What About the Gifts of the Spirit, Pt. 1 (Articles of Faith Series)

If you choose to become inactive or to leave the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where will you go? What will you do?

You're entering outer brightness. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, just in case you didn't get it in those few verses, right? Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Did I warn myself again?

No. He made me alive together with Christ. Listen, I can no more manufacture the second birth than I manufactured the first one. How can you look upon this inner with such love? Grace overflows my cup. All of my soul and my heart have been revived.

In you I'm satisfied. The seventh LDS article of faith states, We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth. When I was a Mormon, this statement of LDS beliefs held an inherent contradiction, a paradox in my mind. On the one hand, LDS truth claims are based on the concept of continuing prophecy and revelation. The LDS church is led by 15 men who are set apart and sustained by the membership as prophets, seers, and revelators. Joseph Smith's career as a prophet began with a claimed vision of the Father and the Son, and throughout his time leading the movement, many more visions were claimed by him and his followers. Truly, it is claimed by Latter-day Saints that theirs is a religion aligned with the spiritual gifts enumerated in the New Testament.

They see this as evidence of the truth of their movement. I grew up in a home where visions and personal revelation were not considered to be uncommon. The challenge that this posed to my mind in my teenage years and beyond was that some of the visions slash revelations experienced by some of my family members led to heartache and sorrow for other family members. Latter-day Saints are taught that the Father holds authority to receive revelation on behalf of his family. What recourse do other members of that family have to test the spirits? As a Mormon, I would have said that just as it is the responsibility of Latter-day Saints to confirm the words of their leaders through prayer, so it is the responsibility of family members to confirm the words of their parent through prayer. The challenge comes when a supposed revelation contradicts scripture or isn't even touched on in scripture. What is a person to do? Severe challenges to family structures and relationships arise when a Latter-day Saint receives what they believe is personal revelation that they should take additional wives.

This is not uncommon and leads to pain as can other less stark examples. In theory, the LDS canon is the rule of faith and the prophet and apostles are to provide clarification of portions of LDS scripture that are unclear. At least, that is what one listener wrote to us after listening to our episodes 44 and 46 in which we reviewed Matthew's article, The Mormon Chameleon.

But that downplays their role as seers and revelators. New revelation and new scripture has been very minimal since the days of Joseph Smith, despite claims that continuing revelation and an open canon are strengths of the LDS movement. We talked about healing in our episodes 51 to 53 about priesthood.

The fact that the seventh LDS article of faith includes healing as a gift of the Spirit alongside others leads one to wonder, if the LDS priesthood bestows the right to give healing blessings, does that mean that every LDS male holding the Melchizedek Priesthood has been given the gift of healing? What about the gift of tongues and the interpretation of tongues? Speaking in tongues, or glossolalia, was an important part of early Latter-day Saint practice. Mormon prophet Brigham Young stated, or I'm sorry, Brigham Young regarded speaking in tongues as a spiritually electrifying experience and an important part of his conversion.

The practice continued throughout the 19th century but was not a part of Mormon practice at all during my lifetime. Early Mormons wrote of great spiritual outpourings taking place during the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in March of 1836. Speaking in tongues was said to be part of this great outpouring of the Spirit. When I was growing up in the LDS church, these manifestations of the Spirit were spoken of anytime a lesson plan included discussion of the dedication of the Kirtland Temple.

We heard them often. They were evidence that God was at work in the Latter-day Saint movement. But precarious teenagers in my class would often ask the natural question, why does no one speak in tongues today? The answer given was usually an allusion to the idea that missionaries who learn foreign languages certainly enjoy the gift of tongues.

But that is neither glossolalia, miraculously speaking in a language unknown to anyone, nor is it xenoglossia, miraculously speaking in a language unknown to oneself but known to one's hearers. So where then is the paradox that existed in my mind with regard to the seventh article of faith? Mormons claim that their continuationist belief in the gifts of the Spirit is proof that Mormonism is true over against Christians, many of whom are cessationists. That is, they believe that the miraculous or sign gifts of the Spirit have ceased, that they were meant to be powerful signs in the apostolic area of the church as it was growing but are not needed today. So the paradox is this, despite Mormon claims that all of the gifts continue, none of the gifts are present in the modern LDS church in any meaningful way. And when pressed, Mormons often give arguments akin to their Christian cessationist counterparts, the gifts of the Spirit.

