a message of knowledge and distinguishing between spirits.
2. Power: Three gifts that do something — faith, healing and miraculous powers.
3. Utterance: Three gifts that say something — prophecy, tongues and interpretation.

Let’s look at each of these three categories and examine the three gifts thereof. We’ll consider biblical examples of each gift in operation in a situation.

The Three Revelational Gifts

As noted above, these three revelational gifts reveal something, whether it’s beneficial for yourself, someone else or a group of people, like a congregation.

A Message of Wisdom

This gift refers to receiving a word of wisdom that is strategic for victory in a challenging situation. This message is supernatural and not reliant upon a person’s natural intelligence or brilliance. For instance, the Messiah told believers that he would grant them this gift when they’re imprisoned for His Name and brought before high officials: “But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict” (Luke 21:14-15). Christ was possibly walking in this gift when he stumped his opponents with an immediate amazing response (e.g. Matthew 22:15-22).

Paul functioned in this gift when he saved the lives of desperate sailors during a storm at sea with an adamant word of wise advice (Acts 27:30-32). How would he possibly know with any certainty that, if these sailors left the ship, they would lose their lives? Obviously the spiritual gift of the word of wisdom.

A Message of Knowledge

This gift offers knowledge to the person that s/he wouldn’t otherwise know, like when Christ supernaturally knew where to apprehend funds for him & Peter to pay the yearly Temple tax — in the mouth of a fish at the nearby lake (Matthew 17:24-27). Interestingly, Jesus & his ministry team had enough funds in their treasury box to cover this tax, but this gift of the Spirit enabled Christ & Peter to apprehend money from a surprise source so that they could use their ministry earnings for things more pertinent to the needs of their ministry.

Another example would be how Christ knew the Samaritan woman at the well had five previous husbands and the man she was currently with was not her spouse (John 4:16-19). This enabled him to effectively ‘witness’ to her (John 4:28-29). Yet another example involving Jesus, is when he was privy to knowledge concerning arrangements for his ‘last supper’ with the disciples (Luke 22:9-13).

The message of knowledge can also be observed when Paul supernaturally discerned events while sailing to Rome during a storm that the sailors couldn’t discern and he was ignored to their detriment (Acts 27:10-11).

In the Old Testament the message of knowledge can be seen when Elisha supernaturally knew about his servant’s greedy activities behind his back (2 Kings 5:25-26).

Notice that this gift is called a “message” of knowledge; other translations say “word” of knowledge. It allows the recipient to know something in a fragmentary sense; it doesn’t enable the person to know everything about the person, people or situation. For instance, Christ got a word about what was in the mouth of one fish in the lake; he didn’t know what was in the mouths of every fish in that body of water. It’s a word of knowledge, not an encyclopedia of knowledge.

One last thing, the gift of the message of knowledge differs from the gift of prophecy in that the recipient receives a word of knowledge by the Spirit and then conveys it to those applicable (if this even applies), but it’s not conveyed as in the LORD speaking to others; rather it’s the recipient speaking in the first person. By contrast, when the gift of prophecy manifests the recipient conveys the divine word to the people as the LORD speaking to the people. Are you following?

Distinguishing Between Spirits (or Discerning of Spirits)

This gift enables a person to see in the spirit realm and the activity thereof, whether angels, demons, the LORD or what have you. For instance, Elisha prayed that God would allow his assistant to see that the angelic forces protecting them at Dothan were far greater than the troops of the menacing king of Aram (2 Kings 6:15-17). In the New Testament, Stephen was about to be stoned to death and looked up to Heaven wherein he saw the Lord standing at the right hand of the Father, which gave him the grace to handle his martyrdom (Acts 7:55). Meanwhile Paul was able to actually see the Lord on several occasions (Acts 23:11 & 27:23-24).

I should add that this gift of discerning of spirits is not the gift of paranoid suspicion, carnal judgment and gossip/slander, as wicked legalists think it is.

The Three Power Gifts

(Special) Faith

All believers have faith to some degree (if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be believers), so this gift could better be described as special faith. It’s a sudden supernatural impartation of faith to tackle a challenging situation, like the special faith it took Daniel to handle being thrown into the lion’s den (Daniel 6). No doubt Stephen was walking in special faith during his unjust seizure, potent public testimony and fatal stoning (Acts 6:8-7:60). Meanwhile Peter would have to operate in special faith to boldly command people who’ve been crippled for many years to get up and walk — and then they do it (Acts 3:1-10 & 9:32-35).

Healing

This gift of the Spirit should not be confused with the faith necessary for any believer to receive a healing at any given time, which you can read about here (see the corresponding video too). The charismatic gift of healing is a sudden impartation of faith to heal a specific malady regardless of the faith of the recipient. Christ’s amazing healing of the high priest’s servant with a cutoff ear is a good example (Luke 22:50-51). Another is Paul’s healing of Publius’ father of fever and dysentery (Acts 28:7-8).

