SPIRITUAL GIFT OF KNOWLEDGE
Please read the following Spiritual Gift of Knowledge description and then rate yourself on a scale of 1 through 5 both in passion and experience. This is to help you from ignoring a gift God may have for you. For example, you may be high in passion in the gift of “discernment” but as of yet God has not manifested Himself in that way to you. If all you rated was experience you may skip over this very important passion God has given you. Likewise, if you are deeply involved in “mercy” but are more pragmatic and less passionate about it you may be tempted to ignore developing the gift of “mercy” in the way God wants you to.
Rate Your Passion For This Gift
The first rating has to do with your passion for the gift. Are you really motivated to act this way? 1 means that you have no interest in or passion to use the gift. 5 means that the definition describes you very accurately, or that you do have a strong interest/passion in the ability.
Next Rate Your Experience With or Evidence For This Gift
The second rating has to do with your experience/evidence of the gift. Rate your experience with or evidence of the gift.
1 means that you have no experience with or evidence of the gift. 5 means that you have a lot of experience with or evidence of the gift.
SPIRITUAL GIFTS OF KNOWLEDGE
In I Corinthians 12:8 it says, “to another the message of knowledge” (NIV). The Biblical meaning is to “know” something experientially, intuitively and in the present. It is subjective “spiritual” knowledge coming from God, revealed to you through the Holy Spirit where you are impressed cognitively by God. In this case, God impresses upon you a relevant insight or message, that applies to the situation at hand.
This does not imply that you are in a “trance” where you “channel” the voice of God. Instead, we rely on God to speak to us as the result of our experience with Him and His word. It is giving out knowledge that we have experienced. It could be an insight, a summary or a relevant message. A person with this gift has the desire to seek out, investigate and personally experience the meaning of God’s word. Paul uses this same word in Romans 15:14 where he writes, “that you are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another.” You enjoy your time with the Lord and sharing it with others. God seems to speak to you with information and ideas that are insightful and helpful to the church or in ministry and adds to our complete understanding of Christ.
Benefits
God uses people in the church that have the Spirit-given ability to understand, in an exceptional way, the great truths of God’s Word and to make truth relevant to specific situations in the church. This way God is able to speak to the believers in each generation and in each church.
Pitfalls
The Bible warns that knowledge has the ability to “puff up”. We need to be careful of pride, being overbearing, insensitive to other people’s opinions. Paul says if I have knowledge without love that I am nothing!
Ministry Opportunities
The most obvious opportunity is teaching. This could be in the church or in the seminary teaching future teachers. This gift would certainly help someone in leadership. For example, a person with this gift would have a relationship with God that would allow God to impart to him “knowledge, word or insight” that would be used for the edification of the church. A counselor can use the gift to make the word relevant to a person’s life. Also doing seminars, papers, the ability to speak on apologetics, current issues and cults is another ministry opportunity.
Further Training
Spending time in prayer and Bible study, listening to tapes, enrolling in seminary, attending conferences, being mentored and studying are ways to learn more.
RATE YOURSELF ON THE GIFT OF KNOWLEDGE
Passion
Using a scale of 1 – 5, rate whether you have a passion for knowledge.
(1 = Not at all, 5 = Very much so)
Passion Score ______
Experience/Evidence
Using a scale of 1 – 5, rate whether you have had significant experience in learning Spiritual truth or evidence of the gift of knowledge from God.
(1 = Not at all, 5 = Very much so)
Experience/Evidence Score __
How to Rate Your Score
To be more accurate on the Spiritual Gift you need to look both at your passion with the gift and the experience with or evidence of the gift. If your passion is 3 – 5 then it is high. If your passion is 1 – 2 then it is low. It is the same with the experience where you rate evidence of the gift in your life. Is the experience/evidence high (3 – 5) or is it low (1 – 2)?
Plot your scores on the grid
Notice that Experience/Evidence is on the vertical axis and Passion is on the horizontal axis. So an Experience/Evidence score of 3 and a Passion score of 2 and would be in the number 2 quadrant.
Quadrants
Quadrant 1 = High Passion and High Experience/Evidence
A Spiritual Gift that is in this quadrant seems to be one that God has given you. You are passionate about the gift and have experience and evidence in your life that seems to confirm this. Continue to grow in this gift and use it for His glory.
Quadrant 2 = Low Passion and High Experience/Evidence
A Spiritual Gift in this quadrant may indicate that circumstances have called upon you to exhibit this skill or ministry in your life. For example you don’t have to have a high Passion to be merciful to those that are hungry around you. However, your church may have a large feeding program. Just because you are recruited and spend a lot of time doesn’t mean that you have the Gift of Mercy. Rather it simply could mean that you were obedient to God by helping with a need.