That's what we're talking about today. Let's jump right in here with talking about the gifts of the Spirit. When you were a Latter-day Saint, what was your experience with the gifts of the Spirit? Were you encouraged to seek to know how you were gifted? Were you ever discouraged?

Matthew, let's go to you first. Well, as a Latter-day Saint, we're always talking about everyone who has gifts. You know, people are gifted to do one thing or another. And I've always been a perfectionist. I've never really had a high view of myself, I guess. I didn't really have very great self-confidence, so I kind of figured I downplayed a lot of my skills or a lot of my gifts, and so I didn't really think much. I thought, well, look at this guy. He's so smart, especially on my mission. Look at how well they speak French. That's so amazing.

God's really working in them. And so I was worried about falling into pride, so I didn't really want to focus too much on what gifts I had or what gifts God had given me. And I guess that's still something I struggle with sometimes still. But yeah, it wasn't something that I was really focused on trying to attain or to grow in gifts.

What about you, Michael? Yeah, I've got a couple of thoughts on this. I don't know that I was – I mean, I knew about the spiritual gifts and that they were to be coveted. I don't know if anybody ever told me specifically to go looking for the gifts. I just kind of assumed that that was something that I would come to at some point. And really, when I went on my mission, I started to have some of those experiences that kind of brought some of them to light. But before that, I think I really believed in the gifts more as a theoretical thing. Like, yeah, they're there, but they're not really being practiced because you don't see it very much in an LDS war. Like, people getting up and saying, oh, brother so-and-so has the gift of healing.

If you need a priesthood blessing, go to him specifically and you'll get healed. I kind of more believe that in certain circumstances, God would gift you with what was needed. And if I didn't give an example of that, I would say that missionaries in the MTC, learning a foreign language, I would often hear people say like, oh, they're having the gift of tongues and that is what's helping them to learn this new language. For me personally, I went into the MTC and I had this experience where I prayed and asked God to teach me how to speak because I was really awkward around people.

I couldn't hold a conversation to save my life. And I felt like God answered that and I was able to speak really well. I came back from my mission and I would give talks and I kind of viewed that as my spiritual gifting. And I would always take it really seriously if somebody asked me to speak.

I would pray and ask God to humble me like a week before and I'd have like the worst week ever. And then I would pretty much write up my whole talk, memorize the whole thing and give it without any notes. And it was pretty much accepted in my wards that I had a gift for public speaking. And then I had some really potent dreams that I viewed as visions. So those were kind of the spiritual gifts that I would have said that I thought I had as a Latter-day Saint.

All right. What about when callings were extended to you as a Latter-day Saint? Were the gifts of the Spirit and in particular your gifts ever a part of that conversation? Yeah, right.

Why do you say that? I mean, a lot of times it just felt like it was what was needed in the ward and I was just a body. I think sometimes, depending on what my calling was, it wasn't until they started to trust me enough to give me some more major callings. For example, when I became the ward mission leader, I started to think, oh, maybe I've got a spiritual gift for preaching the gospel. And I just didn't know that I had that gift and thank goodness that I got this calling to show me a spiritual gift that I didn't know I had. But then I would get a calling where I was just teaching in the nursery. And I'm like, well, obviously I'm not very good with kids.

So I must be here because I'm lacking any sort of spiritual gift. Otherwise they would have put me in a better calling. So there was never like a point where the bishop would sit down with me and say, what do you think your gifting is so that we can decide what your calling is going to be? It was always just they came to me. We're calling you to do this without any foreknowledge of what I was good at or not good at, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it does. Matthew, what about you? Yeah, it was never we never had conversations in terms of callings, whether in the mission before or after going on the mission regarding gifts that I had and why that would make me suitable for such a calling. But I think they did speak occasionally about how God would grant you the gifts with that calling. So it's like with the calling and with every for those who are LDS who don't know, it's not just when you are baptized that you have hands laid on your head and you're confirmed. They call it a setting apart when you're when you're called to any kind of calling within the LDS church, even if it's as mundane as being like an usher.

