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The Anchor in the Storm: Understanding the Spiritual Gift of Faith · Reformed Thinking

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So imagine for a second that you are just standing right in the
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middle of a Category 5 hurricane.
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Oh wow, yeah, that is a terrifying thought.
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Right. It really is.
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I mean, every house in your neighborhood is just being
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ripped apart. The shingles are flying off, the
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windows are shattering and the walls are buckling under the
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sheer force of the wind. Just total chaos all around.
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Yeah, complete chaos. But your roof holds.
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It does not even groan. And you know you have to ask
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why. Well, because you have one.
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Massive invisible visible load bearing pillar installed right
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in the center of the room. I see where you were going with
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this. It takes the entire weight of
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the storm. Spot on.
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It absorbs the pressure so the structure around you does not
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collapse. So today on Reformed Thinking,
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we are taking a deep dive into the source material to figure
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out what happens when your spiritual life gets hit by that
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kind of Category 5 storm. And we have some really dense,
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fascinating theological texts to look at today.
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We do. We are looking at 2 specific
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texts, The anchor in the storm, Understanding the spiritual gift
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of faith and the gift of faith. Trusting God for the good of His
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church. Both of which are going to give
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us a lot to unpack. Definitely our clear objective
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today, our mission for this deep dive, is to define precisely
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what the Apostle Paul meant in First Corinthians chapter 12,
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verse 9, when he mentioned the gift of faith.
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Which is at the topic that naturally brings up a lot of
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questions. It does.
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We are going to look at how it differs from ordinary saving
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faith. And you know why this specific
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spiritual endowment is critical for the local congregation
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sitting in the pews today. To help us synthesize all of
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this, I am joined by our expert guide.
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Well, I am thrilled to be here to discuss this with you.
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This topic usually generates some pretty extreme reactions.
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Oh for sure, people get very heated.
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Yeah, they do. When people start talking about
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spiritual gifts, they tend to bring a lot of a lot of baggage
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to the table. Some folks view the whole
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concept with intense skepticism. Like treating any talk of the
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supernatural like it is a scam. Precisely.
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And then, on the other end of the spectrum, you have folks who
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chase spiritual gifts with unbridled, almost chaotic
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emotionalism. What makes these specific
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sources so helpful is that they offer a steady, objective
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reading of the text. So we're going to try to strip
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away the cultural noise and look strictly at what the biblical
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text actually says? Yeah.
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That is the goal. Well, let us jump right into the
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modern crisis that both of these authors identify because I
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noticed they do not pull any punches.
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No, they do not. They share a massive, sweeping
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critique of the modern church landscape.
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Right. They argue that broad
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evangelicalism is basically a drift.
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The texts claim the Church is being heavily influenced by
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pragmatism, mystical emotionalism and the
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superficiality of the seeker sensitive movement.
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They are very direct about the problem.
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The texts target specific errors, labeling them as false
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substitutes for true biblical faith.
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What kind of false substitutes are we talking about here?
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Well, the primary targets they mention are the prosperity
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gospel and the Word of Faith movement.
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The authors actually name contemporary figures, you know,
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folks like Kenneth Copeland and Joel Osteen.
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Wow, so they are naming names? They are.
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The core argument here is that these movements treat faith as a
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metaphysical tool designed to manipulate God for carnal
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desires. OK, unpack that a little bit.
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What do they mean by a metaphysical tool?
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They describe a religious system where divine strength is treated
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as a currency, like it is something that obligates God to
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provide health, wealth, or earthly success if you just
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generate enough belief. So it is essentially treating
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faith like a metaphysical vending machine.
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Yeah, that is a great way to put it.
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You walk up, punch in the correct amount of positive
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confession, pull the lever of belief, and God is supposedly
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obligated to drop a guaranteed blessing into the tray.
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Right, but how does that vending machine mentality fundamentally
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misread the nature of the God we are discussing?
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I mean, it seems like it places humanity in the driver's seat of
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the universe. Spun on it assumes God is just a
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passive resource. You know, a cosmic bellhop
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waiting to be activated by human willpower.
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The sources respond to this error by stressing A
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monarchistic view. A monarchistic view.
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Let us break that term down for the listener.
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Basically, that means faith is not a lever that a person pulls
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to control God. Rather, it is God's gracious
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provision to the person. It is a divine deposit given to
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human beings. So it completely contradicts the
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idea of human generated optimism.
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Absolutely. The authors make it crystal
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clear that true faith submits to the sovereignty of God.
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It does not attempt to usurp His throne or, you know, boss him
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around. That sets the stage perfectly
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for the historical background. To really grasp what Paul is
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saying in this text, we have to travel back in time.
