QUESTION AND ANSWER
GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT/WOMEN IN MINISTRY
DR. JIM DIXON
1 CORINTHIANS 12:27-13:13
FEBRUARY 10, 2008
We are in the midst of a series where you, the congregation, submit questions and then by the grace of God I seek to answer these questions biblically. Today we deal with questions relating to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We also want to deal with questions relating to women in ministry.
Jim Dobson tells the story of a high school football team that lost 21 games in a row. There was this guy who had supported the school and was very wealthy, a multimillionaire, and he just wasn’t going to take it anymore. After seeing this high school team lose 21 games in a row and knowing that he had given his time to serve the school and had given many dollars to serve the school, he just wasn’t going to take it anymore. After that 21st loss, this guy went down into the locker room of the high school football team and he spoke to the coaches and to the players. He told the head coach that his game plan was flawed. He told the assistant coaches that even though the game plan was flawed, the team would do better if they implemented the game plan better. He told the players that they weren’t learning the game plan and that they were lazy, mentally lazy. He told them they didn’t have a work ethic, that they didn’t know their individual roles and that they weren’t able to come together as a team. He told them they lacked passion and lacked emotion. He said, “This isn’t going to happen anymore. If you win next week and you don’t lose your 22nd game in a row, I’m going to give you each a car, a brand-new car. This is true for every player and for every coach.”
Well, everything was different that week. Everything was different. The head coach worked very hard and came up with a brilliant game plan. The assistant coaches worked equally hard at implementing that game plan just perfectly. The players worked. Every player studied. They had a great work ethic and they worked their individual roles so that they could come together as a team and be a force. That week they had passion and they had emotion. Even their workouts were intense. Prior to the game there was this huge pep rally at the high school and the enthusiasm had spread throughout the whole student body. Just before the game, the coach gathered his team in the locker room and he gave them a talk that Knute Rockne would have been proud of. Then the team all held hands. They shouted, “Victory!” and they went out onto the field and they lost 38 to nothing!
Of course, Jim Dobson’s point is we all need strategy. We all need a work ethic. We all need emotion. We all need passion but there’s no substitute for talent, no substitute for ability, no substitute for giftedness. God knows these things and so, God has offered gifts to His Church. As the Church seeks to serve Christ on earth and as we fight principalities and powers of darkness, God has offered gifts to His people, the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
We begin this morning by looking at the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Of course, you have submitted many questions and I will read a couple of them to you. First is this question: “What do you think about the spiritual gifts such as word of knowledge, speaking in tongues, the gift of prophecy, hospitality, administration, apostleship, etc.?”
Then this question: “I would like to know why there isn’t more teaching on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. If we could only be taught more out of the Book of Acts.”
Then this question: “Is speaking in tongues for modern times? Is it just part of the Pentecostal Churches? Is it biblical? Is it gibberish? Does it involve actual languages? What do you think?” Those are just some of the questions that you have submitted relating to the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
As we look at the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, I would like us to just take a quick look at three directives from God. The first directive is knowledge. God wants us to know the gifts. God wants us to know the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Some time ago I saw a joke about a Baptist and a Catholic priest. The Baptist was a good guy and he loved Christ and he sought to live for Christ but he had this one flaw where he loved horse racing and he loved to gamble on the horses. One Sunday this Baptist was at the horse track and the first race was about to begin. He was trying to decide who to put money on, which horse. As he looked down on the field, he saw a Catholic priest. He saw this Catholic priest go up to one horse and anoint the head and then put his hands on the head and bless the horse. The Baptist watched that first race and to his amazement the horse the Catholic priest had blessed won the race. The second race came and the Baptist was watching the priest and he saw the priest go up and anoint another horse and so, the Baptist put his money on that horse and the horse won.
