A Brief Statement

I hold that spiritual gifts are God-given abilities, bestowed by the Holy Spirit upon every believer, for the building up of the church and the glory of God. They are gifts of grace — charismata — not merely natural talents and not personal achievements, distributed among Christ’s people by the Spirit as He wills. Their purpose is twofold and inseparable: the edification of the body and the glory of God; never the display of the one who exercises them.

On the disputed question of whether all the gifts continue, I hold a soft, or “lite,” cessationism. The sign and revelatory gifts that founded and authenticated the apostolic church — apostleship, prophecy, tongues, and miraculous healing as standing gifts — belonged especially to that foundational age, and are no longer the normative endowment of the church now that the foundation is laid and the Scriptures complete. Yet I hold this with openness and with humility: God remains entirely free to heal and to work wonders as He sovereignly wills, such things may on rare occasion still occur, and I would neither bind God nor despise a brother who sees it differently. The many edifying gifts — teaching, serving, giving, leading, showing mercy, and the rest — continue in full force; and the great need of the church is not to chase the spectacular but to steward faithfully the gifts God has actually given.

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A Detailed Exposition

What Spiritual Gifts Are

The New Testament’s usual word for a spiritual gift is charisma (plural charismata), built on charis, “grace” — a gift of grace, freely given. Paul also calls them pneumatika, “spiritual things,” and speaks of “the manifestation of the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:1, 7). A spiritual gift, then, is a Spirit-given capacity for service in the body of Christ, granted not as a reward for merit but as a gift of grace.¹ Three things follow. First, the gifts are given by the Spirit and distributed as He chooses — “all these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as He wills” (1 Corinthians 12:11). Second, every believer has received at least one: “to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7; 1 Peter 4:10). And third, the gifts must be distinguished from two things they resemble — from mere natural talent (though the Spirit may take up and sanctify a natural ability), and from the fruit of the Spirit, which is Christlike character grown in every believer (see my paper on Christian Ethics). Gifts are for ministry; fruit is for holiness; and a man may be greatly gifted yet sadly unfruitful.²

The Purpose of Spiritual Gifts

Why are the gifts given? For two ends that are finally one. The first is the edification of the church: gifts are given “for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7), “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12), so that we are to “strive to excel in building up the church” (1 Corinthians 14:12). We are stewards of grace for one another’s sake (1 Peter 4:10).³ The second is the glory of God: gifts are exercised “in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11). These two are not rivals but one purpose seen from two sides; the church is built up, and God is glorified in the building. What the gifts are emphatically not for is the exaltation of the one who has them — the error that wrecked Corinth. And so Paul sets the whole subject within love: the most dazzling gift, exercised without love, is “a noisy gong” and profits nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1–3). Love is the indispensable air the gifts must breathe.⁴

The Classification of Gifts

The New Testament gives several lists of gifts — in Romans 12:6–8, in 1 Corinthians 12:8–10 and 28–30, in Ephesians 4:11, and in 1 Peter 4:11 — and no two are identical. This tells me the lists are illustrative rather than exhaustive: samples of the Spirit’s generosity, not a closed inventory.⁵ Among the gifts named are teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, showing mercy, serving and helping, administration, evangelism, shepherding, faith, the discerning of spirits, and a word of wisdom or knowledge — alongside the more visibly miraculous gifts of prophecy, tongues and their interpretation, healings, and the working of miracles. Various groupings have been proposed; Peter’s simple division is useful — “whoever speaks” and “whoever serves” (1 Peter 4:11), the speaking gifts and the serving gifts. For the question that divides Christians today, the most important distinction is between the sign and revelatory gifts, which attended the founding of the church, and the edifying or ministry gifts, which build it up in every age — a distinction to which I now turn.⁶