I’ve been to services where the minister would say something like “There’s an anointing to heal back problems. If you’re suffering back pain, please obey the prompting of the Spirit and come up now.” People with back issues would then go up to the altar and the minister would apply the laying on of hands and the recipients would (presumably) receive their healing. After several minutes the minister would sometimes announce “The anointing’s gone,” which meant that those with back issues who refused to come up missed their window of opportunity.

Interestingly, the Pool of Béthesda was a type of the gifts of the Spirit and specifically this gift. Go here for details.

Miraculous Powers (aka Working of Miracles)

Several of Christ’s miracles could fall under this heading: Turning water to wine (John 2:1–11), the miraculous catches of fish (Luke 5:1–11 & John 21:1–14), feeding several thousands of people by multiplying a miniscule amount of food (Matthew 14:13-21 & Matthew 15:32-39), walking on water (Matthew 14:22-33) and calming the storm (Mark 4:35-41).

The apostles functioned in this gift as well at times: Peter raised Tabitha from death (Acts 9:36-43) while Paul raised Eutychus from the dead after he fell from a third story window (Acts 20:9-12). Another example would be when Paul rebuked Elymas and pronounced the Lord’s judgment in the form of temporary blindness (!), obviously in the hope that the sorcerer would be humbled and wisely repent (Acts 13:8-12). The passage clearly states that Paul was “filled with the Spirit” when he said this, not filled with the flesh. Since no believer has the power to make someone blind, including Paul, this was obviously a manifestation of the gift of miraculous powers.

The Three Utterance Gifts

Prophecy

The charismatic gift of prophecy is when the recipient has a word from the LORD for the person or people s/he is addressing. I’ve heard many such prophecies over the years and they’re always encouraging and comforting, as Paul pointed out (1 Corinthians 14:3). It’s a wonderful gift that blesses the Church. Unfortunately, but to be expected, it only manifests in assemblies that believe in the gifts of the Spirit — and divine miracles in general — and never in fellowships that embrace the faith-killing doctrine of cessationism.

I should add that, when a believer flows in this gift, it doesn’t mean they’re a fivefold prophet. It just means they’re a believer operating in this particular gift.

Tongues

When this gift manifests it’s simply a prophecy given in another language, unknown to the speaker. But please don’t confuse this charismatic gift with praying in the spirit, which is the believer’s spirit praying to God in a language that his/her mind doesn’t understand (1 Corinthians 14:14-15, 14:18-19 & Ephesians 6:18). The latter form of speaking in tongues is the result of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and is a type of prayer — it’s your spirit bypassing your understanding to pray to God via the use of your tongue (1 Corinthians 14:14-15). The gift of the Spirit kind of tongues, however, is not the recipient praying to God, but rather the recipient giving a word from God to the people. The two are very different. A believer who’s baptized in the Spirit can pray to God in the spirit anytime he/she wants to, day or night, whereas the form of tongues that is a gift of the Spirit only manifests as the Spirit determines in order to give a word from God to God’s children (1 Corinthians 14:2-5). Do you see the difference?

For this gift to be a blessing the body of Christ, it has to be accompanied by the gift of…

Interpretation of Tongues

When someone operates in the interpretation of tongues s/he is simply interpreting a prophecy that was given in tongues. Think about it in terms of two nickels equaling a dime: The charismatic gift of prophecy is the dime whereas tongues & interpretation of tongues are two nickels. The latter two combined are equal to prophecy.

When someone gives a tongue when believers meet — I’m talking about the gift of the Spirit — the Spirit will either move that person to interpret or move upon someone else to interpret because interpretation is necessary in order for the Church to benefit from this gift and be built up (1 Corinthians 14:5).

So there you have it — the nine gifts of the Spirit.

Allow me to close with a pertinent question: In 1 Corinthians 12:31 Paul instructs us by the Holy Spirit to “eagerly desire the greater gifts.” Which of the nine gifts of the Spirit is the “greater gift”? Simply the gift that’s needed at the time. For instance, when Christ encountered the invalid at the Pool of Bethesda the gift of healing was needed, but also likely the gift of special faith, which would be necessary to boldly order a paralyzed person to get up and walk!

Related Topics:

What is Cessationism and is it Biblical?

Healing — How Do I Receive?

Should I get the Surgery or BELIEVE for Healing?

Baptism of the Holy Spirit — and It’s Benefits

Slain in the Spirit—Is it Biblical?

Can the Power/Anointing of God Rest on an Object?

The Fivefold Ministry Gifts — Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher

Prophets — New Testament and Old Testament (There’s a Difference)

Official Prophets (Ministers) and Independent Prophets (Ministers)

What is Oneness Theology—aka “Jesus Only”—and is it Biblical?

Comparing Jesus Christ with… Superman

Is the Holy Spirit God or a Divine Force?