The same thing happened in the third race, the fourth race the fifth race and the sixth race. So, they came to the seventh and last race of the day. The Baptist was watching the priest. The Baptist had made a lot of money over the course of these races. As he’s watching the priest in the seventh race, he sees the priest go up to one horse. He anoints the head of the horse and then he anoints both ears, then anoints the mouth of the horse. The priest moves back and anoints the body of the horse and then the priest kneels down and anoints all four legs and all the hooves of the horse. The Baptist thinks, “Wow! This is a SUPER blessing,” and so, he put all of his money on this horse. “I’ll bet all the money I’ve made so far today and more. This is going to ‘make’ my life.” So, the Baptist puts all of his money on that horse. The seventh and final race begins. The horse that the priest had blessed, that the Baptist had blessed, that horse came out of the blocks and then halfway through the race fell down and died. The Baptist lost everything. After the race he was distraught. He went up and he found the priest. He said to this Catholic priest, “What’s going on here? I saw you bless all of these horses and each horse that you blessed won. Then on the last race you put this super blessing on this other horse and the horse died and I lost everything. Do you realize what you’ve done to me?” The Catholic priest looked at him and said, “You know, that’s the problem with all of you Protestants. You don’t know the difference between a simple blessing and the sacrament of last rites.”
It might be true that Protestants don’t know the difference between a simple blessing and the sacrament of last rites but what’s more tragic is that Protestants and Catholics do not know about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. All who go by the name of Christ, Protestant or Catholic, should know about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. In the Bible God gives us, in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, two separate listings of the Gifts of the Spirit. Romans, chapter 12 another list of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians, chapter 4; 1 Peter, chapter 4, other listings of gifts. If you add all of these passages up and you come up with 32 Gifts of the Holy Spirit but if you allow for overlaps, there appear to be about 19 Gifts of the Holy Spirit. That certainly would not necessarily be exhaustive but 19 Gifts of the Holy Spirit. These Gifts include apostleship, prophecy, teaching, pastoring, exhortation, administration, evangelism, healing, miracles, discernment, wisdom, contributions, helps, mercy, faith, hospitality, tongues, interpretation of tongues and word of knowledge. The Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Now maybe you feel like you don’t know how each of these gifts works or what each one of these gifts means. I would encourage you… We don’t have time this morning to go over these 19 gifts but I have preached series of sermons on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and you can find those either in our library up on the mezzanine level or in the Inklings Bookstore. In the Inklings Bookstore there are also books on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. I want to encourage you to know about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. This means a lot to God and He wants us to know these things.
Secondly, God wants us to desire the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. The question that kind of hovers over the room this morning is this: “Do you really desire the Gifts of God?” The Greek word is “zelos” from which we get the word “zealous.” It’s also the word from which we get the word “zealot.” With regard to the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, God wants us to be zealots. He wants us to have passion. He wants us to strongly desire the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Of course, in 1 Corinthians, chapter 14, verse 1, the Bible says, “Earnestly desire all the Gifts.” So, we are to be open to all of the Gifts and to desire all of them. I think the problem in the Church of Jesus Christ today is that only a few gifts tend to be desired.
Bob Beltz was on our staff some years ago. Bo Mitchell helped start our church. We used to have Christmas parties in those early years and our staff was smaller. Today, counting our schools and the church full- and part-time, we have about 400 staff. Back in those early days we had ten staff and we would bring our spouses and there would be about 20 of our for our Christmas parties. We would instruct everyone to bring a $10 gift and to wrap it up and we’d put it under the tree. Then we would have everyone pull a number out of a hat so we were numbered 1 through 20 and we would have our Christmas party. The first person who got #1 could pick any gift from under the tree, any one of the 20 gifts, and then they would open it up and there would be ooohs and aaahs or laughter or maybe disappointment but the first gift would be opened. Then the person who had #2 could either look under the tree and take one of the 19 gifts that remained or the person who had #2 could take that first selection from the person who had #1. If they did that, then the person who had #1 could take another one of the 19 gifts from under the tree. You go through this process and finally you come to the 20th person and the 20th person can either take the one remaining gift under the tree or take anything in the room from the 19 people who have already selected. Of course, what happens in the course of that Christmas party is there were always one or two gifts that become really popular and they’re just kind of passed from person to person and from selector to selector—one or two gifts that everybody really wanted and people thought they were cool.