Cessationism and Continuationism

Did all the gifts continue beyond the apostolic age, or did some cease? Here, sincere believers divide. Cessationism holds that the sign and revelatory gifts ceased with the apostolic era; continuationism holds that all the gifts continue today; between them stand various “open but cautious” and Pentecostal-charismatic positions.⁷ The cessationist case, at its strongest, does not rest — as is sometimes thought — chiefly on the “perfect” of 1 Corinthians 13:10, a text more naturally read of Christ’s return or the eternal state than of the completed canon. It rests rather on the purpose those gifts served. The apostles and prophets were the foundation of the church (Ephesians 2:20), and a foundation is laid once; the miraculous were “the signs of a true apostle” (2 Corinthians 12:12), given to authenticate the messengers and confirm the message — “while God also bore witness by signs and wonders” (Hebrews 2:3–4) — a work completed when the message was delivered and inscripturated. The foundation laid, and the canon closed, the gifts that served them are no longer the church’s normal portion.⁸ The continuationist answers, not without force, that no text plainly announces their cessation, that the Corinthians were “not lacking in any gift” as they awaited Christ (1 Corinthians 1:7), and that to limit the Spirit’s working is presumption. The argument deserves a respectful hearing, and the question is not closed beyond all dispute.⁹

My Position: A Soft Cessationism Held with Openness

My own settled view is the soft cessationism I stated at the outset, and I want to state it carefully, for it is easily caricatured. I believe the foundational and sign gifts — apostleship in the strict sense, prophecy as fresh revelation, tongues, and miraculous healing as a standing gift — were given especially for the founding era and are not the normative endowment of the church today. But I do not say that God cannot do such things, nor that He never does. God is free; He heals in answer to prayer as it pleases Him, and such gifts may, on rare occasions, appear. What I deny is that they are to be expected, sought, required, or made the measure of a Christian’s spirituality. I hold this as a careful conviction, open to correction, and I extend a warm hand to my continuationist brethren, who love the same Lord and Spirit.¹⁰ A word on tongues in particular: the gift in Acts was the speaking of real human languages (glōssa) not previously learned, given as a sign — a sign, Paul says, “not for believers but for unbelievers” (1 Corinthians 14:22; cf. Isaiah 28:11) — and where it appeared in the church it was to be strictly regulated, interpreted, and kept in order (1 Corinthians 14:27–40). On the soft-cessationist reading, this sign, having served its purpose toward unbelieving Israel and the founding church, is no longer the church’s normal experience.¹¹

The Role of Gifts in the Church

However, one settles the question of cessation, the abiding gifts have a clear and glorious role: they are the means by which Christ builds His body. Paul’s great image is the body with its many members (1 Corinthians 12:12–27; Romans 12:4–5): each part different, each necessary, none able to say to another “I have no need of you,” and none permitted to say “because I am not an eye, I do not belong.” The church is not a performance with an audience but a body in which every member ministers.¹² Each believer is therefore to discover his gift and to steward it — “as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another” (1 Peter 4:10) — fanning it into flame (2 Timothy 1:6) and exercising it in love, in order, and under the Word and the church’s leadership. No gift is superior and none indispensable; the quiet gifts of mercy and helps are as needful as the visible gifts of teaching and leading. And the goal of it all is maturity: that the body might be built up “until we all attain to … the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).

The Misuse and Abuse of Gifts

Because the gifts are good, their abuse is grievous, and Scripture and history alike are full of it. The Corinthians show us the chief dangers: pride, coveting the showy gifts for the status they conferred; division, ranking members by their gifts; and disorder, a chaos of competing voices that Paul had to rein in with the rule that “all things should be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40). To these the church has added the burying of one’s gift in neglect, and the exalting of gift over character — as though a man’s usefulness excused his unholiness.¹³ Two abuses deserve particular warning. The first is counterfeit: not every wonder is from God, for the enemy and the flesh can imitate the Spirit (Matthew 7:22–23; 2 Thessalonians 2:9), and we are commanded to “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1). The prosperity and sensationalist movements of our day have made merchandise of the gifts — promising healing on demand, and then, most cruelly, laying the blame for unanswered prayer upon the sufferer’s supposed lack of faith. That is a wound dealt in God’s name, and I abhor it. Yet there is an opposite error, and I would not commit it: to quench the Spirit and despise His working. “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:19–21). The pastoral path runs between — neither chasing the spectacular nor scorning what God may yet do.¹⁴

