The case for the non-miraculous

Wayne Grudem argues that the spiritual gifts of a word of wisdom and a word of knowledge are best understood as non-miraculous. This is because the gift of prophecy already covers how most charismatics see these words operating. They are given a word about someone that when delivered ministers to them—and this is how prophecy works too.

Understood this way, you could apply all the instructions about prophecy to words of wisdom and knowledge too. Grudem also argues that having two non-miraculous gifts amongst a group of miraculous gifts is more pastorally sensitive to those who might otherwise think that they are a 'lesser' Christian for not having a miraculous gift.Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 1994, pp1080-1082

But this way of thinking is much too close to cessationist thinking, with its sacred-secular divide, and anti-supernatural tendencies. It could in fact be the other way, that so-called non-miraculous gifts such as administration and helps are in fact miraculous. Let's look at the relevant Scripture first.

The case for the miraculous

We will start with one that isn't referenced much to draw out some principles first.

1^st principle: Our miraculous and non-miraculous gifts are given to us from God's grace

Notice how Peter connects even so-called secular things like hospitality, speaking and serving with the grace of God. Doing well in that gift is being good stewards of the gift. Even non-miraculous gifts are from God's grace—and if they're given to us from God supernaturally, perhaps we have the category ("non-miraculous") wrong.

2^nd principle: Miraculous and non-miraculous gifts find their ongoing strength from God

Peter doesn't teach us that once we have received a gift, that that's it: we don't need God anymore. Rather, he says that as we serve, we should continually serve with the strength that God supplies. Whenever we speak, we should speak with God's words. These situations are ongoing. Therefore, even non-miraculous gifts require ongoing input from God.

So non-miraculous gifts are decidedly connected to the supernatural in both origin (1^st principle) and operation (2^nd principle).

Our anti-spiritual bias

Now, onto the lists of spiritual gifts from Paul:

Most older Westerners, because of the general athiestic, secular, anti-spiritual stance of modernism, see two groups here. One: the miraculous gifts such as healing, miracles and prophecy. Two: the non-miraculous gifts such as service, teaching, helps, leadership, and administration. (Younger Westerners are more likely to adopt a post-modern view that is open to the spirit-world—though not religion.)

It's this split which makes Grudem think that the gifts of wisdom and knowledge are also non-miraculous, lest it be imbalanced with purely miraculous gifts.

But what if this was a false dichotomy? What if we think this way because of our biases? Consider how many conservative denominations behave, if not think, that God created the world and then everything that happened afterwards is just operating by natural means. God wound the world up, and then just let it run from there on auto-pilot. He doesn't get involved supernaturally day to day, except perhaps for very extraordinary ocassions.

In contrast, the Pentecostal paradigm, which is a continuationist paradigm (one which believes that charismatic gifts continue today), says that God is actively at work, sustaining the world, moment by moment. How could the doctrine of the sovereignty of God be true without it? Even Jo‌|\|aTh^n Edwards is reported to have subscribed to this idea.

The Bible is clear that God is at work every day (Romans 8:28, 9:21; Ephesians 1:11; Proverbs 16:9, 21:1; 1 Chronicles 29:11-12; Psalm 135:6; Daniel 4:35; Isaiah 46:10; Genesis 50:20), otherwise we would have no confidence when praying that God could answer it, or that God could keep his promises such as when he will come back and right the world.

So our biases are surely at work here more than we realise.

This realisation forces us to reject Grudem's tentative conclusion (he himself says it's tentative, since what he says has little explicit biblical support). The bible clearly shows an active supernatural paradigm where God is intimately involved in the day to day of people's lives, and cannot support a distant 'hands-off' approach.

Application to so-called non-miraculous gifts

What this means is that God is at work amongst our technical and creative endeavours day to day. There is therefore an equality between the so-called non-miraculous gifts and the miraculous gifts, because in fact even the non-miraculous gifts are miraculous—we just haven't realised it. We've passed off inspired ideas as products of our imagination rather than recognising they were, and are, from God. We've gone one direction because of a desire that God placed in us, but passed it off as our desire. We've heard something from a colleague or read something in our research, and done things according to that way, missing that God could have placed that information in front of us to affect that change.

This is why Paul lists gifts like administration, helps, service and leadership in amongst other gifts. They are miraculous too. He doesn't see an incompatability.

A recent example is in order. I've been setting up a newsletter and I needed a way to print it as well as email easily. At one point I was stuck because when printed it folded the wrong way. Then after a few minutes of pondering this and trying some different coding techniques, the idea came to me to print it to PDF first or to try and copy it to a Word document and use one of these alternate print functions. This worked: Adobe Reader has a booklet print function. I believe this idea was from God (of course, it is not definitively provable: but you also cannot prove that it wasn't from God). My ideas didn't work, and then when I stopped striving in my strength, I could hear God's voice and receive his idea. This is similar advice for hearing God's voice in any Pentecostal or charismatic instruction.

