Ephesians

The Gifted Church — Ephesians 4:7-16

How does your body function? In the body of flesh and bones, there are various kinds of cells—nerve cells, blood cells, skin cells, muscle cells, bone cells, and more, each with a distinct function. In a healthy body, the cells do not get together and vote on which cell does what—they simply function according to their God-given design. In a healthy body, the cells do not revolt or go their own way. When the cells of the body revolt, the result is indigestion or cramps or even cancer. When the brain cells revolt, the result is dementia or insanity. Only when the cells perform their proper function does the body experience true health. The same is true whether we are talking about a human body or the body of Christ, the church.

We easily forget that the church is a body. We have tried to operate the church as an institution, a corporation, a business. But the reality Paul wants us to grasp in Ephesians is that the church is a body, made up of “cells”—and the cells are individual believers, you and I and our other brothers and sisters in Christ. Each cell has a unique role to play in keeping the entire body healthy.

The role of each cell is supernaturally determined. The mysterious secret to the health, vitality, and power of the church is the fact that each cell is individually and uniquely endowed by God to perform a wonderful function in the body. This mysterious endowment of every Christian life is something the Bible calls spiritual gifts.

The Charismata

In Ephesians 4:7-12, Paul unfolds the most profound secret about the source of the church’s power to function effectively in human society: Spiritual gifts have been imparted to each member of the body of Christ.

When Paul begins, “But to each one of us,” he places emphasis on the word each. In the original Greek, the word one is in the emphatic place, at the beginning of the sentence. This is a crucial transition in Paul’s argument. As he moves from a discussion of the unity of the Spirit (Ephesians 4:1-6) to a discussion of the gifts of the Spirit (verses 7-12), Paul makes an emphatic point: There are no exceptions to this universal gift. If you are a Christian, a member of the body of Christ by reason of having received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then you have a spiritual gift.

Each one of us is gifted. It doesn’t matter whether we are old, young, rich, poor, talented, awkward, articulate, quiet, handsome, plain, popular, unknown—you have a spiritual gift. If you exercise your gift, you contribute to the vitality and ministry of the church; if not, you rob the church of a measure of the impact God intended His church to have in the world. So it is important that you exercise your gift.

Paul begins by talking about “grace” that “has been given as Christ apportioned it.” This grace is the gift of the Spirit to each Christian. The English word grace is charis in the original Greek, from which we get the words charisma and charismatic. Unfortunately, many people focus on a single gift, when there are many spiritual gifts, many forms of the Lord’s charis-grace which He has apportioned to us.

The spiritual gifts include all the gifts of the Spirit, beginning with those mentioned here—apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers—as well as other gifts listed elsewhere in Scripture. All of these gifts are rightfully called “charismatic gifts,” because they are given by the grace of God to individuals in the body of Christ as special abilities or capacities to serve Him.¹