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Practical Implications

Ministry Emphasis: Equipping the Body for Every-Member Ministry

First, the doctrine of gifts overturns the idea of a church as a stage with an audience. Every believer is gifted by the Spirit and needed by the body; there are no spectators. As a shepherd, I take my task to be the work of Ephesians 4 — to equip the saints for their work of ministry, not to do it all myself — and one of the most fruitful things I can do is help a believer discover, name, and deploy the gift God has given him.

Second, this teaches contentment and faithfulness. It is a great freedom to stop coveting another’s gift and simply to use one’s own. The church does not need more people straining after the spectacular; it needs the teacher to teach, the giver to give, the merciful to show mercy, the helper to help — the quiet gifts that hold a body together. “Having gifts that differ … let us use them” (Romans 12:6).

Third, my position guards the suffering, which matters greatly to me. I pray for the sick with real hope, knowing God still heals as He wills (see my paper on Providence); but I will never tell a hurting saint that his affliction remains because his faith was too small. That lie has crushed many, and it is the precise cruelty the health-and-wealth teachers commit. To minister to the broken is to pray with faith and to sit with them in mystery — trusting God’s freedom and His goodness even when the healing does not come.

Finally, I would hold this whole subject together with humility, charity, and discernment. I hold my soft cessationism as a conviction, not a test of fellowship, and I count continuationists as beloved brethren. I would neither chase signs nor quench the Spirit, but “test everything; hold fast what is good” — keeping the one aim always before me: a body built up in love, every member serving, to the glory of the God who gave the gifts.

Gifts are given not to exalt the servant but to build the church — and in all of it, to glorify the Giver.

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Biblical, Exegetical, Theological, and Historical Notes