That’s true in the Body of Christ with regard to the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. It seems like in different traditions, in different Christ sub-cultures, different gifts are focused on so Bob Beltz, Bo Mitchell and I, years ago, went to a Vineyard Conference up in Vancouver. John Wimber was speaking and John Wimber had been a Professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. He was the Founder of the Vineyard movement and the Vineyard churches. We went to this conference, and we had been to some other Vineyard stuff, and at the Vineyard Conference all the focus was on one gift and that gift was the Gift of Healing. Everybody wanted the Gift of Healing and it was the Gift of Healing that was exalted and almost everything done at Vineyard Conferences center around Gifts of Healing—the one gift everybody wanted—the Gift of Healing.
Some years ago, Gene and I went with Barb and Lorna to a YWAM Conference in Hawaii. It was on the Kona Coast where the International Headquarters of YWAM exists. Of course, who wouldn’t love to go to a conference in Hawaii? So, we were there at the International Headquarters of YWAM and it seemed like there, the Gift of the Holy Spirit that everyone focused on was Word of Knowledge. Everyone wanted to have Word of Knowledge and we noticed Loren Cunningham who had founded YWAM had this Gift of the Holy Spirit. He had Word of Knowledge and would often declare to the people a word of knowledge from the Lord.
And we’d go to Angeles Temple in Los Angeles which was a Four-Square Church. In the Four-Square Church Movement, in Pentecostalism in general, the focus tends to be on another Gift of the Holy Spirit and that’s the Gift of Tongues. There is tremendous focus on the Gift of Tongues. Everyone has to speak in tongues, sing in tongues, have a prayer language of tongues. It’s all about tongues. Glossolalia.
My mother had been given the Gift of Tongues prior to my birth and all of her life manifested that gift. It is indeed a beautiful gift, although remember all the gifts can be counterfeited. There are many people today who claim to have glossolalia and the Gift of Tongues and they just don’t. They have learned a polysyllabic kind of nonsense utterance. The real Gift of the Holy Spirit is just beautiful and it’s when the Holy Spirit just comes upon you and speaks through you. In any event, the tendency of the Body of Christ and the Church of Christ over time has just focused on specific gifts and God wants us to be open to all of the gifts and to desire all of the gifts. God also doesn’t want us to use the gifts to elevate ourselves as though we’re better than anyone else and God doesn’t want us to use the gifts to judge another person because they don’t have some particular gift. God wants us to honor each other. God doesn’t want us to use the gifts to divide the Body of Christ. God just wants us to rejoice in what He’s given us and to rejoice in what He’s given others and come together and use whatever He’s given us to the higher cause of Christ and the higher cause of heaven. So, desire the gift.
We are to pray for the gifts. God wants us to pray for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Have you ever done that? What a radical thought. Have you ever gone through a listing of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and prayed for them, each one, asking if the Lord might be willing to unwrap that gift for you. There’s a passage in Luke, chapter 11 and in Matthew 7 where Jesus in speaking to His disciples says, “What father amongst you, having a son who asks for bread, would give him a stone instead? Or having a son who asks for fish, and you give him a serpent or a snake instead?” Jesus said, “If you, then, being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” That’s in Matthew 7. In Luke 11 it says, “How much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him?” In one passage, the Father is giving the Holy Spirit and in the other passage God is giving good gifts but they’re both the same parable and analogy. I think Jesus is talking about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit if we would pray and if we would ask. God wants us to pray and God wants us to ask.
I know many of you have heard of W.C. Fields. W.C. Fields died a number of years ago. He was an entertainer. He was a comedian. When you think of W.C. Fields, what do you think of7 Well, you kind of think of a top hat and you think of a big nose and you think of a guy who had this kind of peculiar way of speaking out of the side of his mouth, out of the corner of his mouth. When W.C. Fields was in Vaudeville kind of starting out, he was impoverished and oftentimes did not have enough money to eat well and to eat regularly. He oftentimes would have nightmares in those days about starving to death or nightmares about being completely broke and penniless. That affected him all the days of his life so that when the years went by and W.C. Fields became famous and wealthy and began to accumulate a great deal of money, because of this phobia he began to put his money into banks all over the world. By the time he died he had placed his money into 700 different banks around the world. He used different names, kind of fictitious names, as he deposited his dollars. One bank account might be under the name of Ludwig Fishpon. In another bank account it would be under the name of Aristotle Hoop. That was the way W.C. Fields operated. When he died, his kids didn’t have access to all the names and they only found 26 of the 700 bank accounts. So, much was lost out of their inheritance.
