Gee - Concerning Spiritual Gifts

20th Printing 2007

Revised 1980, 1972. by Gospel Publishing House, Springfield, Missouri 65802-1894. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwisewithout prior written permission of the copyright owner, except brief quotations used in connection with reviews in magazines or newspapers

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 80-83784 International Standard Book Number 0-88243-486-1

Printed in the United States of America

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues; but all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.

1 C ORINTHIANS 12:1, 8-11

Mr. Donald Gee, a pastor and Bible teacher for many years, traveled extensively and visited Europe, Africa, Australia, the Orient, and North America. He had the privilege of personal contact with many thousands of devoted Christians who have experienced the Pentecostal blessing of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. His knowledge of the Word of God, together with his wide Pentecostal acquaintance, qualifies him to write with authority on this most blessed subject.

To some, this book will open the door into a hitherto unexplored realm. Others who may have known little or much of the operation of the Holy Spirit in personal experience will welcome his effort to throw further light upon the Pentecostal baptism.

Even the most casual reader of the New Testament must be struck with the record of supernatural happenings which followed the ministry of the apostles in the Early Church age. There can be no other explanation of those supernatural happenings but that the Holy Spirit, so emphatically promised by the Lord Jesus Christ, had come into the world to confirm the ministry of His followers by divine approval. Mark, the author of the second Gospel, summed up the entire Book of the Acts of the Apostles when he penned these words, And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following (Mark 16:20). The same Holy Spirit who was poured out upon the waiting disciples on the Day of Pentecost empowered them to go forth and evangelize, bearing witness to their testimony both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will (Hebrews 2:4).

Some of these supernatural acts of the Holy Spirit were distinctly sovereign and came as a result of a particular need on a particular occasion. Others were repeated and seemed to form a distinct feature of the apostolic equipment for service. This latter form of supernatural working is dealt with in particular in the pages that follow.

Bible scholars and teachers of all ages have recognized the supernatural workings of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles. Many, however, have taught that these supernatural signs ceased with the close of the apostolic age. To such, it may be somewhat of a surprise to learn that not only is there no verse of Scripture that even hints these signs shall cease, but that there are literally hundreds of thousands of devout Christian believers in all parts of the world who have received the blessed Holy Spirit in Pentecostal fullness and have experienced and enjoyed the same supernatural workings which are everywhere apparent in the Book of Acts.

Any book, therefore, that throws light upon this all-important subject is welcomed by all truth-lovers. And this book which is so sanely written and which follows the Scriptures so closely will be doubly welcomed. It may be put with confidence into the hands of new converts as well as those who are more mature in the faith. If it awakens desire for personal experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and opens the door to the receiving and operation of the gifts of the Spirit, the effort will not have been in vain.

J. R OSWELL F LOWER

The following series of studies has mostly been prepared while the writer has been traveling on a world tour for Bible study campaigns. They have not been thrown together hurriedly, however, on that account, but represent the result of many years of meditation upon the revelation of the Scriptures concerning spiritual gifts, combined with that added familiarity with any subject that is gained by continually addressing public meetings concerning it. A deep indebtedness must also be acknowledged to other speakers and writers upon this most interesting theme for many valuable rays of light which they have contributed. No special claim is made for originality.

The great interest and appreciation that a series of Bible studies, Concerning Spiritual Gifts, has aroused in practically every place without exception where they have been given, prove conclusively that believers everywhere are feeling a need of clear, sane, scriptural teaching on this subject; and they are also coming to appreciate that it can lead them into paths of fellowship with God that verily drop fatness.

At the close of such addresses the writer has continually had requests that they might be made available in permanent form, and he is therefore encouraged to believe that the publication of this little book will meet with wide acceptance.

It is also published in the hope that it will prove of some service to the church of God at large and provide a helpful contributionhowever smallto the general store of knowledge and understanding concerning a subject about which there seem to cling some extremely indefinite, if not positively erroneous, ideas.

An honest endeavor has been made to approach the subject with as perfect a detachment as possible, by the grace of God from what might appear to be a denominational standpoint. Such a detachment must always be difficult, however, when a great movement has commended itself to one's affection and loyalty, and when one is seeking to fight its battle against misunderstanding, prejudice, and its own shortcomings on every hand. Nevertheless, we trust that the most critical reader will find little for controversy and much that is constructive.

The accepted basis for all these studies has been, as will plainly appear, that the Bible is the inspired Word of God; that its recorded facts concerning spiritual gifts are accurate; and that its teaching regarding their exercise is to be received as having divine authority.

D ONALD G EE

I T IS IMPOSSIBLE to read the New Testament without becoming impressed by the fact that the worship and experience of the early Christians possessed evidently some supernatural features.

Most obvious of all, a miraculous element entered prominently into the ministry of apostles and evangelists. They healed the sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead. There is, in the closing chapter of the Book of Acts, an account of Pauls quite incidental ministry when shipwrecked on Melita that proves there was no diminution of these things as the apostolic age proceeded. A quaint, but revealing, phrase occurs in the story of his long ministry at Ephesus where it says that special miracles were wrought by Pauls hands (Acts 19:11). The word is literally not the ordinary miracles, and the fact that some forms of miracles might even be regarded as ordinary goes to show how widespread was the churchs experience of the supernatural in those days.