I think they still do that all the way up to profit. So they lay hands on you. A priesthood leader, usually the bishop, lays hands on you and give you a blessing. And he'll say in that blessing, usually something to the effect of God will grant you the ability to fulfill the tasks of this calling, some things like that. And so that so that's usually what the extent of the conversation was. It was about not so much already having those gifts, but God will give you what you need to accomplish what he's called you to.

Yeah, I agree. Like when I would when they would extend a calling to you, it was more just kind of like you get an appointment from the executive secretary to meet with the bishop. You go in and sit down in the office. They'd open with prayer. And then, you know, hey, brother Nurnberg, we are going to extend you a calling to be X, Y or Z.

And away you go. There wasn't really a whole lot of a lot of conversation around that. I do remember having lessons about the gifts of the Spirit. It was kind of like a once a year kind of lesson that came around because they're covered in the New Testament. They're covered in the Book of Mormon.

They're covered in the Doctrine and Covenants. And so whatever year you were studying, you were going to accept maybe the Old Testament. You were going to have a lesson on the gifts of the Spirit. But it was.

Yeah. Matthew, what you said was interesting. And I kind of forgotten that that aspect of it, that it was just kind of assumed that whatever calling we give you, you know, God will gift you and empower you for that that particular calling. And I remember there being, you know, I was pretty fortunate, like a lot of the callings I held were teaching callings, which is something that I do think is one of my giftings.

And so I always felt comfortable doing those and serving in those callings within the LDS church. But I do remember, you know, there were people who would, you know, be called in to do something and it was not something that they were comfortable with at all. And they really struggled with that. So, yeah, I remember that being a kind of a big conversation point that people would feel that they had a particular gifting, but they didn't ever get callings that were around that gifting.

So, yeah, it seems like nobody was ever in the calling that they wanted to be in. I mean, that kind of happened to me and my first wife. You know, we're I think I've said this before, we were brand new newlyweds and they threw us in the nursery in this war that just had a ton of two year olds.

And so I'm just like, oh, my gosh, what are we going to do? And it was insanity every single week. There's this this one kid, he had kind of a speech impediment. And I remember one time I went to to go use the restroom and I came back and he crawled halfway through the back of one of the chairs in the in the room. And he kept looking at everybody and saying, duck, duck. And they're like, yes, ducks, quack quack. And I came in and he looked at me and he said, duck.

And I'm like, you're stuck. Oh, my gosh. So, hey, I guess I guess the gifts of interpretation of tongues, I guess that's what I've got. Sounds right to me. And maybe it's lucky you were there because what would have happened if the kid remained a duck the whole time?

They would have asked his parents, like, is he obsessed with ducks or something? So, you know, the LDS church really kind of takes a continuationist position with regards to the gifts. Did you think that that position was a benefit or a detriment when you were a Latter Day Saint? Was it did you consider it to be strong evidence that the LDS church was true and all others false?

Matthew, what do you think? Well, there's that passage in the Book of Mormon that was actually quoted and I should have brought this up earlier. I think it's in Moroni seven talks about everyone who denies revelation or denies spirit. Look that up. Oh, goodness. Out of the Book of Mormon student manual.

I want the Book of Mormon. I should have brought this up. Sorry, guys.

Yeah, I think it's in Chapter seven. OK. OK. Yeah. Here we go. Sorry about that.

OK, I'm ready. So in Moroni Chapter seven, Moroni kind of gives this warning unless it's Mormon that's talking. I hate when they switch back and forth in those books. No, it's Moroni. Oh, no, it's Moroni. And then it switches back to Mormon.

Why do they got to do this to me? Verse one, it says, Now Moroni, I read a few words of my father, Mormon. Come on now.

OK. Yeah. So Mormon here supposedly is talking about miracles being performed. And verse thirty three, it says in Moroni seven, If you will have faith in me, you shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient. And he has said, repent all the ends of the earth and come into me and be baptized in my name.