So rather than thinking of certain gifts as only being miraculous in their initial giving, and thereafter being operated by yourself, it's better to think of God's grace as opening a conduit between you and God. It is relational. It requires ongoing exercise to flow effectively.

It could be easy to think of other gifts first. No one would say that you are given a gift of healing supernaturally and then thereafter you don't need God anymore to conduct healings. No, they need to continually find their source, power and direction from God. Similarly, with a gift of evangelism, a Pentecostal will not just go and talk to people without listening to God first. They would consider talking to random people ineffective, and rather listen to where they believe the Spirit is already moving in a person, and talk to that person. So this gift finds its energy and effectiveness and direction from an ongoing relationship with God.

In the same way, administration finds its ongoing source and energy and direction from God. You get ideas from God for how to do things better. You gain understanding from God, of how things work. You may have your own ideas too, of course, and it can be hard to distinguish them, but this is not really necessary. Sometimes, you'll have a question in your mind and then someone later that same day will make an apparently random comment that will exactly answer your question. Is this not the sovereignty of God at work in your day to day gift?

Our sacred-secular bias

The other bias we have is the sacred-secular divide. So we think that administration and indeed all technical work is 'secular', operating at the natural level, and what we do on Sunday morning is sacred, dedicated to God. There's a clear separation, and most sermons implicitly reinforce this separation week to week. Consider the conservative sermon that unpacks what the Bible says, but doesn't apply it to our Monday to Saturday. Consider the Pentecostal sermon that emphasises God's supernatural, but acting in a way that is distinctly separate from our 'secular' activities. Also the typical Western business operates without reference to God in any way: no prayer, no dedication or reference to God, no vision or value based on the Bible. Interestingly, prayer rooms are being added to business places these days, mostly to cater for Muslims who have no such sacred-secular divide! They understand the Qur'an governs everything. Treat it as a prophetic rebuke from God and gently encourage prayer groups and prayer times in your business.

When working at a church, you understand what you are doing has eternal significance. Even an administrator working on updating the contact database can connect their everyday work with helping others serve God. An IT worker can setup the database, for the administrator to enter the data in, for the pastoral team to use to connect with people, for ministering to people according to the will of God. This is a picture of the Body of Christ working together.

But in a 'secular' workplace, this connection to a greater purpose is not normally present. It's easy to think that God isn't interested. But God was the first worker, creating the world, and he made the first humans gardeners, and commanded them be fruitful and fill the earth. To cultivate and make culture. When Jesus came, he was a carpenter, and when he returns there's every indication that we will be building a new culture in a new earth. Gardening, carpentry and construction are not 'secular' activities if they're devoted to God.

If we devote our secular work to God it becomes sacred. Being sacred means set apart for God's use. We now are the living temple, ready for God's bidding (2 Corinthians 6:16). So we can go to work in a secular environment for God's purposes and thus do sacred work. And if we're doing it for God, then we can do it with God, and look to him for our ongoing energy, ideas, creativity, inspiration and encouragement. And when God is continually working with us in this way, is this not supernatural? Is this not miraculous?

It can be helpful to think of non-Christians and their ideas, creativity, inspiration and encouragement. Where does this all come from? Does it come from themselves, even though it can look similar to that which comes from Christians? Well, there is plenty of evidence to show that it comes from, at least some of the time, the Devil. Consider the countless times of greed, corruption, aggressive monopolising strategies, cheating, fraud, slander, and more in our businesses. Who is the father of all these things? The Devil has come to "steal, kill and destroy" (John 10:10a). Who inspires this and controls this? "The whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (1 John 5:19). Who puts these desires in people? "You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires" (John 8:44a). This is not to say that every idea or thought or desire is either from God or the Devil. Some are from ourselves, and some are from others. But it can be some of the most important ones that come from the spirit realm.

Conclusion

This world is highly connected to the spiritual world. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12). So let us put aside these Western biases and see Scripture through a Scriptural bias. A world where the supernatural intertwines with the natural, where God supernaturally upholds the world, and where God supernaturally orders the world, every day.

In this way, we find that Paul's surprising addition of secular gifts is not weird at all, but rather, it is our imposition of the sacred-secular divide that is weird. What we are left with is the rather satisfying conclusion that God is interested in working with us whatever he's gifted us to do: all the gifts of the Spirit are all different manifestations of God's grace, and they all find their origin and ongoing operation in God.