1 Corinthians 12:8 - Part B

Again, it's not a reservoir of wisdom. It's an episode of wisdom. It's where God gives you the wisest thing to say at that time. How does one get such a gift? Well, you ask for it, and you see if the Lord will give that to you.

The Bible tells us, if you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares how God empowers you with His wisdom. But before we begin, we want to tell you about a resource that will inspire you to build even more unity with others in the church. The most recent U.S. Census revealed that our population is much more diverse than ever before. In fact, over the past 10 years, our multiracial population increased 276 percent, which presents new challenges.

Here's Skip Heitzig. To say that this nation is divided would be a gross understatement, but I am not going to take sides politically. I am going to take sides morally and spiritually and biblically. I'm going to raise the conversation to a different level, to a higher level, to a biblical level, because the issue as I see it is not a skin issue as much as it's a sin issue. We want to help you understand this divisive issue from a divine perspective. When you give $20 or more today to this Bible teaching ministry, we'll send you Pastor Skip's booklet, The Church and Racism, plus his teaching featuring a conversation with Pastor Tony Clark.

Get these relevant resources today when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Okay, we'll be in First Corinthians Chapter 12 for today's study, so let's join Skip Heitzig. Paul told them what was going on in this division that had occurred because you now you have non-Jewish people who don't keep the laws of Moses, haven't been circumcised, but they believe in Jesus, and now you have these legalists saying, no, you have to go through Judaism to be saved. So Peter stands up and exercises, I think, a word of wisdom followed by James standing up and also speaking a word of wisdom. Peter says, why do you test God and place upon the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we were ever able to bear? So then James, the leader of the council in Jerusalem, says, let's send a letter to the Gentiles and Antioch and say, abstain from things offered to idols, abstain from blood, taking blood, drinking blood. I won't explain that now.

I have in the past. They did it back then. Abstain from animals that have been strangled and from fornication. If you do this, you do well. That's all they said. Those were only the things they said to do. You believe in Jesus Christ. Don't offend your Jewish brethren by just stay away from these things.

If you do that, you do fine. It says, when they read the letter, they were greatly encouraged by that letter. So there's a few instances right there of the word of wisdom, just the right wise thing to say to quell the disturbance or to give a witness for the gospel. Here's another example of the word of wisdom, I believe. And the reason I'm giving you these examples is because unlike the gift of prophecy or tongues, which are written about in detail and prophecy, tongues, and a couple of others, miracles and faith, those are written about in detail in the scripture.

These aren't. It just mentions word of wisdom, word of knowledge, etc. So I need to take you to these different portions of scripture. That's why I'm having you turn.

Here's another example. In Acts 23, when Paul is in Jerusalem, and he's been arrested, and he's been arrested because they brought an accusation saying that he had brought an Ephesian, a Gentile, into the temple court, the court of the men. It was a false accusation. Anyway, Paul gets arrested, and he's brought before the Jewish Sanhedrin, and they are ready to tear into him.

They already started beating him up. The Romans took him, and now he's standing trial again before the Jewish Sanhedrin. It says in Acts 23, Paul perceived that one part was Pharisee and the other part were Sadducees. He said this, men and brethren, I am standing here today because I believe in the resurrection of the dead.

Faith in the resurrection of the dead. He goes, I'm a Pharisee. I'm the son of a Pharisee, and I am being judged because I believe in the resurrection of the dead. At that point, the Pharisee said, we don't see any problem with this guy. He's a Pharisee, son of a Pharisee. The Sadducees who deny that there is a resurrection, deny spirits, deny the miraculous. It says the group was divided, and instead of trying to kill Paul and fight against Paul, there was a division between the council itself, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees.

This division caused them to fight and argue with each other. So that sort of quelled the disturbance as far as Paul was concerned, and the Roman soldiers could extricate Paul to safety after that. So he said just the wisest thing to take the spotlight off of himself so that his life would be spared, so that he could continue in his witness for the gospel, and that set them at odds with each other. So I think all of these are examples of the word of wisdom. Again, it's not a reservoir of wisdom. It's an episode of wisdom. It's where God gives you the wisest thing to say at that time.

How does one get such a gift? Well, you ask for it, and you see if the Lord will give that to you. In fact, I'm guessing that some of you have exercised the gift of the word of wisdom before in your testimony, in your witness, in conversations with people, in some kind of a teaching capacity, and you really weren't even aware of it while you were doing it. But the Lord, like somebody asked you a question, the Lord just gave you the right answer, and maybe you walked away from that situation going, wow, I was really good.

And you were really good, but it wasn't because you were really good. It's because a good God gave you the right thing to say at the time. So you ask him. The Bible says that you have not because you ask not. And so, like James says, you ask.

Like Paul said, you ask. Romans says, you, Romans chapter 12, you dedicate your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him, which is your reasonable service, and you see what gifts God will give you. But it seems that this gift is given for the ability to give testimony, testimony of faith, to the unbelieving world or to quell arguments among the believing world in the church, like we see in the examples. So that I believe, those I believe are examples of the word of wisdom.