Have faith in me. And now, my beloved brethren, if this be the case that these things are true, which I have spoken unto you and God will show unto you with power and great glory the last day that they are true. And if they are true, has the day of miracles ceased or have angels ceased to appear on the children unto the children of men? Or has he withheld the power of the Holy Ghost from them?

Or will he so long as time shall last or the earth shall stand? Or there shall be one man upon the face thereof to be saved. Behold, I say unto you, nay, for it is by faith that miracles are wrought. It is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men. Wherefore, if these things have ceased, woe be unto the children of men. For it is because of unbelief and all is vain. For no man can be saved, according to the words of Christ, save they shall have faith in his names. Wherefore, if these things have ceased, then has faith ceased also. Awful is the state of man, for they are as though there had been no redemption now.

So that's the end of that. And that's verse 38 I just read. So I saw that as kind of saying that, yeah, if you're denying that God can do miracles today, if you're denying that tongues can work today, that healings can work today, that we don't have the power to, if we don't have the priesthood power like Peter and the apostles had to heal people, then they basically don't have faith. You know, their faith is lacking. And it says, woe unto the children of men in that passage. So it's harder to really answer that question.

Let me go back to it. So you asked if it was a benefit or a detriment. Well, at the time I thought it was a benefit because it was evidence that ours was the true faith. Because the true faith would have these gifts and the true faith would also have providence and apostles. So it was kind of a package deal.

You either have all of it or you don't have any of it. And I did think it was strong evidence that LDS Church was true. And those that denied it were automatically like, I could just cross them off on my list of possible true churches.

It was just not even a possibility. As far as Mormon 9, 15 through 20, I think it has a similar message, right? Mormon 9, 15, and now all ye that have imagined up unto yourselves a God who can do no miracles, I would ask if you have all these things past of which I have spoken, has the end come yet? Behold, I say unto you, nay, and God is not ceased to be a God of miracles.

And so that made sense to me, too. It's like, well, if God's the same, why doesn't God do today what he did in the past? And that's a very standard kind of argument from missionaries.

So sorry for my long response. But but yeah, to me, it was just basically if you're going to be the true church, you need to have all the same things that the church has had since the beginning, since the Book of Acts. Did you ever just a quick follow up on that? Did you ever reach a point where the so, you know, I mentioned in the intro that, you know, early on in the Latter Day Saint movement, those some of the spiritual gifts were very prevalent and even up through the end of the 19th century, but then kind of fell off. Did that ever did that ever bother you or raise questions in your mind?

Like why? Why was there speaking in tongues at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple and nothing like that happens today? Yeah, I thought I did think about that. And I kind of thought of it. I thought it was like supposed to emulate the day of Pentecost, you know, and so I don't know, maybe at the time I thought the day of Pentecost was the only time when they were speaking in all kinds of crazy tongues.

And then after that, they had the way that we saw the tongues, you know, in terms of being able to learn a language more quickly or being able to understand a language more quickly. Maybe that's how I rationalized it. I'm not quite sure. But yeah, I don't think it was until much later that I understood the history behind the changing view of the gifts of the Spirit and the LDS Church. I think it was it wasn't until like the late 19th century when that kind of changed or what?

I forget what time period. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael, what about you? Did you did you see the continuous continuationist position of the LDS Church as a benefit and a strength? Well, yeah, I definitely thought that it was a benefit as well. In fact, you'll see a lot of LDS people online these days where they'll kind of throw out that claim. Hey, show me a show me a church right now that has a prophet and priesthood keys and miracles. And I will join that church. And they say that because they are so confident that there is no other church out there like that.

And so like Matthew, I would I would look at the church and I would say this makes it authentic. That makes this the the true Christian church because we're the only ones claiming to have miracles and and the gifts. And I'd see a lot of these other Christians, you know, making what I thought were excuses. Oh, well, it was just for while the apostles were around and we don't need it anymore. And I would just be like, well, of course, they have to make excuses because they don't have the gifts of the Spirit. You know, what are you left with if you don't have the gifts of the Spirit? Excuses, you know, it must be so sad to be a Protestant and have to sit there and see us Latter-day Saints being all awesome and having gifts of the Spirit. And man, no wonder they're so anti because all they can do is just be mad. Man, I wish I wish I would have known that being LDS made me awesome.

