Prophecy gifts that are included in the spiritual gifts are, “Word of Knowledge”, “Word of Wisdom”, “Discerning of Spirits” and the “Gifts of Prophecy”.

 

In 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 Paul listed 9 distinct spiritual gifts. Which is

1. Word of Knowledge (Prophetic Gift – Revelation)
2. Word of Wisdom (Prophetic Gift – Revelation)
3. Gift of Faith (Power Gift – create opportunity through Prophetic Gift)
4. Gift of Healings (Power Gift – create opportunity through Prophetic Gift)
5. Gift of Miracles (Power Gift – create opportunity through Prophetic Gift)
6. Gift of Prophecy (Prophetic Gift)
7. Discerning Spirits (Prophetic Gift – Revelation)
8. Speaking in Tongue (Expression Gift – Communication)
9. Interpretation of Tongues (Expression Gift – Communication)

3 of these gifts are considered “Revelatory” in nature

• “Word of Knowledge”, “Word of Wisdom”, “Discerning of Spirits” are gifts of revelation. These gifts are concerned with receiving the truth of God.

and with the  4^th Gift of Prophecy makes up “the prophetic gifts” that is expressing the truth.

 

WORD OF KNOWLEDGE 

 Word of Knowledge can give specific facts about a person, place, or event that information are not obtained through natural means. It could be someone’s name, occupation, birthplace, birthday, or details about their past history.

We can the example of Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman. Jesus never met her, but received word of Knowledge about her life (John 4:1-42) .

When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, she recognized God’s grace on Jesus. Impacted by this encounter, she went forth as an evangelist to her City. The Samaritan woman not only had an encounter with God, but the entire city came to Jesus as a result of this one word of knowledge.

 

WORD OF WISDOM

Word of Wisdom is not as dramatic as word of knowledge, but is more needed when It provides divine insight on what we are supposed to do. It’s a divine revelation of the will, plans or purpose of God for a specific situation.

We can see the example of the word of wisdom operating through Paul, in Act 27, God gave Paul the impression that there will be shipwreck, and an angelic visitation came during the storm and He promised everyone who are on the ship will be protected and advised the sailors not to abandon the boat by escaping first through the lifeboat.

The revelation of the word of wisdom was for the sailors, it was a revelation about what they were supposed to do. This is the essence of  “Word of wisdom”.

 

DISCERNING OF SPIRIT

The word ‘Discern” means “to distinguish between.” The word “spirit” can mean any of the following in Scripture: angels, demons, the human spirit, the Holy Spirit, the anointed, the anointing, the mantles, or the motivating influence of a person.”

Discerning of spirits is the  sharp ability to recognise and distinguish between different types of spirits and anointing. This gifting will help believers warn whether certain word of revelation or dreams is from God, and saves the believers from being deceived by our enemy who could disguise himself as the ‘Angel of Light’.

Here is a precise example from the Bible (1 Kings 22:19-23) ¹⁹ Micaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. ²⁰ And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?’ “One suggested this, and another that. ²¹ Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’ ²² “‘By what means?’ the Lord asked. “‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said. “‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it.’ ²³ “So now the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The Lord has decreed disaster for you.”  

DISCERNING OF THE SPIRIT VS DISCERNMENT

‘Discerning of the spirit’ is different from ‘Discernment’. Discernment is to judge whether it is the right time to do confrontation or say certain words knowing it will help to build or led to destruction. Here is an example from King Jehoshaphat about his discernment from the Bible (1 King 22:1-8)

1 For three years there was no war between Aram and Israel. ² But in the third year Jehoshaphat king of Judah went down to see the king of Israel.³ The king of Israel had said to his officials, “Don’t you know that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us and yet we are doing nothing to retake it from the king of Aram?”

⁴ So he asked Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to fight against Ramoth Gilead?” Jehoshaphat replied to the king of Israel, “I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.” ⁵ But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, “First seek the counsel of the Lord.” ⁶ So the king of Israel brought together the prophets—about four hundred men—and asked them, “Shall I go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?” “Go,” they answered, “for the Lord will give it into the king’s hand.” ⁷ But Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no longer a prophet of the Lord here whom we can inquire of?” ⁸ The king of Israel answered Jehoshaphat, “There is still one prophet through whom we can inquire of the Lord, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad. He is Micaiah son of Imlah.” “The king should not say such a thing,” Jehoshaphat replied.  

Discerning of spirits is important as we grow in our prophetic giftings, the enemy may want to discourage us by imitating the voice of the Holy Spirit, which we called it ‘Hijacking in the prophetic streams’. That is the reason why Paul say “Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.” (1 Corinthians 14:29)

  I think this is a million dollar questions from my readers, 1. How do I know which spiritual gifts I have? You can take a spiritual gifts test by googling spiritual gift test, do the test, after having the result talk to you local church pastor and start serving.   2. Do I have one of the spiritual gifts or some of it or most of it? It depends, as having one or more spiritual gifts would not make us more important than those who have 1 or none. There are other talents that God has given us. You may need to take the time to grow in God’s word and discover your potential in Christ first.   3. How can I participate in the prophetic ministry? Sometimes, certain churches might want you to start from beginners ministries such as ushers, coffee serving, cleaning volunteers, just start from basic volunteers. It is important to get our heart attitude right before going to advance ministries like prophetic ministry, teaching ministry and so on. As above, it is mentioned that you need to have certain level of maturity and self-control before being a minister in the prophetic ministry.   I hope this answered most of your questions about the prophetic gifts. I will be writing another article about the spiritual gifts of the others mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10.