The Gifts Of The Holy Spirit // Pastor Gene Pensiero Calvary Hanford

When folks call the church asking for information about what we believe, 99% of the time what they really want to know is what we believe about the exercising of certain gifts of the Holy Spirit.

People have very strong opinions with regards to this subject and they normally fall into one of two camps:

• Either they are cessationists who believe certain gifts of the Holy Spirit have ceased to function in the church;

• Or they are charismatics in the sense that they believe certain gifts of the Holy Spirit must function in almost every meeting of the church.

I always answer that we believe all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are available and operational in the church today but that they must be exercised decently and orderly. Since we believe all the gifts continue throughout the church age, we are properly referred to as continuationists.

Just about every possible question a person might have about this issue is answered somewhere in First Corinthians chapters twelve, thirteen, and fourteen. (Pastor Gene Pensiero)

Things could get pretty wild at the worship services in the first century church in the city of Corinth. In chapter fourteen the apostle Paul says to them,

1Corinthians 14:23   Therefore if the whole church comes together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say that you are out of your mind?

Other translations say things like, “Won’t they think you are crazy” (CEV), “will they not say that you are demented” (AV), and “will they not say the ye are mad” (KJV).

Madness was unacceptable to Paul. It was not compatible with the Christian faith. It was unworthy of Jesus Christ. (Pastor Gene Pensiero)

The believers in Corinth were, in a sense, swinging for the spiritual fence in their use and abuse of the gift of tongues. When we get to chapter fourteen you’ll see that they were all speaking in tongues simultaneously without any concern for interpreting what was being said or for the exercise of other gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Tongues was their version of the home run. Paul is going to tell them that they were striking out, spiritually speaking. (Pastor Gene Pensiero)

Issues surrounding the Holy Spirit and His gifts are fraught with either/or arguments. Here we’re going to see one of those areas where we tend to go to extremes and I’m going to suggest that both extremes are, well, extreme.

The issue I’m talking about is the baptism with the Holy Spirit. (Pastor Gene Pensiero)

Paul starts talking about various body parts claiming independent identity from the whole body. His point is simple enough: the true nature of your human body is that it is one body consisting of many necessary parts. He will argue from that very obvious illustration that the body of Christ on earth – His church – is also one with many parts (Pastor Gene Pensiero)

If the apostle Paul had been tech-savvy he might have produced a series of short parody videos showing the horrible manners of the believers at Corinth. Sure, they were exercising spectacular gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they were simultaneously tolerating all manner of sexual sin, they were promoting divisions, they were suing one another, they were divorcing one another, and they were given over to idolatry. Paul might have adopted the slogan, “Whatʼs in your worship?” (Pastor Gene Pensiero)