Meaning of CHARISMS

Transliteration of the Greek word "Charis", which means "gift, gift, grace, favor, power, office, mission."

They are gifts that, coming from the ascended Christ, Head of the church, are distributed by the Holy Spirit. All believers, having received the anointing of the Spirit (Rev. 1:6; 2 Cor. 1:21; 1 Jn. 2:20, 27), are recipients of the gift(s) of the Spirit (or spiritual gifts). , which are supernatural abilities granted to each believer, in view of the service and function they have within the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:7, 11).

Paul gives an account of a number of these gifts: wisdom, knowledge (1 Cor. 12:8), faith, healings (1 Cor. 12:9), miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues and interpretation (1 Cor. 12:10).

In another sense, people are the gifts to the church (1 Cor. 12:28; cp. Eph. 4:8, 11, 12), and the word used to denote them is "taming"; These are then apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (Eph. 4:11).

These gifts listed in Ephesians are intended to “equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God…” (Eph. . 4:12, 13, etc.).

It is evident that some gifts, like the apostles, are no longer among us; but we are left with his teachings in the Scriptures (cp. Acts 20:32; 2 Pet. 13-15; 3:15-18). What we can be certain of is that, whatever the tasks given, God will give the ability to fulfill them.

We have in the Scriptures four lists of charismas or gifts of the Spirit. Although many deduce from these four catalogs that we do not have the complete list of charismas here, it is good to remember what the apostle Paul says in 2 Tim. 3:16-17, and what was expressed in the previous paragraph.
Regarding the gifts of healings, miracles, prophecy, the gift of tongues, etc., there are two basic positions:

(a) that they are still with us;

(b) that they fulfilled their objective of testimony and accreditation to the new testimony that God was raising up after the closing of the canon of Scripture, and that they no longer operate today.

First we must point out that each and every one of the gifts given by the Spirit are miraculous, and not only those of spectacular external manifestation such as miracles, healings and tongues.

God is sovereign as to what times he gives some or not in a specific way. External and spectacular gifts were given in profusion at the time when the Gospel and the New Covenant were to be accredited (Heb. 2:4), and they were given with external signs never renewed (Acts 2:1-3; 4: 31).

At present he can certainly manifest his power, always according to his will; In fact, most of the gifts (wisdom, science or knowledge, faith, evangelists, helps, liberality) have never stopped being granted.

On the other hand, although God heals certain sick people, either through his servants or directly, it has not been given to anyone, as far as we know, who can heal everyone (which was the characteristic of the gift of Christ and His apostles: cp. Mt. 10:8; Mr. 6:56; Lk. 4:40; 6:19; 9:11; Acts 5:16). See TONGUES (GIFT OF), MIRACLES, HEALING (GIFT OF).

The Corinthian church had received all the gifts, and 1 Corinthians is the only epistle in which external-spectacular gifts are mentioned (1 Cor. 1:7; 12; 14); All this did not prevent the Corinthians from being carnal or their tendency to form sectarian parties.

The essential thing is to be totally submitted to the Lord and to all of His Word, to be able to discern the gift given to each one, and to allow the Lord to use us for the good of the church as a whole.