The Rev. Dr. Bryan Franzen
  • Home
  • About
    • Westminster Presbyterian Church
    • Theology and Calling
  • BRYAN'S SABBATICAL BLOG 2024

Spiritual Gifts, Part One: You’re Special!!!

1/12/2016

0 Comments

 
Over the next couple of weeks, we will encounter one of my favorite set of passages, Paul’s exposition on spiritual Gifts.  I will call them: “You’re Special;” “We’re Special;” and “God’s Special.” Now this is not like the old SNL Church Lady skit as she would look down her nose at the poor sap that was just not good enough for her.  The specialness that these passages have come out of is one of the very first lessons we are taught in Sunday School and that is “God has uniquely created each of us and loves us for who we are.”  Unfortunately, this teaching can easily traverse into narcissism, which the SNL skit exemplified. Thus, we must always remember that our uniqueness or special attributes are not about us; they are about God.
 
A few years ago I was teaching a class and asked people to tell their gifts.  We went around the room; some people were boastful for their great and profound gifts, others were embarrassed because they did not see themselves having any.  This is pretty common and we began to discuss what gifts are. 
 
With Christmas so recently celebrated, we have a great example of the problem that arises when Gifts are discussed.  In that class, many began to talk about gifts of things: sometimes useful, sometimes silly, and sometimes gestures of love. The bad part about how we think of gifts in our culture is that most of the time it is fairly superficial. More importantly, we can see that these are far more often about the receiver and unfortunately forgotten soon after.
 
When the Bible talks about gifts, we need to change our definition of the word because the gifts that the Bible talks about are not things or even the individuals, but it is the relationship between us and God and the individual and the community that are at the heart. Moreover, gifts in the Bible are not one-time forget-about-it things.  There is accountability with every gift found in the Bible. For modern people that does not seem fair; I can hear the child in my mind crying right now “It’s mine, IT’S MINE I CAN DO WHAT I WANT WITH IT!!!”
 
The problem is that it is not all yours.  What makes the Biblical gifts so different is that each gift is given to us as if we were a caretaker of that gift.  What makes Biblical gifts so special is that they come from the Holy Spirit and are actually never really fully ours because they are from God.  This puts a special burden on us to care for and nurture those gifts so that they can be used for the purpose which God gave them.
 
Now this does not mean that they are not special; these gifts are very special.  God has designed each gift specially for us individually.  This is important since we also have to realize that no one person possesses all spiritual gifts, and that is where we will pick up next week!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Rev. Dr. Bryan James Franzen
    Pastor, Westminster Presbyterian Church
    San Jose, CA

    Archives

    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

  • Home
  • About
    • Westminster Presbyterian Church
    • Theology and Calling
  • BRYAN'S SABBATICAL BLOG 2024