Yeah, sorry. Those were the days, huh, Paul? Yeah, so I think I think I did view the continuationist position that the LDS Church takes as a strength. I did have questions about, you know, because it wasn't just the continuation of like the miraculous gifts, right, the prophecy and revelation that were claimed for the prophets and apostles. But it was also, you know, we would have lessons where it would be pointed to that these miraculous spiritual experiences happened at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple and other other events in Mormon history.

But yeah, it raised questions in my mind. Why didn't we experience speaking in tongues now? You know, of course, when I went on my mission, we've talked about this in a prior episode, but when I went on my mission and was able to learn Hungarian, which is one of the more challenging languages in the world, and I had tried to study German in high school and never could never could get it to stick. And so I viewed the fact that I was able to learn Hungarian as a manifestation of the gift of tongues when I was a missionary.

And I was, you know, by leadership encouraged to view it that way. And so that raised questions in my mind about, you know, what is this, you know, is that is that really what the gift of tongues is or, you know, because that's not what was going on at the Kirtland Temple. So, there was another thing I wanted to say about the gift of tongues. Oh, yeah, there was a missionary that I served with, you know, who had gone with some missionaries before he had gone out on his mission. He had gone with some missionaries to a charismatic church. They were on, you know, he was spending some time with the missionaries and they were meeting with somebody who was charismatic and they were invited to the meeting. So he went along with them. And, you know, I remember him telling me that he was, he just found it so absurd because he said that they watched a video that was kind of like instructional on how to get into the space of speaking in tongues.

And he thought that was kind of ludicrous that they would be instructing people on how to speak gibberish, basically was the way he put it. So it was interesting. It was interesting to see that, you know, Latter-day Saints, although they were, some Latter-day Saints, although we were claiming it to be continuationists, were kind of making fun of others who were also claiming to be continuationists. So that raised some questions in my mind. So kind of digging into the New Testament, kind of biblical data on the spiritual gifts, the most common Greek word used in the New Testament to refer to the spiritual gifts is charisma. What do you think that conveys? Michael, what do you think? Well, when I looked it up, you know, it kind of says that it's a gift for the benefit of the church.

That's what I found online at least. I didn't see a lot of information on it. It's kind of curious what it was about the question that kind of prompted you to ask it, I guess.

Can you specify more about that? Yeah, so I'm kind of thinking, you know, the way we use the word charisma in English seems to be somewhat dislocated from the way that it's used in the New Testament. You know, when we say somebody has charisma, you're drawn to them, you know, but it doesn't really have a connection to the Holy Spirit. So I just wanted to kind of tease that out a little bit. I see what you're saying.

Yeah, it is interesting because, I mean, I didn't even realize that that was the Greek word until I was looking at this episode guide. I've heard charismatic in the theological sense, and it is interesting that in English it is such a different thing because scripturally speaking, charisma is all about using your gifts to benefit other people, but in English it's kind of the opposite, isn't it? When you have charisma, it's all about drawing people to you. It is about you and not the body of the church. So yeah, that's a really good insight that you brought up there.

I hadn't even thought of that. Matthew, what do you think? I mean, so when I came out of, when I was transitioning out of the LDS church into Christianity and I studied this issue, that's kind of where I learned this term, the charisma, or was referring to spiritual gifts. But it's interesting to see, too, that it's sometimes referred to in the New Testament as specifically the gifts of the Spirit or just gifts in general, or a gift from God.

I think one example that I pulled up was Romans 6 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God. The gift there is charisma, if you want to do modern Greek pronunciation. I've been practicing. Charisma, I think is how you would say it, right?

In the Erasmian. Yeah. Yeah, so that's in that instance, gift is charisma.

So it could be referring to that. But yeah, in terms of the spiritual gifts, that's usually the word that's being used. More specifically, I think Romans 1 11. Let me check that one. Yeah, I think it's Romans 1 11.