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We do. The year is roughly AD 53 to 55.
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And the apostle Paul is writing from the city of Ephesus during
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his third missionary journey, right?
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Yes, he is writing a letter back to a church planted in Corinth.
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And Corinth was not a quiet, sleepy little village.
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Not at all. It was a cosmopolitan commercial
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hub located right on the isthmus of Greece.
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I read it had two major seaports.
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So it was wealthy, highly mobile and just filled with aggressive
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social ambition. It was essentially the ancient
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equivalent of Las Vegas mixed with Wall Street, and it was
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steeped in a massive amount of cultural baggage.
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What kind of baggage? Well, the religious environment
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of Corinth was heavily influenced by Greco Roman
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mystery cults. You had the worship of deities
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like Aphrodite, Apollo, and Dionysus.
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And the culture was notoriously debauched, wasn't?
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It oh incredibly so. In fact, the texts mention that
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the Greek term corinthiazimi, which translates to act like a
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Corinthian, was ancient St. slang synonymous with gross
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immorality. Wow, so if you called someone a
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Corinthian, you were accusing them of being a completely
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unrestrained partier? Well, precisely.
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There was a temple to Aphrodite towering over the city, which
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boasted 1000 temple prostitutes. It was an environment of
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absolute excess. And the specific issue inside
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the congregation was that the new converts were dragging all
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of those Pagan expectations right through the front doors of
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the church. Yeah, they were.
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In those Pagan mystery cults, ecstatic utterances, frenzied
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behavior, and wild emotional displays were seen as the
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absolute highest markers of communion with the divine.
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So the converts simply assumed that the Holy Spirit would
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operate the exact same way. They thought chaos equaled
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spirituality. Which led directly to the core
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problem Paul had to address, which was intense spiritual
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pride. How did that pride manifest in
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the Church? The Corinthians began to
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evaluate each other based on these highly visible
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manifestations. They elevated the spectacular
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noisy gifts like tongues and physical miracles as signs of
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superior spirituality. While looking down on the
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quieter gifts. Right.
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They despise the quiet, less visible gifts.
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This created bitter dividing factions within the Covenant
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community. People were essentially ranking
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themselves based on who put on the best spiritual show.
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If you are listening to this, you might be thinking, wait a
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minute. If they had already confessed
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Christ, why were they so quick to slip back into measuring
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spirituality by a spectacular, chaotic standard?
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It is a fair question, and it reveals the intense human
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craving for status. Even after confessing Christ,
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their past cultural conditioning maintained a tight grip on their
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imaginations. Because in a city like Corinth,
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status was the currency of everyday life.
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Spot on. If you could speak with
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impressive rhetoric or display a spectacular capability in
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public, you gain massive social capital.
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They simply transferred that worldly competitive system of
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evaluating worth directly into the Church.
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They assumed that if God gave someone a spectacular
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capability, it meant that person was inherently better, more
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favored, or more elite. Yeah, they completely missed the
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reality that gifts are given by unmerited grace, not earned by
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merit. That brings us to defining the
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specific gift mentioned in the text.
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The sources insist on strict lexical precision.
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Here we have to clarify the theological boundaries by
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defining what this gift is not. This is a crucial step.
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The author state explicitly that this spiritual gift of faith is
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not saving faith. OK, let us define saving faith
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for the listener. The text defines saving faith as
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the grace by which the elect believed to the saving of their
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souls, resting on Christ for justification.
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Every true Christian possesses saving faith.
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And the text also clarifies that this is not daily sanctifying
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faith either, right? It is not the daily trust all
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Christians are commanded to exercise in their regular walk.
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So to understand what this specific gift is, we have to
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look at the Greek word Paul uses in the text, which is pastas.
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Yes, and the source trace this word back through the
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Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old
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Testament, and the Septuagint pisses often translates the
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Hebrew word emina. This is where the background
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research gets really fascinating.
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It really does. In the ancient Near Eastern
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context, Emina carries a very specific architectural picture.
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It represents a pillar holding up a roof.
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A pillar that is a very vivid image.
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The authors cite the Prophet Habakkuk Chapter 2, verse 4 to
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illustrate this concept. It is something that will not
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collapse under immense pressure. So when Paul uses Pistas to
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describe a specialized spiritual gift, he is talking about a
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supernatural firmness. Like an intensified, unyielding
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grip on the specific promises of God in the face of impossible
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odds. Exact.
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Well, yes, precisely that. So going back to our hurricane
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analogy at the top of the show, think of ordinary saving faith
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as the concrete slab a house sits on.
