Who Exercise the Gifts of Healing?
Hi guys. Another week, another Bible study, I’m happy to be here. Today, I will demonstrate, from scriptures, who possess the gifts of healing.
My name is Leroy Daley. Welcome to my channel and on this channel, I teach Bible study that utilizes the word of God to explain themselves.
I use scriptures, which are relevant to explain other scriptures. So here a little, there a little, line upon line, precepts upon precepts. That is the way I teach Bible studies.
This week, we are going to look at the gifts of healing. We have been looking at spiritual gifts over the past weeks. Why is the gifts of healing plural? We start at (1 Corinthians 12).
Paul addressed two groups of church leaders. He started out by focusing on individual administrations of spiritual gifts.
Then he shifted his attention to corporate administrations of spiritual gifts, and specifically, we are dealing with gifts of healing today.
If you are interested in watching the video of this Bible Study, click this link.
What Gifts of Healing Mean?
Apostle Paul desires us to know whom he is speaking about. Many Christians are confused.
They think spiritual gifts are for the pews. Many think they are for the congregation, but they are not.
The Lord does not utilize the congregation to advance his church. He uses his leaders. He did that in the first-century church.
The Lord employed his apostles. Now he continues to do it in this era. He uses leaders, pastors, and teachers and apostles and prophets, to edify the Church.
But everybody has his or her place in the Kingdom of God. But these specific gifts, for want of a better word, are for mature Christians, not babes in Christ who are blown about with every wind of doctrine or every doctrine of wind. No!
How These Three Phrases aid us With Gifts of Healing
So apostle Paul wants us to know who he is addressing in this letter. To aid us to understand this, he employs three phrases, “to every man“, “for to one“, and “to another“.
As a result, he says but the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.
So he’s saying that the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man, note the emphasis, to every man, to profit by it. (1 Corinthians 12:7).
And here “every man” is not speaking about every person in the congregation, but he’s talking about his target audience; every leader.
So he is talking about those in leadership to every leader. In other words, to profit by it.
Secondly, for to one is given by the spirit, the word of wisdom, to another, the word of knowledge by the same spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:8).
Note the emphasis again, to every man, for to one and to another faith by the same spirit to another the gifts of healing by the same spirit (1 Corinthians 12:9).
These clauses indicate to us that he’s not talking about the entire congregation but to individual persons.
In this context, gifts of healing, relate to one leader possessing many gifts to heal.
Gifts of Healing – One Leader!
So its gifts of healing as it relates to one leader, a leader has the gifts of healing, but why is it plural?
Why couldn’t it be gift of healing? We looked at the word of knowledge. We looked at the word of wisdom.
So why is it gifts of healing? Later on, we are going to find out too, that there is, there’s another variation to this phrase, to gifts of healing and we’ll look into the reason for it.
So in this context, gifts of healing relate to one leader, possessing, many gifts to heal.
For example, healing by instruction. You remember when Naaman was leprous and he went to Elijah and Elijah gave his assistant instruction to give to Naaman? Okay.
So it’s healing by instruction, and Naaman was angry, because he said, Oh, I expected that the prophet would come to the door and he would call on his God and I’ll be healed.
The prophet didn’t even budge. He stayed where he was. He just gave his assistant instructions to give to Naaman.
Now Naaman at first didn’t follow those instructions until he was advised to do so, but he was healed because he followed the instructions of the prophet.
Gifts of Healings – Leaders in Christ
Later, Apostle Paul changes focus from looking at individual administration of gifts of healing to the corporate administration of these said gifts.
So let’s skip down to (1Corinthians 12:28) in this verse, we’ll observe a disparity between the scripture we just read in (1Corinthians 12:9).
In this latter verse, it says gifts of healings. One is saying gifts of healing
and the other is saying gifts of healings. Are they speaking about the same subject? Let us dive into it.
Concerning differences of administration, Apostle Paul would not have us ignorant regarding individual leaders and collective leaders of the body of Christ relative to gifts of healing and gifts of healings, respectively.
So Paul wants us, he wants us as Christians to know that he is talking about how one person manifests this gift, relative to how the corporate body of Christ manifests the same gifts.
