30a - Gifts of the Holy Spirit - Prophecy and Teaching

How should we understand and use specific spiritual gifts, in particular the gifts of prophesy, teaching, healing, and tongues/interpretation? Do you have any of these gifts? How would you know? What are their purpose?

In part 30a of our 34-part theology series, we learn about the first two of these more controversial gifts within Christianity. We will explore the differences between the Old Testament prophets and the gift of prophesy in the New Testament churches. We will also learn about how prophesy and teaching are different from each other and what we can expect from them. The second two, healing and tongues/interpretation, will be discussed in part 30b.

Anyone who reads the Bible on a regular basis has begun to develop a “theology” of who God is and what he has revealed of Himself to man down through history. But is it organized to the point where you can confidently say “this is what the Bible teaches” on a particular topic, or do you just base your beliefs on random verses that could well be misunderstood because they are taken out of context?

My confidence in going out to share the Gospel with strangers comes largely from my study of “Systematic Theology”, which I’ll define as learning what the whole Bible teaches us about a given topic. I’m confident that I’m not misrepresenting God as revealed in his Word, and I’m confident when people make unbiblical claims about God that challenge my own beliefs. I’m increasingly amazed by the consistency of the Bible, written by so many human authors but without contradiction, that I can only conclude it was written by divine inspiration.

I’ve gained so much personally from my systematic study of theology that I’m teaching a 34-week class on it at church, based on Dr. Wayne Grudem’s books “Systematic Theology” and “Bible Theology”. I’m excited to dig deeper personally as I prepare the outlines and lessons, and I want to take as many people along with me on this journey as possible. So I am recording the class and posting the videos to my YouTube channel, and making downloadable PDF chapter outlines and audio recordings available on a Google Drive folder as well.

Care to join me? Links to my YouTube channel and shared resources are as follows:
Video: YouTube.com/c/JeffReiman
Shared Resources folder: https://tinyurl.com/yxy2kb56