So that takes us to verse 8, the second part. So to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit to another, the word of knowledge through the same Spirit. The word of knowledge. Now you know that there's a difference between wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom is the application of knowledge, but what does it mean to have a word of knowledge?

Well, it's interesting. I have in my study, and I went and looked just to make sure, I counted how many books I have on the Holy Spirit, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit and the life of the church, etc. I have a section in my library. I have 64 books that deal with the Holy Spirit and many of them the gifts of the Spirit. And when it comes to the idea or this gift of the word of knowledge, the scholarship is evenly divided. On one hand, you have people who say the gift of the word of knowledge has to do with the application of Bible study and teaching. It's associated with the gift of teaching and preaching. It's the ability to analyze and to summarize and to systematize Scripture. It's insight that God gives you, knowledge that God gives you, of the word of God. That's how some see this gift.

I do not. Others in those 64 books that I have say that the gift of the word of knowledge is a supernatural enablement of knowledge, a spiritual endowment of knowledge. It's not knowledge you acquire by study or by normal acquisition. It's some knowledge that God gives to a person they couldn't know any other way. They couldn't get it by study.

They couldn't get it by natural acquisition. It would have to be spiritually revealed to them. I lean toward that. I lean toward that because of the context of the rest of the gifts. I also see examples of that in the Scripture. By the way, Dr. Vincent, who wrote some of the best Greek word studies that are available, called Vincent's Word Studies in the Greek New Testament, translates—no, that was a different gift I think he was translating—but he sees this the way—I can't even tell you exactly the translation—he sees this as a supernatural endowment, an ability that God gives you at that moment.

Okay, now let me give you some examples of that. Let's go to the Old Testament. First of all, it was not unknown in the Old Testament. Even though it's before the age of grace, it's before the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, we might say, in the Old Testament there was this unusual prophet by the name of Elisha. Elisha, S-H-A, E-L-I-S-H-A, Elisha, Elisha in Hebrew, was the protege of Elijah, the Tishbite prophet.

Remember, one followed the other. Well, Elisha seemed to have the ability to know things that were happening that he couldn't know by study. It was just given to him by God. So in 2 Kings 6, when the Syrian king Ben-Hadad is attacking the Israelite armies, God revealed to Elisha where the enemy was posting their position, and he would tell the king of Israel. So every time Ben-Hadad and the Syrians would mount an attack against Israel, the Israelites would be ready for the attack. Well, this really bothered the king of Syria. Ben-Hadad, he goes, I got a rat on my staff. Somebody's feeding information to the enemy.

Who is it? Which one of you been ratting and telling the king of Israel where I am? And one of his advisors said, it's not any of us.

We're all loyal subjects. But there's a guy in Israel by the name of Elisha, and Elisha, the prophet in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom, O king. Nothing is kept a secret. He knows it all.

He's the guy. In 2 Kings 5, we have another example of Elisha having that kind of knowledge. There was a Syrian by the name of Naaman who had leprosy, and he comes down to Israel because he hears that Elisha the prophet can heal people of leprosy, and you know the story probably how he tells them to dip in the Jordan seven times. He comes out whole, and when he comes out whole, he's well.

He's healthy. Naaman says to Elisha, man, this is amazing. This is a miracle. Let me reward you and give you lots of gifts and money, and he goes, you keep your gifts. I don't want anything. This is a gift of God.

Don't give me anything. So he sends him away, but the servant of Elisha is named Gehazi, and Gehazi goes, man, my master just didn't take even an honorarium, didn't take a check, didn't take a gift, took nothing. It's like we could have got a lot of money out of this guy. We could have made bank, but he didn't ask him for anything. So he didn't tell Elisha, but Gehazi ran after Naaman the leper, and Naaman sees the servant of Elisha come and goes, yeah, how are you doing?

What's up? And he comes down from his chariot, and he goes, can I help you with something? He goes, well, yeah, you know, there's a couple of prophets that have come to my master's house from the mountains of Ephraim, and it'd be really neat. My master asked if you wouldn't mind giving us a couple talents of silver and some changes of clothes, and Naaman said, yeah, no problem.

I'd be happy to do it. So he gave him a bunch of money and new clothes, and he was lying, of course. Gehazi was misrepresenting Elisha, didn't send him, but he gets back to Elisha's home, and Elisha the prophet sees his servant Gehazi coming. He goes, Gehazi, where have you been? Nowhere. What have you been doing? Nothing. And he goes, wasn't my spirit with you when you asked Naaman for those gifts?

Is now the time to be taking clothes and gifts of silver? He knew everything that had gone on, even though he stayed home and his servant went out and was lying. In 2 Kings 4, there was a woman who had a son who Elisha had predicted that she would have a child. This child had died, and Elisha did not know that she had a son that died. She knew that she had a son. He knew that she had a son, but didn't know the son died, and this woman comes and rushes toward Elisha to say, my son died, my son died, and Gehazi sees this woman coming and tries to shoo her away from Elisha, and Elisha says, no, no, no, let her come and ask me whatever it is she has to ask me, because look at her.