So in that context, when he speaks about gifts of healing, he is talking about how a pastor manifests that, but when he speaks about gifts of healings, he is talking about how the church, as a body, the body of Christ manifests the same gift.
That’s the distinction there. Observe how Paul strategically hints that his focus has changed from individual leaders to the collective.
The Reason for Pluralizing Gifts of Healings
For he says some instead of one or another, as we looked at earlier. Let’s read:
And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues” (1 Corinthians 12:28).
Because God hath set some in the church, we have gifts of healings, because it’s relating not to one leader or one person, but to a group or to the entire body of Christ all over the world. That’s the reason for pluralizing the gifts of healing.
This scripture itemizes God’s gift to men and to his church, but it has dual significance. It has natural and spiritual importance.
Remember we are dealing with spiritual gifts! So there must be spiritual ramifications.
In the natural sense, gifts of healing is a collection of positions or offices in the church. There are first apostles, second prophets and third teachers, et cetera.
Incomplete List of Spiritual Gifts
We read that earlier. Did you observe that each office uses the plural form, apostles, prophets, teachers? Why?
They refer to all these people in the body of Christ. They are all over the world, they are not in any one country.
However, the list of First Corinthians Twelve verse Twenty-Eight is incomplete. Why do I say this? Because another scripture modifies it (1 Corinthians 12:28).
Remember, it is line upon line, here a little, there a little, precept upon precept.
So that scripture of First Corinthians Twelve verse Twenty-Eight provides a list of the offices in the church, but that list is incomplete.
Now to acquire the full complement of the list of spiritual gifts, let us go to another scripture.
Let’s navigate to (Ephesians 4) and we are going to read from (verse 8 to 12).
“Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men” (Ephesians 4:8).
“(Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?” (Ephesians 4:9).
“He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) (Ephesians 4:10).
“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; (Ephesians 4:11).
Here again, Paul is emphasizing “some“. So we know he is talking about a group, a selection, and not everybody.
“For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:” (Ephesians 4:12).
The Gift of Healing & Other Spiritual Gifts
From this scripture that I just read, we obtained two additional offices or positions in the church, these are “Evangelists”, and “Pastors” notice the pluralization again.
First, it was just teachers, but now, we have pastors and teachers and note the order (1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4:11).
The order is important. And again, please observe that these two take the plural form.
That’s why everybody can’t be prophets and teachers and evangelists.
It’s not even practical that everybody in the church is prophets.
What kind of church would that be? Who would want to listen to anybody? Nobody would want to listen to anybody anyway, because all would be prophets and teachers and evangelists.
All would be so knowledgeable about the word of God that there wouldn’t be any need to listen to anybody.
Then, he gave the reason, for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
The Lord’s Hierarchy of Leaders
Now, we are aware of the other offices in the church, this is the Lord’s hierarchy of leaders in his church. So this is God’s structure for His church.
Apostles, prophets, pastors and teachers, and then evangelists. Man did not do this, this is God’s doing. This is God’s structure.
So don’t let anybody tell you that, Oh, there are no prophets in the church. There are no evangelists in the church. These gifts are placed into the church, by the Lord himself.
On the other hand, in the spiritual sense, these offices represent gifts and people. Jesus ascended, and he gave gifts unto men.
The gifts really are the positions, the apostles, the prophets, and so on, but they are gifts to men and they are people.
So it’s dual. Thus spiritually, apostles are leaders with the gifts of apostles. They occupy the highest or first position in the church.
The Lord started off with apostles.
Who Are Prophets?
Similarly, prophets are born again leaders in the church of Christ, whom God have blessed with the gifts of prophecy, and they are also the second-highest office in God’s church.
Next, we have pastors and teachers. These offices come before evangelists because Paul explicitly lists them as “thirdly”, for such a situation as this. (1Corinthians 12:28).
Paul said, first, you have apostles, then prophets, thirdly teachers. But (Ephesians 4) puts evangelists before teachers, but because he had explicitly said in the structure that the third position is for teachers, we couldn’t put evangelists there.
That’s how I teach. He itemizes it for a reason, for us to know the order. And that’s why the scripture also says pastors and teachers, and it’s done for a reason.
