Big Healing Book - Do We All Have All Nine Spiritual Gifts?

Do We All Have All Nine Spiritual Gifts?

No, no one “has” any gift in the sense that it his personal possession to do with as he sees fit. The gifts operate as the Spirit wills, not as we will (1 Corinthians 12:11).

A better way to put it is that anyone who is Spirit-baptized can be used in any of the nine gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:8-11. Furthermore, that is not a comprehensive catalog of the ways the Holy Spirit could use us – the writer of Hebrews refers to signs, wonders, miracles AND gifts of the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 2:4).

If every Spirit-baptized believer already “had” all nine gifts, Paul would have been wasting his time urging believers to desire spiritual gifts!

1 Corinthians 12:31:
But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet I shew you a more excellent way.

1 Corinthians 14:1:
Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy.

Also, Paul asked rhetorically, “Have all the gifts of healing?” (1 Corinthians 12:30). If we all “had” all nine spiritual gifts, the answer would be Yes, but the answer is clearly No in this verse.

(The verse above is in the context of which giftings God uses people in frequently, and that is the only biblical sense in which someone can “have” a gift.)