Here we are the Body of Christ. The Bible says we are co-heirs with Christ, that we are His heirs and we are co-inheritors with Christ and of course Christ has laid up in heaven a great inheritance for us all. He wants us to share in His inheritance right now and so, Christ gives gifts. The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are part of His inheritance and how sad that we don’t open these Gifts and do not access them. We do not know them. We do not desire them. We do not pray for them. How sad.
Some of you have written questions and asked me whether the Gifts of the Holy Spirit are situational and temporary or whether they’re permanent endowments. Of course, there are some Bible scholars who believe that the Gifts of the Holy Spirit are given as permanent endowments. Once given, you have them throughout your life. Other scholars believe the Gifts of the Holy Spirit are given situationally and for a specific call and purpose and that they are temporary. Really, I think both sides are right. You don’t have to look at this as one or the other but as “both and.” I think God gives gifts as permanent endowments and I think He also gives gifts as situational and temporary endowments. I think both are true.
Barb and I are taking care of our grandkids, Abigail and Neena, for four days. We’re just starting the third day. I think we’ve had them for 52 hours but who’s counting? Neena is one year old and she’s just starting to walk and she’s just active and gets around. She’s very busy. Abigail is five years old and she’s got lots of thoughts and she wants to share all of them with us. As I was leaving the house this morning Barb and I were laughing. Our house just looks like a tornado just blew through there. It’s just incredible. As I was leaving the house this morning and Barb and I gave each other a hug, we looked into each other’s eyes and we could just see that we’re both exhausted. The thought occurred to me that whatever parenting gifts God gave us many years ago, they were not permanent endowments.
Of course, kids are a blessing and God is gracious and we love our grandkids but certainly gifts can be either temporary or permanent. The important that is that we employ them for Christ. This is true of Gifts of the Holy Spirit. It’s also true of whatever God-given talents and abilities and skills you have. Whatever you have at your disposal, your talent, your skills, your aptitudes and your divine endowments and Gifts of the Holy Spirit—all of it needs to be brought and used for the cause of Christ on earth and in the service of His Church. There is much to be done. These are critical times. There’s a great struggle for the souls of men and women and children. We need you. We need your gifts. We need you in our Sunday School. We need you in our Missions Department. We need you in our small groups. We need you in our youth work. We need you. We need you in the choir. We’ve got to mobilize. This is part of our vision statement that we’d be a congregation mobilized in ministry and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit are critical to this endeavor.
There’s a second subject that we wanted to look briefly at this morning and some of you have submitted questions relating to women in church leadership, women in ministry and then the whole subject biblically of the submission of women, either in the context of the home or the Church. These are some of your questions. “The Apostle Paul speaks about women in ministry in 1 Corinthians 14 and in I Timothy 2. Would you comment on his statements?”
Here’s another one: “Does the Bible prohibit women from being pastors? Please explain I Timothy 2:12.”
Here’s another one: “How can women understand when Paul speaks about women being silent in the churches and what does that look like for women today and why did Paul say those things?”
Here’s another one: “Please explain your understanding of I Timothy, chapter 2, verse 15. It is a difficult passage.” And yes, indeed it is. I know that you have submitted these questions because you’d like to get me in trouble.
Certainly, this is a tough subject. The church of Jesus Christ has discussed and debated the issue of women in leadership and women in ministry for almost 2,000 years. I had somebody after the first service or after the second service say to me, “Thanks for your message. I didn’t learn anything new but thanks. I don’t understand anything any better than I did before but thanks.” Certainly, I am not going to solve this issue today and I live by faith as do you. What I would say is that at the end of the day if we don’t agree with each other, let’s love each other, because love trumps everything. It trumps the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. That’s part of our passage for today. Let’s get along and let’s love each other.
I don’t want, as a pastor, to take my direction from the culture. I want to be culturally sensitive but I don’t want to be guided by our secular culture. I want to be guided solely by the Word of God and by My Lord, Jesus Christ, and so, we take a look at this subject.
First of all, I want to say that the Gifts of the Holy Spirit are not gender specific. They’re given to all male and female, men and women, so the Gifts of the Holy Spirit are given by God to all of us. There aren’t some gifts given only to men and some given only to women. They’re just given.