Quadrant 3 = High Passion and Low Experience/Evidence
Scoring in this quadrant is common among the Supernatural gifts. Healing, faith, miracles – you may feel really burdened in situations to pray for God’s intervention in mighty ways. You pray believing and trusting that God can and will act. If this is true then you must rate yourself high on Passion. However, though you are passionate in your praying for healing your experience may not be successful. You would rate your experience/evidence score low. However, this does not mean give up. It is just an indicator of your personal experience up to this moment in time. If God moves in your heart you deeply to pray for the supernatural let Him take care of the results. It is better to pray believing and not see the results you anticipated than to be disobedient and not pray. God has given you the gift, He will use it according to His will. Be faithful to the passion He has given you.
Quadrant 4 = Low Passion and Low Experience/Evidence
A score in this quadrant is usually a good indicator that God, up to this point in time, has not birthed in you this Spiritual Gift. This does not mean that in time God may call upon you to work in this area. God can give any gift at any time. He is sovereign.
Now that you have finished this self-assessment, how do you feel about your discovery? Were you surprised or did you find the answer that you expected? Are you intimidated by the significance of the gift and what God may expect from you or are you confident that God has and will continue to use you in this way?
One way to confirm your findings is to ask those Godly people that know you well. Ask them to read the definitions of the gifts that you selected and confirm whether they see this same gift in your life or not. Ask them what they think you need to improve on. Ask them to pray for you that you may have understanding and wisdom in using these gifts.
Another way to grow in your gift is to report to the member of your pastoral staff at church that would be in charge of volunteers in the church. Share with them your discovery and ask them for materials to study and opportunities for service. Perhaps there is someone that they know that could mentor you in this gift.
Finally, seek out others in your church that have the same gift(s). Meet regularly as a group to learn, share stories and pray for each other. As a church, you function as a body of believers. You were given these gifts to help each other. There is no limit to what God could do as you and the others in your church are Spirit-led in the use of these gifts.
What are some ways that you can use your gifts? You can find out more about this in our workbook Wired For Ministry CLICK HERE to preview Wired for Ministry.
Want to know more about Spiritual Gifts? CLICK HERE for a FREE Spiritual Gifts Survey
Using Your Spiritual Gifts 
Ron, I have no doubt that I have the gift of knowledge, however, I am unsure about how to seek to use it. As you said, the obvious application is teaching yet I am very cautious about even volunteering to teach because of what James says about not many of us should seek to be teachers. (One the other hand, the writer to the Hebrews seem to think we should all be teachers after awhile!) Also, I am a woman and I am aware of Paul’s restrictions on women teaching in the church. In the secular world, I am considered a gifted workplace instructor–able to make difficult concepts easy to understand and am experienced in keeping the audience’s attention but, as I said, I am very confused about even volunteering to teach in a spiritual setting because of the words of James and Paul.
I have also been very successful in the corporate world in the area of writing. Can a Christian write using the gift of knowledge without setting oneself up as a “teacher?”
I have recently felt some conviction over not stepping up to use my gift as well as a treasure trove of information and insight gained from years of personal study and the privilege of sitting under various wonderful teachers over the years.
Do you have any thoughts on the direction in which I should proceed?
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Thank you, its a wonderful and informative website.
http://www.hosurlive.com
Peace be with the moderator, as well as those reading this message.( if it is not censored 🙂
The time has come.
I am here to bring judgment to the living and the dead. The harvest is ripe.
Pass this on to all fellow believers.
The Faithful Witness,
Duke
I would suppose I have always had the spiritual gift of knowledge for some years now. Recently, in joining a church last year, the people whom I grew up with were quite surprised with the knowledge of God’s word that came from me.
I have always found it easy to be able to translate the word into a given situation. We were in church one day when this evangelist was in and he told the congregation that He was going to give them the Spirit of the Holy Ghost. I stopped to listen and the Holy Spirit told me that it was not for me. I am assuming that it was because I was already in a relationship with Him and I could hear Him as plain as an English speaking person. The evangelist told us that it would enable them to speak in God’s language, kind of thing. I don’t really understand that but I am assuming He meant in tongues. I had an experience one morning where it felt as though my head had received something like an electric shock type buzz, and a groaning came from my throat that was indiscernable to me and seemed to want to grow in intensity. It lasted just seconds even so I am thinking that God was showing me what it was like to speak in the Spirit as the evangelist told the people to just start making noise that felt comfortable to them and they would get the hang of it. Right or wrong, I don’t know.
I have thoughts of speaking in tongues as I have seen it discussed in various places but this isn’t what this area is about.
I took a lot of the Spiritual Gifts tests and found them quite interesting but I seemed to fall into many of them, some weaker than others.
I feel at the moment that I am going through something like the ‘abomination of desolation’. This came to me when I woke up to-day as I have been asking God how much longer must I go through my test.
Before it started, before I woke up one morning, I heard like a choir singing and I was trying to stay asleep to remember the words, but I do remember: ‘All God’s children must go through this test’ and ‘Meet me there’.
One day, I was told that people would seek me out, but I am unsure of what was meant by that, but I don’t feel that it is a bad thing.
Is the Spiritual Gifts @ Ning gone as I tried going there but there was none?