Let me pull up the parallel there. It says, For I long to see you, so that I impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. I'm not entirely sure if that's talking about the gifts of the Spirit. Do you know, Paul? Offhand, I should have studied that passage in detail, but I didn't.

Which passage was it? Romans 1 11. Paul is saying, For I long to see you, so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. That is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. So I'm not sure if that's really talking about gifts of the Spirit.

It seems more like encouragement. Yeah, so, yeah, my theology professor touches on that, and I happen to have that open. He says, The complete phrase spiritual gift occurs only once in the New Testament in Romans 1 11, where Paul says to the Christians in Rome, For I long to see you, so that I may impart some spiritual gift, charisma, pneumaticon, to you. Some think Paul here is referring to his apostolic ability to bestow miraculous gifts, such as prophecy or tongue speaking, as in Acts 19 6. But my conclusion is that the gift Paul wanted to bestow upon the Romans was the deeper meaning of the Gospel. It refers to Romans 1 15, 1 Thessalonians 2 8 and 9, and 1 Corinthians 9 through 11. He says, This being the case, the fact that the full phrase spiritual gifts is never used in the New Testament in the sense in which it is commonly understood today. So, so, yeah, he, my theology professor would conclude that it's not, it's not necessarily speaking of the spiritual gifts there in Romans 1 11. Okay, yeah, great.

I should have looked at, I should have looked at like the the lexicons that I have with accordance now, that would have been really cool to look up, but I didn't. But yeah, so like, I mean, that's where we kind of get the English word charismatic, you know, when we're talking about charismatic Christians, of course, it comes from kadis, kadisma, chadisma. So that's where that comes from.

But, but also in a more colloquial sense, we think of someone who's charismatic is one who's outgoing one who has the ability to convince others. So I think that's kind of where that comes from. But they're not really totally related, you know, sometimes we'll talk about charismatic leaders and people think, Oh, you know, like Trump, or whoever, you know, whoever you want to point to, when we're talking to the religious sense, we're talking about someone who has, you know, certain gifts of spirit. So I'm not sure if that's kind of approaches kind of what you're hoping for in this question or if I'm kind of just going around it.

No, yeah, that's, that's good. You know, the two things I kind of wanted to tease out was was one that kind of difference between the way charisma is understood in English, and the way we use it and Michael really kind of put that into to really understandable plain language. How do you phrase that so the other thing I wanted to kind of tease out is that that this this word charisma is is related to the word carries, which is the Greek word that we get grace from right so in English. And it's interesting what cultural says about that as well he says the noun most commonly used for this concept is charisma which is related to carries the common word for grace, the basic meaning of carries grace as such is quote, a gift that pleases or brings joy and quote and it can be used for gifts other than saving grace. In fact carries itself is used a few times to refer to the equipping gifts of the spirit. For example, the Apostle Peter refers to the whole package of spiritual gifts as the manifold grace carries of God. See First Peter for 10 Romans 12 six and Ephesians for seven charisma though is the word, most commonly used for spiritual gifts in general since it is etymologically related to carries our word for grace, many try to read the concept of grace into charisma also. They speak of spiritual gifts as grace gifts and think of them as the result of grace, all the connotations of grace are then read into them, for example, the gifts are not only spiritual but also undeserved they are gifts bestowed at conversion, but cultural says we should be, we should be aware of circular reasoning here. The main point is that charisma like carries itself basically means a gift. So, he's trying to kind of tease out the fact that these, these aren't necessarily tied to conversion.

They're tied to the Holy Spirit. Yeah, I was gonna point out to that I looked in Lu and Nida and that's what they basically said is that the derivative their derivative of Haris and Harisma are derivatives, Harizome to give graciously and generously. I think I'm giving too much of a sound to the kai but I don't know that's, that's what I've heard that the modern Greek is pronounced but I don't know. I don't know about modern Greek.

And I probably don't even have the Erasmian pronunciation down so. So, Michael I'll go you on this next one so certain passages scriptures scripture indicate that the Father participates in the bestowal of spiritual gifts. Romans 12 three, for example, first Corinthians 12 five and first Peter for 11.