Everything in this word of God has a place and a purpose. Even the slightest exclamation has a purpose.
And if we can just find it out from the mind of God, it will blow our minds away.
So, we have pastors and teachers comprising one office with dual roles. Every pastor possesses both the gift of a pastor and that of a teacher.
However, all teachers are not pastors because some possess only the gift of teaching.
Pastors and Teachers
As a result, all pastors are teachers, but not all teachers are pastors. I mentioned this in a previous Bible study.
The scripture above, explains God’s structure for the leadership of his church.
It explains the gifts he gave to men, to leaders, not to the pew, or to the general congregation.
So people, stop saying this, stop teaching that everybody in the church can, you know, manifest and activate their gifts.
You’ll try to activate it from now until thy kingdom come but you’ll never heal, you’ll never prophesy because it doesn’t work like that. It’s out of place.
So in this context of some and corporate and group, gifts of healings relate to leaders possessing all gifts of healings.
See, in this context, gifts of healings relate to all the leaders in the body of Christ possessing all the gifts of healing.
This means that the body of Christ can heal every sickness and every disease on the face of the earth.
The Power of Gifts of Healing
This is true irrespective of how it was formed, or how it came about, whether it was an accident through a nuclear blast or whatever, or it was created by man in a lab as they say about Corona and herpes and AIDS and …it doesn’t matter what.
A man of God, a Leader in the church of God can cure it, through the power of the Holy Ghost. Don’t let anybody deceive you, believe this word.
So this means that there are no sicknesses or diseases that these God-fearing men and women cannot heal. They can heal all of them.
How do I know this? Because the scripture told me this.
And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease” (Matthew 10:1; Mark 6:7; Luke 9:1).
So in this scripture here, it says he called onto him his twelve disciples, this word disciples, here, translate as apostles or leaders.
See whom God gives the power to heal? Not their entire congregation, his leaders, his twelve apostles.
Does Everybody Have Gifts of Healing?
The headship, they got the spiritual gifts of healing, not the pews. So does everybody have the gift of healing? No, not at all.
Everybody doesn’t have that gift. Recall, I told you that all the spiritual gifts, including gifts of healing, are for leaders in the church and not the pews.
Jesus gave his leaders, or apostles, gifts. He didn’t give them to the entire congregation.
In (Matthew 10:1) we note that he said disciples, and disciples here is synonymous with apostles (Matthew 10:1-2).
Apostle Luke affirms this in the scripture immediately below.
“And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles” (Luke 6:13).
They received spiritual gifts, including gifts of healings.
Conclusion
So let me conclude. In this section of his letter, Apostle Paul is emphasizing a number of things. The gifts of healing relate to one leader.
However, the gifts of healings are relevant to the body of Christ. They pertain to all the leaders in the church.
The Holy Ghost is the giver of the gifts of healing. He gives them to leaders in the church and there are no sicknesses or diseases that these gifts or these leaders cannot cure.
Finally, the operation of all these gifts gives glory to God. That’s the whole purpose, to strengthen us, to edify us, and through our administration of these gifts, using the name of Jesus, we glorify God.
The Bonus
Earlier, I told you that if you stick with me to the end, I’ll give you a bonus.
As promised, how do you know that you have the gift of healing?
It occurs within the church, leaders possess them and when they operate, they always do so in the name of Jesus Christ, they never take credit for healings that they initiate or do.
They always give glory to God by honoring Jesus Christ. Spiritual gifts are not for the pews.
So, a person from the pews wouldn’t manifest spiritual gifts.
For example, say a person is blind, a member of the congregation would not get up and manifest the gifts of healing unless that person sitting there is recognized as a leader in the body of Christ.
Because it’s not the position of sitting on the podium or the rostrum on a chair that designates us as leaders in the church.
What Has God Called You to Do?
It is not, it is knowing the gift and knowing your position and your relationship with God. Has God called you to be a teacher? You would know. Has he called you to be an apostle? You would know.
Has he called you to be an evangelist? You would know. So when you know your place in God, nobody has to tell you what you are, or who you are.
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Thank you for stopping by and thank you for your time. God bless you.