The question is posed, “Are there certain offices in the church that are only open to men? How about the office of an apostle? The office of a prophet? The office of a pastor? The office of a teacher? Are they only open to men or are they also open to women?” You could look at each of these individually and it’s very difficult biblically. Let me give you an example with regard to the office of apostle. The word “apostle” is used in a variety of ways in the Bible. Sometimes the word apostle, the Greek word “apostolos,” is used in reference to the Twelve Disciples, the original twelve. Obviously, they were all men. Jesus came into the Jewish world which was patriarchal. In the Rabbinical society all of the Talmadine, all of the disciples, were men. Jesus chose male disciples. His movement would not have gone very far had he done otherwise, but Jesus did have female disciples. They followed Him around and they did support Him. Jesus treated women unlike any other Rabbi.
Sometimes in the Bible the word apostle is given broader usage in a broader scope. Here’s the example of the difficulty knowing whether this office was open to women. You look at Romans, chapter 16, verse 7. In Romans, chapter 16, verse 7, you see Paul mentioning Andronicus and Julia. Paul says of Andronicus and Julia that they had known Christ longer than he had. They had been serving Christ before Paul even became a Christian. Paul says of Andronicus and Julia that they are his kindred which means that they are Jewish. He also says of them that they are in prison with Him and so, they were persecuted for Christ. Paul goes on to say that Andronicus and Julia, who we know virtually nothing about, “were highly regarded amongst all of the apostles.” The problem is in the Greek language that could mean that Andronicus and Julia were two people whom the apostles valued highly and esteemed highly or it could mean that Andronicus and Julia were two apostles that ranked high amongst the apostles. In the Greek language, either one of those are possible so we could be led to believe that Andronicus and Julia were apostles based on Romans 16:7 but on the other hand we don’t even know that the name Julia is right because it could also be Julius and Julius is a male name and Julia a female name. The truth is in the passage we can’t tell because it’s in an adverbial form so we really can’t tell whether it’s male or female and this is tough but it’s an example of what the church faces with regard to some of these difficult issues.
We do know that women served as prophets. You can go to Judges, chapter 4, and read about Deborah. There should have been a Book of Deborah surely. You can go to Judges, chapter 4, and read about Deborah or you can go to Acts, chapter 21, and you can read about the four daughters of Phillip the Evangelist. These were prophets and so, women certainly can be prophets. “Can women be teachers or pastors?” Again, the Church of Jesus Christ is and continues to be in dispute over these kinds of subjects.
The submission of women in the context of the home and in the context of the church is certainly taught in the Bible. Let me say that. The Bible does teach that women who want to please God should manifest a type of submissiveness in the context of the home and the church. I don’t want to pull any punches. I don’t want to try to dance around that issue. The Bible does say that. The question is, “Why does the Bible say that?” and that’s what’s debated so much. There are some who say that wifely submission is merely for the sake of culture. They look at Titus, chapter 2, verse 5, where Paul tells Titus that wives are to be in submission to their husbands in order that the Word of God might not be discredited amongst them. The idea seems to be in Titus, chapter 2, verse 5, that wifely submission is an accommodation to the culture in order that in that patriarchal culture the Word of God wouldn’t be discredited. There are some people who say, “Now today the culture is different and so, Paul would say something different to this culture.”
That’s one perspective, but you see that out there in the evangelical community. Others say that wifely submission and submission of women in general is tied to the curse. They look at Genesis, chapter 3, where God cursed Adam and told Adam that because of his sin, he would earn his bread by the sweat of the brow until he returned to the earth for he is dust and to dust he shall return. God said to Eve, the woman, “because you have sinned, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.” So, they tie submission of the wife back to Genesis, chapter 3, and then those who, within the evangelical community, take this perspective. They suggest that Christ, when He died on the cross, took the curse upon Himself, both the curse on Adam and the curse on Eve, the curse of sin. They believe Christ took the curses upon Himself and they point out that in heaven the curse will be completely eradicated. They suggest that now on earth maybe we could be working to overcome the curse. There’s that perspective that’s out there in the evangelical community.