What is the connection with natural talents and the gifts of the Spirit? Two extreme positions have been taken. One believes that spiritual gifts have nothing whatsoever to do with natural talent. You would get that in some charismatic churches, in some fundamentalist churches, and some other branches of evangelical Christianity. They would teach that spiritual gifts are spectacular, supernatural, and other worldly. They are entirely different. They are in a category of their own. They have no relationship to who we were before conversion, to what we were before conversion. According to them, when we become Christians, all things become new. The gifts we now have from the Spirit are in no relationship to who and what we were before we became Christians.
God occasionally does utterly transform a human personality, but it is rare. The apostle Paul, thinking of his Christian life, says in Galatians 1:15,
God set me apart from my mother’s womb.We might be tempted to say,You cannot be serious, Paul.The first twenty or thirty years of your life, you were a persecutor, an unbeliever, the killer of Stephen—surely that has nothing to do with your present Christian life?No,Paul would have said,no, God made me who I was. God sent me to the teachers I sat under. God gave me the experiences I had. In it all God was guiding.Therefore, we cannot say that our spiritual gifts have nothing to do with our talents.The other extreme view is that gifts are identical with talents. In fact, this view holds that spiritual gifts are the talents of converted people. When you become a Christian all your talents now become gifts. Now, this is nearer to the truth, but it is not satisfactory as I think we will see later on.
A more careful model is needed. What I want to say to you here is this: spiritual gifts are transformed talents. It is transformed by the Spirit in three ways. This article will focus on these three simple ways.
Gifts Are Talents Redirected by the Spirit
This is the most important transformation of all. Before we become Christians we are basically selfish, self‑centred in everything we do—including our use of our talents. Whatever talents we have, we use for personal fulfilment: pleasure, making money, building a career, acquiring possessions, getting prestige, and so on. We use our talents for ourselves. We live for ourselves. The things we are good at, we do for ourselves. Even when we genuinely want to help other people—and many non‑believers do want to help other people—we have no idea of helping them out of love for God.
But after conversion, the Holy Spirit changes us and we are no longer selfish or self‑centred. Our model now is: whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. And that is our great goal and our great theme: to please him, to honour him, to serve him, and to do his will. Above all else, that is what we desire: to obey him, to please him, to show how we love him, to serve him, to express our thankfulness to him, and to bring glory and praise to God. As Christians we do what we do out of love for our Saviour who died for us. We serve our fellow men because they are made in God’s image. We have a new focus. We have a new direction. We have a new motivation. In the words of our text:
We serve, in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.If you have a talent for making money or a gift for making money, what is your motivation? Is it for yourself? Then that is just a talent. Is it for God? Then that is a gift. Have you got a talent or a gift? The first clue to help you unravel that is your motivation, your direction, your focus. Are you doing it in obedience to God’s commandments and for his glory?1
Edward Donnelly
15 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace,