The Spiritual Gift of Knowledge Defined
to seek to learn as much about the Bible as possible through the gathering of much information and the analyzing of that data
Examples of How Our Gift Mix Can Help Determine Our Best Fit in Ministry
Servant #1: He loved to study God’s Word and ferret out nuggets of truth others often missed. Because of how well he knew the Bible, his church’s leadership assumed he should be teaching a Bible class. He came thoroughly prepared with great content but people had a hard time staying awake or attentive. People found his teaching boring.
Servant #2: He loved to study the Bible as well and also thoroughly prepared, ferreting out nuggets of truth others often missed. He, however, did not come across as scholarly and people were able to track with him as he systematically explained what he had learned in ways the class could understand.
The second servant had both the gift of knowledge and teaching whereas the first servant did not have the gift of teaching.
Lessons to be learned:
When recruiting teachers, don’t just look for someone who knows the Bible well. Look for someone with the potential to effectively present the knowledge they have accumulated. If the person has the gift of knowledge, consider his/her gift mix. Does this person also have the gift of teaching or exhortation?
Someone with the gift of knowledge but not the gifts of teaching or exhortation, would be better suited for doing research for others or for writing. While these servants can be trained to be better communicators, they will still tend to get very detailed or present more content than people can handle. They will tend to struggle with the attention-getting and application parts of the lesson, wanting to get right into and stay focused on the meat of the subject.
Get this example of the spiritual gift of knowledge in use, along with 20 other gifts, in the Ministry Handbook: Spiritual Gifts in Use. In addition, the handbook suggests spiritual gifts most typically used in 16 broad ministry areas and 27 specific tasks that may need to be accomplished in most of those areas.
This definition/explanation doesn’t seem to match the 1 Cor. 12:8 idea of a “word of knowledge” which I’ve always understood to be more along the lines of supernaturally revealed information that a person would not be thought to know if not revealed by the spirit. A biblical example might be Jesus’ knowledge that the woman at the well had had five previous husbands, and wasn’t married to the man she was with at the time. What are your thoughts about this?
Yes, there are differing views of the gift of knowledge. This definition came from a look at the Greek word used in 1 Corinthians 12:8 which is gnosis. That word is defined as “knowledge signifies in general intelligence, understanding” (Thayer’s Lexicon). Whether you look in Strong’s or Vine’s, it is defined as primarily a seeking to know, inquiry, investigation … “the gathering of much information and the analyzing of that data” — even translated as science in addition to knowledge.
Walt, thank you for bringing up the question.
As one with the gift of knowledge, I agree with MinTools. I believe what Walt is describing may fall more into the role of the gift of prophecy. (MinTools, thanks for explaining about 1 Cor. 12;8… I’m going to go study that!)
I’ve also been concerned with the focus on “the word of knowledge” where some interpreters think that this means it is a spoken gift. God has opened up opportunities for me to express the gift of knowledge best through writing, not speaking. If I’m in a discussion in a small group, I’ll share my gift, of course, through speaking, but my main ministry is through blogging and written letters. I hope to explore in the future publishing e-books, too.
Yes, there are many ways and settings for using the gift of knowledge and writing certainly is one of them. May God use it in you to His glory as you share this gift through writing.
i enjoy this teaching i want for next time
Hello, Jonah Philip. I’m glad you find this teaching beneficial. The best way to keep up with it is to subscribe to receive e-mail notice of new posts.