Anyone can read the Bible and discover that Christ equips the different members of His church for different purposes. There are even a few lists that the apostle Paul rattles off in his letters, some describing "spiritual gifting" and others describing "spiritual fruiting."

In response to these lists, religious experts have devised a variety of methods for intellectually deducing one's spiritual giftings and fruitings. Some of these methods include choosing your spiritual feeling about certain statements (such as "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree") or choosing whatever number the survey statements make you think of (such as the number "1" or the number "2"). After a churchgoer has faithfully answered the spiritual survey, he can then plot the numbers on a graph and see if his answers make either a spiritual line or a spiritual bell curve. Seminary students are required to graph their spiritual gifts on a 3-D spiritual graphing calculator, which is why seminaries include at least a few semesters of calculus in their master's programs. Of course this is for advanced students only; average churchgoers have only enough time to learn simple spiritual graphs, which they usually bring home and stick on their refrigerators with a magnet. This is one of the most widespread methods for discovering churchgoers' spiritual inclinations these days.

Over the years I have tried a variety of methods for calculating my spiritual giftings and fruitings. The most enlightening point of view I have discovered about these things is that Christ's followers don't need any mathematical calculations or surveys or even graphing calculators to find out about these things. This makes sense in light of the fact that calculus and especially 3-D graphing calculators had not been invented during New Testament times.

I will now tell you the secret. Having delved deep into the original Greek and Aramaic of the New Testament I have finally discovered the long-lost, secret method that the early church utilized to find out about their spiritual inclinations: Jesus told them.

As for the lists we find in the New Testament, the most enlightening, common factor among these lists is that none of them are the same.

Apparently, the Holy Spirit doesn't bother to adhere to a particular list for every situation or, at least, the New Testament believers were unaccustomed to such an idea. And I doubt that each church had its own separate list of spiritual gifts, so that, once you left a particular area, then you left the jurisdiction of that list. All this to say, we who follow Christ should listen to Him to find out about our spiritual roles within His church. If He made us the way we are, then He is best qualified to tell about these things. This should be basic.

If God did have a comprehensive List that He wanted all His churches to follow forever, then Paul, with his widespread experience, would have probably known about it. However Paul, the great list-giver, never gave the same list twice. He even referred to himself as a few other things besides apostle, including preacher, teacher, evangelist and speaker of different languages. And he advised his general audience at Corinth to seek prophetic gifting, not just those who were more prophetically inclined than others. He seems inclined toward Spirit-led flexibility. If someone asked Paul, "What is the best spiritual gift?" he would probably reply, "The ability to humble yourself and submit to whatever the Spirit makes you, whenever the Spirit makes you."

Of course everyone has different capacities. Everyone is purposefully limited, we've already gone over that. All I'm trying to say is... relax. Take a deep breath, and stop trying so hard to find your name in the Christian Directory of Spiritual Endowments. Nor should you try to know God by reading the Christian Encyclopedia of Everything There Is to Know About the Omnipotent Spirit of God. Don't worry so much about pre-fabricated lists and explanations to define what kind of creature you are in Christ. Just ask Him and let Him educate you. Determine to obey Christ and let the chips fall wherever He may.

Biblical records do not quantify the work of God's Spirit, but rather, quite the opposite.

It is highly unlikely that New Testament believers would have tried to measure spiritual gifts based on some canonized list or spiritual slide-rule because they had the Real Deal, the Spirit of God Himself. It made sense to them, as it should to us now, that they could only know spiritual truth so far as the Spirit explicitly instructed them. Therefore, if God hasn't changed anytime in the last two thousand years, then we also ought to esteem ourselves according to our open, active relationship with God's Spirit.

Do you believe that the Spirit of God literally teaches His people whatever they need to know about living in Christ in the world? If yes, then you might worry less about lugging all your theological textbooks wherever you go. What is all this business about dwelling in Christ? Does this also apply to us?

by Patrick Roberts. Find additional resources at www.BooksByPatrick.com