NATURAL GIFTS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS
One of the great questions that people often have is what is the difference between a spiritual gift and a natural talent? Are they the same or are they different? Is there overlap?
Let me take a short detour to answer that question. While there are some spiritual gifts that can only be brought about by God, there are others that overlap with natural talents. For example, speaking a foreign language that you have never learned or being able to pray for healing and see someone immediately physically restored are gifts that are not natural and can only happen through the power of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, you have extremely good and gifted teachers that are not followers of Jesus. What is the difference between their teaching and the spiritual gift of teaching. This is where there is overlap between natural gifts and spiritual gifts can be most clearly seen.
Since we are focusing on the list of gifts/roles that are mentioned in Ephesians 5, we're going to talk about how every single human being has these innate giftings, why that's the case, and how Jesus takes them, redeems them, and empowers them in his followers.
MADE IN THE IMAGE OF THE GOD
As we mentioned earlier, God the Father and Creator acts in all of these roles. He is the Apostolic God that creates, initiates, designs, and implements new things. He sends his Son Jesus to do the same things. God is a prophetic God who speaks truth. He calls out sin and speaks up for the hurting. He enters into relationship and reveals himself. He is the evangelist God who is intentional about sharing with people how to turn from their sin and to find salvation. He is the Shepherd God who is community and desires for us all to be connected to him and to each other. He is the Teacher God who shows us how to live well and helps us understand what is good, right, and true.
When Christians look back at Genesis 1:27 we see God make this statement about humanity. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." While this is a rich term that has a lot of different ways to understand it, Alan Hirsch in his book 5Q says that humanity shares the characteristics of God that include: relationality, agency, rationality, creativity, responsibility, and ability to communicate.
RELATIONALITY: The desire to “know and be known” reflects in some sense the inherent human desire for righteousness (right relationship), personal intimacy, and for covenantal relationship. Using APEST as a hermeneutical key we can say that this in some way reflects distinctly prophetic as well as pastoral concerns and motifs.
AGENCY: Humanity is given the command to rule and subdue, exercising vice-regency (under God) over the domain of earth. This kingdom agency reflects apostolic and perhaps evangelistic concerns.
RATIONALITY: The human capacity for logic and reason has always been understood as part of the imago Dei. In relation to 5Q, it lends itself to the acquisition of wisdom associated with the concerns of the teacher and the systems awareness of the apostle.
CREATIVITY: Our ability to reflect God’s good creation in our actions can serve all the fivefold functions equally, but might express itself more fully in the more entrepreneurial and innovative instincts of the apostolic and evangelistic.
RESPONSIBILITY: This involves the inner capacity to choose between good from evil, to obey or disobey, and comes with the related ability to make right judgments and choices. This likely energizes prophetic and educative (teacher) capacities within the fivefold.
COMMUNICATION: This is important throughout, but apostles, teachers, and shepherds are likely to be especially attentive to communication and community.
IF ALL HUMANITY IS MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD, THEN ALL OF HUMANITY HAS THE ABILITY TO REFLECT THESE GIFTS IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.
Culture often has different labels they use for these same gifts and roles. For example...
APOSTLES are often called founders, visionaries, pioneers, or adventurers. In society they are designers, innovators, paradigm shifters, systems thinkers, and entrepreneurs.
PROPHETS are often called poets, advocates, reformers. In society they sometimes work through the arts, are devoted to causes, and seek to bring reform.
EVANGELISTS are often called the messengers, champions, and storytellers in culture. In society they are the recruiters, sales people, motivators, and networkers.
SHEPHERDS are often called caregivers, helpers, servants, healers, and peacemakers of the world. They show up in culture as guardians, first responders, and counselors.
TEACHERS are the guides, philosophers, mentors, scientists, and obviously teachers of the world. They show up in culture as instructors, Educators, researchers, and science.
ALL HUMANITY IS MADE IN HIS IMAGE BUT IS DISTORTED BY SIN
The fact that all of humanity still reflects aspects of God's character in these ways is what theologians call common grace. The good gifts that God has given to all of humanity. However, because of sin in the human heart, these roles have been distorted. They have been used to build our own kingdoms and to serve ourselves.
But when Jesus came, he took all of these gifts and redeemed them and purified them. He showed us how they were meant to be used. By his death on the cross, he was able to take those gifts and purify them and give them back to us to be used, not for our own glory but for God's glory.
That is what it means in Ephesians 5 when Paul says"7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. 8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” Paul is using a psalm that has language of a king returning from a battle as the victor. It's what was known as a victors parade. The winning leader would come back to their city with all of the treasures that had been captured in battle and would then give some of it away to his people.
When Jesus used the gifts that had been given to humanity by God in the way that God intended, he took back what had been broken and stolen by satan and sinful humanity. He took back the gift of apostleship that had been used to build human kingdoms and gave it to us to build God's kingdom. He took back the prophetic gift that twisted the truth to be able to justify selfishness and evil and gave it back to us to help us identify sin and to bring justice to the downtrodden. He did this for all of the gifts.
SO WHILE ALL HUMANITY HAS THESE GIFTS, THOSE WHO BELONG TO CHRIST HAVE THE ABILITY TO USE THEM FOR THEIR ORIGINAL PURPOSES. Through the Holy Spirit, we are given the insight and the power to use them in cooperation with God the Father to do what they were originally intended to do. Maybe to use an illustration, it's like a person who has not given their lives to Jesus, building their own kingdom with a screwdriver, and a person who is empowered by the Spirit and in love with Jesus building the kingdom of God with a power tool.
Now, with the theology of why APEST IS GROUNDED IN GOD, REDEEMED BY JESUS, AND GIVEN TO THE CHURCH, LET'S LOOK AT WHAT EACH ROLE LOOKS LIKE IN THE CHURCH.
