Sam Storms - The Beginners Guide to Spiritual Gifts

2012 Sam Storms

Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Bethany House Publishers edition published 2014

ISBN 978-1-4412-6721-4

Previously published by Regal Books in 2012.
Originally published by Servant Publications in 2002.

Ebook edition originally created 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New American Standard Bible, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Other versions used are:

ESVScripture taken from the English Standard Version, Copyright 2001. The ESV and English Standard Version are trademarks of Good News Publishers.

NIVScripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2010 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Although the men and women whose stories are told in this book are real, many of their names have been changed to protect their privacy.

Joyfully dedicated to
the entire congregation of
Bridgeway Church,
with whom it is an indescribable privilege
to labor in the power of Gods Spirit for
the glory of Gods name.

Im encouraged by some of the things I see in the church today. Attendance is up. So is giving, generally speaking. Conferences abound. Sales of books about the Bible and spirituality are soaring. Small groups continue to flourish. The winds of worship are blowing with increasing fervor. Christians, by and large, are becoming more active in the public arena and more vocal with their beliefs. So, yes, there are things that encourage me.

But then I look deeper, beyond the faade of religiosity, the flurry of activity and the new $25 million sanctuary with padded pews. What I see is a gapoften a chasmbetween what the church is and what it ought to be. I see the disparity between what Christians say and what they do, between what they know and how they live, between what they promise and how much they fulfill.

Preachers teach the Bible, and people snore. Homemakers share their faith, and it falls on deaf ears. Lives get broken but rarely get fixed. Bodies are suffering, yet few are healed. Marriages are dying, and people just give up. Temptations are faced, and sin flourishes. The poor are hungry and stay that way.

I dont mean to sound overly pessimistic. There are some who think were doing fine; but most of the people I know concede the churchs lamentable impact on the spirituality of its members and its minimal influence on society at large. So, whats wrong?

It seems as if everyone has an opinion, and mine may be just one more in a seemingly endless list. But Im convinced that the problem, at least in part, is power, or, I should say, the absence of it.

My experience in church life is a bit unusual. I was raised as a Southern Baptist and never attended another church until I went to seminary in 1973. For three years I served as interim pastor of a Presbyterian church, not an easy thing for a Baptist to do! I spent 16 years in two independent Bible churches, and another 7 years in a Vineyard congregation. I taught theology at one of Americas premier Christian liberal arts colleges, and for four years attended and ministered in a charismatic Anglican fellowship. For the past four years, Ive served as senior pastor at Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. So Im now at the point where my suspicions about whats wrong with the Church in general have hardened into solid convictions.

My conclusion is this: The real problems, the painful struggles and our diminishing impact wont be solved short of a fresh infusion of powernot just any power, mind you, but spiritual power, the kind of power that human flesh cant produce and education cant conceive and revamped programs cant strategize. The Church desperately needs the power of her Lord and the energy and activity of the Holy Spirit.

As cynical as I may have sounded until now, Im actually hopeful. For I have read the book of Acts and see operative in the lives of those early believers something that I believe is no less available to us today. There is something that links us to the success of the Early Church and holds forth hope that we can and will emerge from our spiritual lethargy. There is something that can transform good intentions into life-changing actions and abstract theologizing into concrete impact.

Im talking about spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts, or the charismata, are Gods answer to the human question Why cant we do that? They are the manifestation and power of God the Holy Spirit through which He intends to lead the Church into the fullness of its ordained end.

I know I risk being misunderstood. More than a few would point not to the lack of power, but to the abysmal theological immaturity in the Church as the source of its struggle. I cant argue with that. Biblical illiteracy and theological naivet have reached epidemic proportions in the Church today. But more than knowledge is needed. Mere doctrine wont suffice. What the Church needs is truth set aflame by the power of the Holy Spirit. What the Church needs is the divine energy of God Himself bringing what we know to bear on how we live and how we pray and how we love and how we witness. And lets not forget that teaching is itself a spiritual gift, no less a manifestation of the power of the Spirit than tongues or miracles (see Rom. 12:7; 1 Cor. 12:29; Eph. 4:11)!

There was a time when I could not have written this book. For the first 15 years of my ministry, I was a cessationist. This term refers to someone who believes that the so-called miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased in the first century. The alleged cessation of such gifts as prophecy, speaking in tongues, healing, miracles, word of wisdom, word of knowledge and the discerning of spirits is a view embraced by many in the evangelical community.

Its important for you to know that I didnt reject cessationism because I witnessed a miracle (although some who knew me at the time would insist my theological shift was itself a miracle!). I rejected cessationism because, in the solitude and safety of my office, I became convinced that the Bible didnt teach it. It isnt the purpose of this book to describe my personal theological journey, nor to provide a defense of the contemporary validity of all Gods spiritual gifts. There are a number of books that do an admirable job, if that is what you need.

Permit me, however, to share one critical insight. Perhaps the most painful part of this particular theological shift was my discovery of the primary reason that I had so long resisted the full range of the Spirits gifts. Beyond the biblical arguments to which I appealed, I was, quite frankly, embarrassed by the appearance and behavior of many in the public eye who were associated with spiritual gifts. I didnt like the way they dressed. I didnt like the way they spoke. I was offended by their lack of sophistication and their overbearing flamboyance. I was disturbed by their flippant disregard for theological precision and their excessive displays of emotional exuberance.