These gifts come to us by means of the Spirit of God. In fact, one of the words that is used for spiritual gifts in the New Testament is pneumatika and it literally means spiritual things. The Greek word pneuma means wind, breath, air, or spirit. A pneumatic tire is a tire that has got breath or wind in it.

So, these things are spiritual gifts. Now, how are gifts related to God the Holy Spirit? Let me suggest two or three ways. First of all, the Spirit implants these gifts in us and develops our capacity to use them. He literally gives them to us. They are not ours intrinsically. God puts gifts in us. He helps us to develop these gifts.

Secondly, the Spirit gives us grace, strength, and guidance to use our gifts in the right way. Let us say you have the spiritual gift of serving or encouraging; God has given you the ability to exhort and encourage other people. When people need you, they are helped and strengthened. They go away uplifted; a burden has been taken off. There are people like that. It does you good to be with them. You feel closer to Christ; you feel a better Christian. Beforehand you are worried and anxious, but after that person has met with you and talked with you, you almost feel a new person. You feel right and get back to live; I can serve God. There are people like that, and that is the wonderful gift of being an encourager. But God guides us as to how to use that gift: what to say, how to say it, when to say it, when to speak, when to keep silence. We need a lot of wisdom.

Or maybe you have the gift of service; you have got a servant heart. You are that sort of person and if something needs to be done, you do it. If there are chairs that need to be stacked, you do it. That is a gift of service. If you have the gift for service it is something you find yourself doing, but God needs to guide us in that, and he guides us by his Holy Spirit. That is true of every gift. That is important.

Sometimes people have a highfalutin idea of spiritual gifts. But according to the New Testament, they can be very earthy, very mundane, very practical. The housewife who put a little notice above her sink reading, Divine service conducted here three times daily. She did not mean that she was having a prayer meeting, she was washing the dishes. When we look at some of the gifts, we see that they are very practical, very down to earth. It is not rhapsodies, ecstasies of devotion all the time. It is very concrete, earthy, physical things. It can be helping, administering, or the congregational treasurer when he sits down and works at his balance. The New Testament says that is a gift of administering finance. That is a spiritual gift. The elders are also administering when they are sitting planning the church calendar for the year. Some men and some women have a gift for administering, others do not have that gift to any large extent.

And all these things are the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We are to seek his guidance and help in using them. They are spiritual gifts. And spiritual does not mean non‑physical; it means given by the Holy Spirit. A spiritual song is not necessarily a song about spiritual things; it might be about plants, animals, the sea, or the mountains. A spiritual song is a song given by the Holy Spirit. A spiritual woman is not a woman who goes about all day with her eyes raised to heaven. A spiritual woman is a woman in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. She may be a Martha; she may be a very practical, down to earth, no‑nonsense type of woman. The Holy Spirit dwells in her and therefore she is a spiritual woman. We have twisted the meaning of the word spiritual. We have brought Greek philosophy into it. We have made it very abstract and highfalutin when we say that these are spiritual things. But God the Holy Spirit is present at every moment of our lives and in everything we do.

Here is the evidence of the Spirit’s presence in the world. Paul calls it here the manifestation of the Spirit. Think of that. If you want to see the Holy Spirit today, where do you need to go to see the Holy Spirit? A lot of people would say, We need excitement, sensation, miracles, tongues, and unusual things; then you know that the Holy Spirit is present. That is not what the New Testament says. The New Testament says the Holy Spirit is manifested—that is Paul’s word—he is made plain as the people of God use their gifts in his service.

John Owen, the great Puritan theologian of the Holy Spirit. described these gifts as the powers of the age to come, empowered by the Spirit. That is why it is vital not to grieve or to quench the Spirit. For when we do, our gifts are damaged, and our gifts become comparatively ineffective. Then he does not help us to use them and he does not guide us in using them. So that the sermons of the preacher who quenches the Holy Spirit suddenly do not convey spiritual blessing to his people; they do not get anything out of them. They may sound the same, but something is missing. Or when the person with the gift of helping quenches the Holy Spirit, people just are not helped; they are not accomplishing anything; they are not bearing fruit.¹

Edward Donnelly