And likewise the sun in first Corinthians 12 five Ephesians four seven to 11. So which person of the Trinity is the giver of spiritual gifts. Is this a test question. Yes, it sounds like a test question. I'm gonna go with the spirit for 400.

What is the Holy Spirit. All right. Is that your final answer. Yes, maybe you should phone a friend.

Yeah, I was like you need some help. Let me, let me call red Anson real quick. Give me one second here. It's two hours earlier over there.

What time would that be 1030 1023, it'd be, it'd be 923 that's not too bad. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah, like, why are you calling me you're calling me for this. That would be great. Why don't you just message me. I don't know.

I don't know the answer to this question. All right, Matthew, what do you think. Oh, well I think all the when we read first Corinthians 12 verses seven or 11. It really focuses on the spirit is the one that's the one that's giving you these these gifts, but they're all for the purpose of glorifying God and there's various passages that talk about how every gift from heaven, you know is bestowed upon us by God, you know, whether it's the father or speaking of Christ. So I think, I think we can't really we can't really segregate the persons of the Trinity when it comes to spiritual gifts in terms of their purpose and their, their use I mean it's for the body of Christ because we're in Christ Jesus or edify each other and strengthen each other. And so we can't completely divorce the Spirit from the Son or the Father. So it's kind of all over the working of God in us but I think that's one of the more particular functions of the Spirit is the gifts of the Spirit. Yeah, I think that's right.

So Michael, you don't need to phone a friend I think you're good, good to go there that the Spirit is definitely. That's one of the, one of the roles of the Spirit is to be the bestower of the spiritual gifts. I thought, I thought that the that point is interesting that there are passages that indicate that that kind of all three members of the Trinity are involved in this and it's, you know, it's, it's, it's just interesting to take note of that, and that's true of our salvation as well. You know that that the three members of the Trinity are are fully involved in various ways and have various roles and in our salvation but they are they do have some separation of duties.

So, I wanted to point out to really quickly to that. I've seen, you know, since coming to Christ and believing in the Trinity, you see that everywhere now, you know you see it in creation the creation was a Trinitarian Act. You know the Father, you know, we typically attribute the Father's being the creator and but it's through Jesus that all things are created but we also see the Spirit hovering over the waters. We see the Trinity at work there. We also see the Trinity and the resurrection, talk about you know the Spirit of God that raised him up, raised Jesus up, but Jesus also said you know I lay down my life and I take it up again. And but it also talks about the Father raising Jesus to life. So we see the Trinity working in all of these supernatural acts whether it's creation, or the new creation and Jesus, and also in the operation of the Spirit and the spiritual gifts so I just want to point that out that sometimes as Latter Day Saints I was always trying to figure out okay is this the Father speaking is this one son speaking, you know, which one is it you know I've got to differentiate that whereas like you know it's all just God working in unity, the united divine will.

All right fireflies. That's a wrap on part one of What About the Gifts of the Spirit? Tune in next week for part two. We thank you for tuning into this episode of the Outer Brightness podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Please visit the Outer Brightness podcast page on Facebook. Feel free to send us a message there with comments or questions by clicking send a message at the top of the page, and we would appreciate it if you give the page a like. We also have an outer brightness group on Facebook, where you can join and interact with us and others as we've discussed the podcast, past episodes and suggestions for future episodes, etc. You can also send us an email at outer brightness at gmail.com.

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Learn more about Adams Road by visiting their ministry page at adamsroadministry.com. Stay bright, flyer flies. Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God. The word made fresh, the risen Son. Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. All of this world is in decay, but the word of our God through ages remains. Lord, you promised that we, as your church, would remain upon this rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against us.

Cause you have power to keep your word unspoiled in purity. Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. All of this world is in decay, but the word of our God through ages remains. As the rain falls down from heaven and waters the earth, bringing it life, so the word that goes out from your mouth will not return empty, but does what you desire. Lord, we hear your word and believe in you. Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. All of this world is in decay, but the word of our God through ages remains. The word of God remains.