She is in deep distress and sorrow of heart. Listen to what he said, and the Lord has not told me her problem. He has not revealed it to me, and Elisha was in shock. Now, just imagine being so tuned into God that you are actually shocked when God doesn't tell you that kind of knowledge that you could only know supernaturally, and he was shocked. He goes, I can't believe that this has happened, and God didn't tell me, and of course, the Lord used him to provide healing, but that is a gift of the word of knowledge. Now, we come to the New Testament. In the New Testament, once again, you would expect Jesus to exhibit knowledge, because again, he is filled with wisdom and knowledge, it says in Colossians, and of course, he did. Classic example, when Philip found Nathaniel and said, I have seen the Messiah, the Son of God.

We know who he is. It's Jesus of Nazareth, and Nathaniel says, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Remember that story in John chapter 2, and so later on, Nathaniel meets Jesus, and Jesus sees Nathaniel coming, and our Lord says, ah, behold, an Israelite in whom there is no deceit, and Nathaniel's sort of shaken by Jesus' words to him, because they had never met before, and Nathaniel says, well, how do you know me? And Jesus said, before Philip talked to you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. It was a private experience he had at some fig tree. Jesus knew all about it, told him all about it, and Nathaniel said, oh, you are the Messiah. You are the Christ. You are the Son of God, and he said, you said this because I saw you. I said, I saw you under the fig tree.

Stick around, buddy. You're going to see a lot more amazing things than this, but just that kind of knowledge. Now, you would expect that you would expect the Lord Jesus to have that, but this is the kind of gift, I believe, that the word of knowledge is and how it is exercised. Back to Vincent and his word studies.

Vincent, in his Greek word studies, calls this a wonder-working ability. Now, let me give you a couple more examples. Peter, in Matthew chapter 16, remember when Jesus said, who do men say that I am? Who do you say that I am? And Peter said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said, you are, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Peter, you didn't study this in a book.

You didn't learn this at seminary. My Father has revealed to you who I am. Now, I don't know that that was necessarily a spiritual gift of the word of knowledge, but I wanted you to see, here is Peter. Usually we think about Peter as this bumbling disciple who puts his foot in his mouth and says dumb things, and he did quite often. But here's a guy at that moment who had the perception, spiritual perception, spiritual perception that none of the other disciples had. And Jesus said, the only way you could know that is for my Father to have somehow revealed that to you. And Peter knew it. It was revealed to Peter.

Later on in the book of Acts, I think you have an actual working example of the word of knowledge. It's in the early church when Ananias and Sapphira sold a portion of land and gave the money to the early church in Jerusalem. They sold it for a certain amount, but they kept back part of the proceeds.

No problem with that. The problem was they miscommunicated and misrepresented what they had done to the church. They said they sold it for this amount for this amount, and that they gave the entire amount to the Lord's work.

But they had kept back a portion of it. Now if they said, look, we sold it, but we're going to keep some to live on, and we're going to give the rest to the church, not a problem. But they lied, and they said, yes, we sold it for this amount, and we were giving this to the Lord's work, all of it, all of it, all of it.

So people thought, wow, what a spiritual couple. So they come before Peter, and Peter said, Ananias, did you sell the land for this amount? Yes. And you gave it all to the Lord's work.

Yes. And then Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? You haven't lied to men.

You have lied to God. Peter knew what was going on behind the scenes. The only way Peter could have known that he could have known that was God giving him a word of knowledge. And that's why I say, I don't think it's just insight into the Scripture or acquisition through normal means or the ability to logically systematize spiritual truth.

I think it's the ability to know something supernatural about a situation or about a person that you couldn't know by any other means. Another example is Paul the Apostle. When Paul is traveling through the area of Asia Minor and he comes to Lystra and Derby, so this is found in Acts chapter 14, and again, I pre-marked it so I can read it to you. It says, And in Lystra a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother's womb, who had never walked. This man heard Paul speaking.

Now listen to this. Paul, observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, stand up straight on your feet. And he leaped and he walked.

And he walked. Now how did Paul know that this man had faith to be healed? He just looked at him intently and said, that guy has faith to be healed. Was it a hunch? Was it some strong impression?

Don't know. But it was some manner whereby Paul knew he had the knowledge revealed to him by God, this man has faith to be healed. And he gave him a command, stand up, grabbed him by the handle, lifted him up, and the man was healed.

Now here you have an example of several gifts working together. You have the gift of faith. That's what Paul has. You have, no, that's what this man has, the gift of faith. He has faith to be healed. So you have the gift of faith given to this man that God is going to heal me today. You have the gift of the word of knowledge.

That's what Paul is exercising. He knows the man has the faith to be healed. You have the gift of miracles, and you have the gift of healing.

All of these four gifts working in concert together to do something supernatural. So there are, I think, several examples of the gifts of the word of knowledge. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from his series Expound 1 Corinthians. Now, here's Skip to share how you can keep this broadcast going strong, connecting you and many others to God's Word. Did you know that a spiritual war rages all around you?

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