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OK, I am tracking with you. Every single Christian house has
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that. It is what keeps you off the
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dirt and provides a base. But the spiritual gift of faith
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is like a massive specialized load bearing pillar installed in
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the living room specifically to keep the roof from caving in
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during a Category 5 hurricane. That is a great visual.
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Not every house requires that specific pillar on a sunny day,
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but when the hurricane hits the neighborhood, the entire
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community is incredibly grateful that pillar exists in someone's
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home. That analogy captures the
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distinction perfectly. It separates the universal
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necessity of justification, which belongs to every believer,
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from the specialized equipping given to certain individuals for
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a crisis. Let us look at the exegetical
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blueprint. The authors dig heavily into the
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syntax, and they find divine sovereignty woven into the
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grammar itself. They do.
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Paul begins this whole discussion in First Corinthians
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chapter 12, verses 4 through 6 with a Trinitarian frame.
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Right. He establishes that the
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varieties of gifts come from the same Spirit, the same Lord, and
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the same God. Yes, and then the text dives
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into the highly specific grammar of verses 8 through 10.
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Paul lists 9 different gifts, but he does not just throw them
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into a random disorganized pile. He organizes them very
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deliberately. He does.
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He uses specific Greek correlative pronouns to group
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them logically. First, he uses the word aloes,
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which means another of the same kind, to group the Word of
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Wisdom and the Word of Knowledge together.
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But then, right when he introduces the gift of faith, he
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makes a hard pivot. A very deliberate pivot.
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He stops using aloes and switches to the word heteros,
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which means another of a different kind, and after
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introducing faith, he pivots back to aloes to connect faith
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with the subsequent gifts of healings and miracles.
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This grammatical shift is massive for interpreting the
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passage. It divides the 9 gifts into 3
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distinct categories. What are those 3 categories?
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The first. Category involves intellectual
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apprehension, which includes wisdom and knowledge.
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The second category involves extraordinary action.
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This category is headed by the gift of faith, which then
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conceptually flows into healings and miracles.
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And the third. The third category involves
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supernatural articulation like prophecy and tongues.
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By placing faith at the head of the extraordinary action
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category, the syntax reveals that this specific type of faith
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is the route from which mighty works conceptually flowed during
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the Apostolic era. The sources also highlight a
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repeated prepositional phrase in the Greek text into auto numati,
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which translates to by the same spirit.
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The theological weight of that short phrase cannot be
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overstated. It acts as the instrumental
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cost. The officers argue that this
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phrase completely crushes Bellagion and Armenian notions
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of human free will generating spiritual capability.
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Hold on, before we lose anyone who did not spend their weekend
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reading 5th century theological debates, what are the Pelagian
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and Armenian views you're talking about?
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That is a fair question. Let me break that down.
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Basically, Pelagianism is an ancient teaching that says human
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beings are born spiritually neutral.
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Meaning they do not inherit A sinful nature.
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Right. It claims we have the inherent
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ability entirely on our own to choose good and please God
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without needing any special intervention of divine grace.
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So it is the ultimate pull yourself up by your own
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spiritual bootstraps theology. Spot on.
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It relies completely on human effort, and Arminianism, while
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different and much more orthodox than the teachings of Pelagius,
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still places a heavy emphasis on human free will, cooperating
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with God's grace to make salvation or spiritual gifts
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happen. What these authors are pointing
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out is that the grammar in First Corinthians 12 shatters those
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ideas. The phrase by the same Spirit
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forces the conclusion that the Holy Spirit is the sole active
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agent in this process. So you cannot conjure up the
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specialized type of faith through psychological intensity
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or sheer willpower. No, not at all.
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It is actively and continuously supplied by the Spirit of God.
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Moving to the historical timeline, the sources frame the
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history of the Church from a very specific perspective.
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They write from a dispensational viewpoint.
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Yes they do. For those tracking with the
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theological terms, this means they maintain a firm distinction
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between the nation of Israel and the New Testament Church, and
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they view the early Apostolic era as a unique transitional
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period in redemptive history. That framework is the key to
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understanding their cessationist position.
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Let us unpack cessationism for the listener.
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The text explains cessationism by stating that miraculous sign
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gifts such as tongues and physical healings were given to
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the early church for a very specific, limited purpose.
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What was that purpose? They were meant to authenticate,
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syndicate the Apostolic message, and to signal divine judgment
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upon unbelieving Israel. The sources argue that once the
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New Testament Canon was closed and the base of the Church was
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securely laid by the apostles, these specific revelatory signs
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ceased. Because they fulfilled their
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purpose and were no longer necessary.
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Right, They were temporary signs for a transitional era.