Thank-you for your guidance. It has helped to answer some of my questions. Still seeking, but God sure is wonderful in the way He answers. (smiles).
God bless you.
Leaders are NOT made! Leaders are NOT born! Leaders are CREATED! Now go out and lead!
Check out The Genesis Principle of Leadership blog: http://genesisprinciple.blogspot.com/
Thinks for what you said!! I appreciate that people still think like that these days;)
I don’t really understand. If a person really has a spiritual gift, wouldn’t God let the person know for sure without having to take these quizzes? Wouldn’t the person realize by experience and not intellectual knowledge? And what if a person takes these quizzes and think he or she has a gift and it turns out he or she doesn’t?
A person either knows they have a gift or not. These quizzes might think someone has the gift and really doesnt
What you read in the blog isn’t really a quiz. It was a definition, examples, where it could be used and how to learn more. At the bottom you can rate yourself on your own understanding. A quiz, which we have as well, doesn’t tell you what you have. It simply lists attributes or behaviors that examplify the Spiritual gift. It you happen to have a lot of them you will score high on that gift. Even then, it is just a suggestion. In the explanation you are encouraged to seek the Lord, other spiritual people you know and use discernment. Gifts are given by God as He wills. You may or may not know you have it. A carnal Christian is barely aware of the Holy Spirit and the word of God, let alone their Spirtual Gift. A person who hasn’t read much on the Spiritual gifts may not know what they have. The goal of most of the quizes and booklets I see are to encourage people to think about Spiritual Gifts and to seek God and the gifts He has for them.
Thease are great to see the different definitions for i dont know alot about them, people have told me i have this and that but iam not sure i know only god can tell me , and i have to clear my mind and listen cause i seem to have alittle of alot of them :0) i quess most christians do..
so when you get messages to tell others and the church ? is that knowledge? or when u see something in someone who needs change and u want to tell them and bring them straight ? or u are given scriptures and are told this will help so and so ? what is that ? christianity ??
At 17yrs. old I was Saved. I was a herion addict starting from the age of 15 and heavily involved in the drug business. God’s annoting was upon me greatly. Being Born Again was truly a REAL experience! My whole reality of life was altered. I began to notice that as I attended church services (4 day a week), all my contact with people changed. Everyone I came in contact with, I was able to clearly understand their non verbal thoughts. It caused me to pay close attention to everyone I came in contact with. All their intimate thoughts were revealed to me (I mean just about everything!). I thought that all human beings were able to communicate in this manner and didn;t consider myself special or different than the average person. So I continued going to church, learning GOD’s word and also going to college. After about 1 year, I began to question if other people had the same experience I was having. I asked my parents if it was normal to know everyone else’s thoughts, and with a bit of hesitiation, they told me YES! Okay, so I went off to college living in the Dorm’s and discovered, that I was not like other people in my life experience. At 21yrs. old, I began to wonder if something was wrong with me and why didn’t other people admit to knowing each others thoughts and why there wern’t any science books devoted to it. God would send people to me that said things that wouldn’t make any logical sense for them to say, but their words began to answer all the questions I had about my gift. The Gift of Knowledge is real my friend!
Amen amen amen!!!!
lists a variety of manifestations that occur when the Holy Spirit is ministering. We have no reason to believe this is an all-inclusive list of manifestations or evidences. Weeping, for instance, is not mentioned. Yet many believers have experienced tears as a manifestation of the Spirit’s work and power. Others may experience a manifestation of “joy unspeakable” and God’s love, but never shed a tear. Rather than demanding a single gift or manifestation as the evidence of the filling of the Holy Spirit, we ought to gratefully embrace all the gifts, manifestations and fruit that the Lord desires to bring into our lives.
We are not talking about simple manifestations of the Spirit, evidences of the Spirit or the filling of the Spirit. This blog is about the Spiritual Gifts that Paul writes about. You are correct that the Spirit moves in us and there many ways that we can respond. What we are writing about are those works of the Spirit that Paul referred to as spiritual gifts. We believe Paul was led by the Spirit of God when he wrote about these specific gifts and we are trying to teach about them.
One time I saw the work of God, and i got a panic attack for saying it is the work of devil, I got sent to the hospital, and i could not move for days, and i had an on going panic attack for like 5 month…
I am afraid to speak, and even afraid to think…
I think that is the gift of knowledge at a full scale…
it took me awhile to get back to normal now i am more function, and more in control, but i still have fear what i say, or think… If i say wrong I can go into a panic attack, even if I think wrong I can spiral into a panic attack. I had to believe it is God, and I had to believe in God if I didn’t i would get panic attack. It took me 3 month to accept it is God, and even today I sometime doubt it is God, and I am still struggling to believe it is God.
Right now I am getting some panic attack that sound like it is the gift of knowledge because God is saying it is i your Lord God believe in me.
I’m much stronger than what I used to be the power of God is powerful, and I am getting used to it when I think wrong I just calm myself down, and I would apologies, or wait till it blow over. It manifest many different way the spirit can grieve, and spirit can do many thing.