The principal term is charisma (χάρισμα; plural charismata, χαρίσματα), from charis (χάρις), “grace” — hence a “grace-gift” (Romans 12:6; 1 Corinthians 12:4). Paul also calls them pneumatika (πνευματικά), “spiritual things” (1 Corinthians 12:1; 14:1), and speaks of “the manifestation of the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:7). A spiritual gift is a Spirit-given capacity for service in the body of Christ.
Three truths: the Spirit distributes the gifts sovereignly, “as He wills” (1 Corinthians 12:11); every believer receives at least one (1 Corinthians 12:7; 1 Peter 4:10); and gifts must be distinguished both from natural talents (which the Spirit may nonetheless take up) and from the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23), which is Christlike character. Gifts concern service; fruit concerns sanctity. One may be gifted without being fruitful, which is why love governs the gifts (note 4). See my papers on Pneumatology and Christian Ethics.
The gifts are given “for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7), “for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12, 16), and so we are to “excel in building up the church” (1 Corinthians 14:12). The believer is a steward of grace for others: “as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10).
The ultimate end of the gifts is the glory of God: gifts are exercised “in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11). And the gifts have no value apart from love: “if I have … all knowledge … but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). The placement of 1 Corinthians 13 between chapters 12 and 14 is deliberate — love is “a still more excellent way” in which all the gifts must be exercised.
The gift-lists (Romans 12:6–8; 1 Corinthians 12:8–10, 28–30; Ephesians 4:11; 1 Peter 4:11) overlap but none is identical to another, indicating that they are illustrative rather than exhaustive. They name, among others, prophecy, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, mercy, service/helps, administration, evangelism, shepherding (pastoring), faith, discernment of spirits, words of wisdom and knowledge, tongues and interpretation, healings, and miracles.
Gifts have been grouped in various ways — e.g., Peter’s twofold “whoever speaks” / “whoever serves” (1 Peter 4:11). For the cessation debate the key distinction is between the sign and revelatory gifts (apostleship, prophecy, tongues, miracles, healings), which attended the founding and authentication of the church, and the edifying or ministry gifts (teaching, serving, giving, leading, mercy, and the like), which build the church up in every age.
Cessationism holds that the miraculous, sign, and revelatory gifts ceased with the close of the apostolic age; continuationism holds that all gifts continue and are to be sought today; the open-but-cautious position (e.g., D. A. Carson) neither expects nor forbids them; and Pentecostal/charismatic theology makes certain gifts (notably tongues) marks of Spirit-baptism or spiritual maturity. The positions shade into one another in practice.
The strongest cessationist argument rests not on 1 Corinthians 13:10 — whose “perfect” (teleion) is more naturally Christ’s return or the eternal state than the completed canon — but on the function of the sign gifts: the apostles and prophets are the church’s once-laid “foundation” (Ephesians 2:20); the miraculous were the authenticating “signs of a true apostle” (2 Corinthians 12:12) by which God “bore witness” to the gospel message (Hebrews 2:3–4; cf. Acts 2:22). That foundational, attesting work being complete and inscripturated, the gifts that served it are no longer the church’s normative endowment.
Continuationists reply that no New Testament text explicitly announces the cessation of any gift; that Paul expected the Corinthians to be “not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:7), apparently to the end of the age; that the command to “earnestly desire the spiritual gifts” stands (1 Corinthians 14:1); and that to deny the Spirit’s freedom to give as before is presumptuous. The case merits a fair hearing.
I hold a soft (“lite”) cessationism: the foundational and sign gifts — apostleship (strictly defined), prophecy as fresh revelation, tongues, and miraculous healing as a standing gift — were given especially for the founding age and are not the church’s normative endowment today. But I do not claim that God cannot, or never does, such works; He heals as He wills, and such gifts may rarely appear. I deny only that they are to be expected, sought, required, or made the test of spirituality. I hold this with humility and openness, as a conviction and not a test of fellowship, honoring continuationist brethren as fellow lovers of the Lord and His Spirit.
In Acts 2:4–11 the gift of tongues (glōssa, γλῶσσα) is the speaking of real, unlearned human languages, understood by the hearers. Paul identifies tongues as a sign “not for believers but for unbelievers” (1 Corinthians 14:22), citing Isaiah 28:11–12—a sign of judgment against unbelieving Israel. Where exercised in the assembly, tongues required interpretation and strict order, and were subordinated to prophecy and to intelligible edification (1 Corinthians 14:1–40). On the soft-cessationist reading, this sign-gift, having served its purpose, is no longer the church’s normal experience.
The governing image is the body (1 Corinthians 12:12–27; Romans 12:4–5; Ephesians 4:16): many members, diverse gifts, mutual need, no member superfluous and none independent. Every believer is to discover and steward his gift (1 Peter 4:10; 2 Timothy 1:6, “fan into flame”), exercising it in love and order, under the Word and the church’s oversight, for the body’s maturity (Ephesians 4:11–16). This is “every-member ministry,” not a clergy performing for a laity.
The Corinthian church illustrates the chief abuses: pride and competition over the showier gifts, division and the ranking of members, and disorder in worship — met by Paul’s rule, “All things should be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40). To these may be added the neglect of one’s gift and the prizing of gift above character (cf. 1 Corinthians 13; Matthew 7:21–23, where mighty works coexist with “I never knew you”).
Two opposite errors. (1) Counterfeit and sensationalism: not every wonder is of God (Matthew 7:22–23; 2 Thessalonians 2:9–10; Deuteronomy 13:1–3), so “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1). The prosperity and “healing on demand” movements gravely err, and wound the suffering, when they blame unanswered prayer on the sick person’s lack of faith (cf. John 9:1–3; 2 Corinthians 12:7–9; see my paper on Providence). (2) Quenching and despising: the opposite error forbids what God may yet do — “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:19–21). The pastoral wisdom lies between the two.