St. Paul and Charismatic Gifts: Discovering, Developing and Living Your Spiritual Endowments

June 2008 to June 2009 was declared by the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI as the year of St. Paul in remembrance of 2000 years of his death. This gave me the opportunity to study the different doctrines of St. Paul as presented in his Epistles. I was really fascinated with his teaching on spiritual gifts and the primacy of love. I therefore decided to bring my reflection together under the title St. Paul and Charismatic Gifts.

The presence of the Holy Spirit in the church accounts for numerous charisms given to provide for the common good of the members of the body of Christ  the Church. Varieties of gifts were endowed on the members of the church so that the various needs of the community are catered for. The diversified charismatic gifts come as a result of division of labour inherent in the creative act of God. God in his wisdom did not create anybody entire and at the same time never made anybody without a bequest. Thus through the operation of the Holy Spirit the human family is divinely fashioned in such a way that no one can say that he or she has nothing to contribute to or accept from the community. Individuals are endowed with operative gifts which enable them to make contribution to the growth of the community and then accept from the society those things they lack. These gifts differ from one another, are interconnected and from a common origin. They are given for the service of one another in the community for the common good of everybody in the community. A clear understanding of what charismatic gift is, shows that no matter how minute a particular gift might be, its absence renders other gifts ineffective and the community, incomplete.

From a critical look at the way people lay emphasis on the particular gift they are endowed with, we can see that individualization takes upper hand. The problem is always the feeling that ones own gift is more important and thus other people and their own gifts should be subjected to my idiosyncracy. Hence instead of handling the particular gift one is given with love so that it becomes beneficial to all, selfishness, egocentrism, personal aggrandizement and self centeredness create incongruity, disagreement, party spirit and dissension. 

Using 1 Cor 12  14 as working reference in this book, we can see that in the local church of Corinth during the time of St. Paul, there was dissension on the pecking order of spiritual gifts. The discord was as a result of the impulse to project individual charisma. Great emphasis was laid on speaking in tongue, healing, prophecy, etc just as it exists in todays church with much influence of Pentecostalism. Paul in his divine wisdom came up with his doctrine of love and admonished the Corinthians to put on love in all they do (1 Cor 13:1-7). In the presence of love there is no need of segregating among the charismatic gifts. Consequently, charismatic gifts seek no gain of themselves rather they search for the good of others. Paul used the analogy of the body to show how interrelated the members of the church are. The whole body is united and works together. None is considered most important and none is without importance. Thus charismatic gift for St. Paul is a call to serve with Christian love.

To encapsulate Pauls message about charisms and their manifestation, we are going to divide this book into five chapters. The first and second chapters will serve as introduction to our main theme. We are going to briefly look at Pauls background, his theology and writings. We are also to explain key concepts such as charism and love since they form our major working concepts. 

In Chapter Three, we are going to have a detailed discussion on the charismatic gifts. We are also going to see Pauls application of the analogy of the body as a paradigm for harmony in the exercise of individual charismatic gifts.

In chapter Four, our work will centre on Pauls theory of love as the key to manifestation of all charismatic gifts. We will begin with his notion of love and flow into the features he assigned to love. Since Paul rounded off his hymn of love with the three abides, we will also see how faith and hope which Paul called enduring gifts are related to love. The chapter will be rounded off with a special input to bring all our ideas together. It is tagged Doing all things in Love: Pauline Exhortation!

Chapter Five brings our journey to a conclusion with a summary of the work, evaluation and conclusion. A bibliographical note is attached for lovers of wisdom who would like to make further inquiry about this book.