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Which raises a massive question. If I'm playing devil's advocate
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here, I have to ask if the authors are cessationists and
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they believe the sign gifts have stopped, how do they justify the
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ongoing operation of the gift of faith today?
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It's a very logical pushback. I mean it is listed right there
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in the middle of the exact same passage, right next to miracles
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and healings. Isn't it cherry picking to say
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healing stopped but faith survived?
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Well, the texts clarify this distinction carefully.
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They argue that the true gift of faith as it operates today does
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not expect or demand extra biblical revelation.
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Meaning, the person with this gift today is not waiting to
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hear an audible voice from heaven, and they are not
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expecting to perform a physical miracle.
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Instead, the Holy Spirit takes the written, objective, closed
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Canon of scripture and illuminates it.
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So the Spirit applies the written promises of the Bible to
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the mind of the gifted believer with an invincible certainty.
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Precisely, it is a supernatural steadfastness anchored entirely
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within the boundaries of the completed Bible.
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That essentially prevents the gift from becoming a blank check
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for chaos. It restricts the operation of
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the gift to what God has already explicitly promised to do in His
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Word. Yeah, and it protects the
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congregation from false prophets who stand up and claim they have
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faith for things God never actually promised to do.
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It keeps the focus on the text of Scripture rather than on
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human imagination. Let us look at the subordinate
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purpose of the gift. First Corinthians chapter 12
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verse 7 says the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the
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common good. The texts apply this directly to
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the modern readers context by contracting it with Western
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individualism. Which is a huge issue today.
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Huge. In our modern, highly
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individualized culture, we tend to view spiritual capabilities
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as tools for personal self actualization.
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People ask how does this make me feel?
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Or how does this build my personal brand or help me
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construct a massive religious empire?
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And the authors argue that this mindset is entirely foreign to
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the biblical text. Completely foreign.
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The gift of faith is strictly ecclesiastical.
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It exists solely to minister to the body of Christ.
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It is never meant to be a solo act.
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The authors point to Paul's metaphor of the physical body in
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verses 12 through 31. The I cannot despise the hand.
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Right. A gifted believer cannot Lord
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their specific capability over a trembling, fearful St. sitting
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in the Pew next to them. And that connects directly to
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the supremacy of love detailed in Chapter 13.
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Yes, the text declares that even if someone possesses mountain
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moving faith, it is utterly worthless if it's not exercised
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in self sacrificial love. The authors note that the
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Corinthians had an absolute abundance of spiritual gifts,
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but they lacked cruciform, self denying love.
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And because of that severe lack of love, their religion was
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nothing more than clanging noise.
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The Gift of Faith is meant to be a quiet, steadfast anchor that
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stabilizes the weaker members of the congregation during a
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terrifying crisis. Now we arrive at a section where
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the sources explicitly apply this theological framework to
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modern sociocultural debates. This part is very timely.
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It is now our mission on this deep dive is to report the texts
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impartially without taking sides.
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So we are going to detail the author's exact argument here
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without endorsement. The sources contend that the
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secular ideologies of critical race theory and the broader
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social justice movement are currently tearing the church
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apart along ethnic and socioeconomic lines.
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Yes, the texts present a very specific counterargument to
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those contemporary movements. They proposed that the spiritual
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gift of faith offers a unifying alternative to the culture wars.
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How does that work in their view?
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According to the authors, this gift unites the body by
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anchoring it exclusively to the objective truth of Scripture.
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The texts argue that this biblical anchor rejects the
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subjective grievances introduced by secular philosophy.
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So they view the gift of faith as a divine mechanism that binds
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the covenant community together across all worldly divisions.
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Right. Creating a unity based strictly
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on divine revelation rather than political affiliation.
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To back up these claims, the sources bring in historical
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proofs to show this specialized gift in action against severe
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cultural hostility and material depredation.
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They cite some incredible historical figures.
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They do. They bring up the life of George
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Miller. For those who do not know the
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story, Miller ran massive orphanages in Bristol, England,
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during the 19th century. He.
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Housed and fed thousands of orphans over his lifetime.
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He did, but he made a vow to rely entirely on prevailing
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prayer. He never asked a single human
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being for a dime. Which is almost unthinkable
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today. It really is.
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There is one famous story where the children were sitting at the
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long dining tables, the plates and cups were completely empty,
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there was no food in the entire building, and it was time for
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breakfast. And Miller did not panic.
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Not at all. Miller stood up, completely
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calm, and thanked God for the food he was going to provide.
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And the stories of what happened next are just incredible.
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Right minutes after he prayed, there was a knock at the door.
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It was the local Baker. The Baker said he could not
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sleep the night before because he felt God telling him the
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orphans needed bread. So he got up at 2:00 in the
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morning and baked a massive batch.
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Just exactly when they needed it.
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Spot on. Then a few minutes later,
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another knock. It was the local milkman.
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His cart had literally broken down.
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Right in front of the orphanage doors and he needed to empty the
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milk to fix the wagon. He offered all of it to Miller.
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The texts use stories like this to demonstrate what this load
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bearing pillar of faith looks like in real time.
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It is a total reliance on divine Providence.
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The sources also point to the Puritan pastors who were ejected
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from their pulpits in 1662. The Great Ejection.
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Yes, during the Great Ejection in England, over 2000 ministers
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were forced to leave their churches because they refused to
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conform to state mandated religious practices that
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violated their conscience. They'd.
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Lost their entire livelihood in a single day.
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Yet those men trusted Providence amidst intense persecution and
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severe poverty. Those historical examples are
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vital to the author's argumentation.
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Why is that? Because they show that the gift
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of faith does not guarantee an easy, comfortable life.
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The Puritans suffered immensely. Miller faced daily agonizing
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shortages. So the gift of Faith did not
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remove the trial. No, it provided the supernatural
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firmness to endure the trial without compromising the truth.
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The authors also draw a direct Christological connection, which
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really brings the theology down to earth.
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They reference a rule by the famous preacher Charles
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Spurgeon. Right, the rule that from every
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single text in Scripture, there's a road to Christ.
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The authors trace that road beautifully.
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They present Jesus as the ultimate, flawless model of this
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gift. During his earthly life, Jesus
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lived in absolute, unbroken dependence upon the Father.
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We see this vividly when he defeated Satan in the
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wilderness. He was starving, physically
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exhausted, and he relied solely on the written word to fend off
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temptation. We see it again when he slept in
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the back of a small boat during a massive, life threatening
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squaw on the Sea of Galilee. He demonstrated total,
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unshakable trust in divine Providence while seasoned
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fishermen panicked. And supremely, we see it in the
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Garden of Gethsemane. When he prayed in agony, not my
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will, but yours be done. His trust did not fracture under
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the crushing weight of impending divine wrath.
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I have to ask a practical question here.
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How does looking at Christ's perfect faith keep this entire
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discussion from turning into exhausting moralism?
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That is a very valid concern. Because if we just look at Jesus
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as a really good model, the application for the listener
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just becomes a heavy burden. It just sounds like try harder
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to believe, do better, be more like Jesus.
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That leaves people crushed. Yeah, that is a crucial
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distinction to make, and the texts address it directly
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through the theological concepts of justification and imputed
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righteousness. Let us unpack those terms.
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The believer standing before God does not rest on the strength or
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intensity of their own personal faith.
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It rests on Christ's perfect righteousness, imputed or
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legally credited to them. So when the Holy Spirit grants
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the special gift of faith to an individual, what is actually
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happening? He is mediating a measure of
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Christ's own perfect trust to that person.
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The strength to endure the storm comes directly from the Savior,
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not from human resolve, our mental toughness.
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So, bringing this all together, the texts draw a sharp line
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between Law and Gospel to summarize the practical
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application. They do.
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The law exposes our natural anxiety.
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It reveals our wicked, deeply ingrained desire for control.
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When faced with a crisis, our natural default inclination is
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panic and self preservation. The Gospel, however, announces
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the good news that Christ trusted the Father perfectly in
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our place. His flawless record of trust is
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credited to our account as if we had lived it ourselves.
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Building on that base, the sources provide some very
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specific pastoral counsel. Yes, for those on both sides of
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the issue. If you struggle with chronic
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doubt, do not despair. The text encourages you to
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actively draw near to those in your congregation who possessed
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this specific gift. Let their steadfast, quiet
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confidence bolster your weak knees during a trial.
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On the other hand, if you believe you have this gift, you
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must use it with deep humility. You are called to bear the heavy
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burdens of the week, not to seek celebrity status or build a
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personal platform. I want to leave you with a final
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thought to Mull over as we wrap up.
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One of the texts mentions an imminent pre tribulational
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return of Jesus Christ, asserting that the current age
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is darkening and severe storms are gathering on the horizon.
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It is a sobering perspective. It is if the ultimate
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manifestation of the spiritual gift of faith is trusting God
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while waiting for a future reality you cannot yet see.
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How does viewing your present daily personal crises as
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strictly temporary alter the way you read the promises of God
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tomorrow morning? That is a heavy question.
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When you realize the diagnostic Muddy Waters of our daily
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struggles are held within the clear structural integrity of
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God's grace, it changes everything.
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It shifts the entire perspective from panic to peace.
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Agreed. Thank you for joining us on this
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deep dive into the source material.