Spiritual Gifts 101

Spiritual gifts, also called in Christianity charismata (a Greek word, simply meaning 'gift' χαρισματα) are bequests on Christians by the Holy Spirit. Each person has their unique spiritual gift that helps increase the strength of the Church.

It is said that most Christians have these gifts, however in the modern stressful days of today they are simply forgotten. We are living in hectic times, times that don't allow us to focus on the spiritual.

In early Christianity, it was said that some of the most common spiritual gifts were the speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues. Nowadays, we are taught that the Gifts are given to us by the Holy Spirit. There are many religions that are still strongly believe in these gifts, such as the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholics.

Regardless of which religion takes which position, they all agree that there are currently 9 spiritual gifts, and these are knowledge, wisdom, faith, prophecy, healing, miracle working, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues and recognizing the various spirits. These gifts are taken from the Book of first Corinthians. These 9 gifts are mainly categorized in vocal, revelation and power gifts.

The vocal gifts encompass prophecy and the two tongue gifts. The revelations gifts contain the wisdom, knowledge as well as recognizing of spirits, while the power gifts include the rest: healing, faith and performing of miracles.

There are, however, other gifts in addition to these initial 9, such as the gift for craftsmanship, the gifts of teaching, leadership, gift of getting wealth, mercy. From this we can infer that a gift is almost everything that a person can and is capable of doing on his own.

So how do you know which spiritual gift you have? Well, to properly identify your personal gift given by the Holy Spirit, think of what are you always drawn to (and I don't mean computer games here). It is what your true desire leads you to.

For example in my entire career I have worked as a software trainer and co-ordinator. I have noticed early on that I loved helping people, teaching them, explaining things to them. I have also noticed this trait while engaging in various online forums (regardless of the topic of the forum). I am always active, trying to answer people's questions. Same with 'real life'. I like helping people. That is my nature.

It makes me feel good when I see the lights sparkling in the eyes of a person who 'finally got it' after I answered their question with a more indepth explanation.

So ask yourself what is it that really fulfills you in this life. What spiritual activity (take the above 9 gifts, for example) makes you complete. This is where lies your spiritual gift.

There are various tests that you can use to determine what is your gift. Some Protestan churches have developed such tests including up to 130 statements that you need to score based on how you feel that the statement is true.

Once you finish the testing, your scores are scaled from 0 to 3 (0 being never or not at all and 3 being always or much) and the gifts are then appropriately ranked based on your answers. You can find the pdf document of the most popular test by searching on your favorite search engine for "Wagner-Modified Houts Questionnaire".