When was the last time you saw a miracle, or heard someone speak a prophetic word that truly resonated with your soul?
For many believers, the gifts of the Holy Spirit seem distant, like something out of a Bible story or a fairy tale. But according to Bible teacher Rick Renner, that mindset is not only outdated—it’s unbiblical.
“I grew up in a context where we were told we didn’t need them, and they didn’t even exist anymore,” Renner said in a recent teaching on spiritual gifts. But his tone changes quickly when he begins comparing Scripture: “There are only 23 references in the whole New Testament about water baptism … and not one word of instruction about how to do it.”
On communion, he continues, “There are only 28 references … yet we believe in communion, we practice it with heartfelt faith and commitment.”
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Then comes the clincher: “If you count the verses in the New Testament that address the subject of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, you find that there are 103 verses—four times more than anything about water baptism or communion.”
So why have spiritual gifts been so easily dismissed in modern church circles?
For Renner, it’s a mix of poor theology, tradition and a lack of personal experience. But that personal experience, he says, is where everything changes.
In one service, he shared a word of knowledge about someone’s leg being healed. Later, a woman approached him to say, “I’m the one. I couldn’t move my leg. When you prayed, the power of God hit my leg and I could just move my leg just perfectly.”
These moments are more than emotion—they’re evidence.
Renner points to 1 Corinthians 14:26 where Paul writes, “Let all things be done unto edifying.” He explains, “When all these things are in manifestation in the church, it causes the church to increase spiritually … the gifts of the Holy Spirit really enlarge us spiritually.”
According to Renner, here’s what the gifts do:
- Confirm the reality of Jesus
- Make the gospel tangible
- Bring spiritual maturity
- Enrich the church with knowledge and power
- Foster a partnership between believers and Christ
“When I saw a leg grow for the first time in a meeting, suddenly Jesus the healer stepped off the pages of the Bible and I saw Him,” he said. “It brought to me a revelation—not of a fairy tale in the Bible—but of Jesus the present-day healer.”
He contrasts this with a visit to Russia’s Hermitage Museum during the fall of the Soviet Union. Several paintings depicting Jesus’ miracles were labeled as “fairy tales.” But then he reflected, “That wasn’t really much different than the church I grew up in.”
Renner doesn’t just defend the continuation of spiritual gifts—he connects them to Christian maturity. Quoting 1 Corinthians 1:7-8, he notes the gifts were to continue “waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and goes further: “The gifts of the Holy Spirit are intended to bring us to a greater level of spiritual maturity.”
The argument is simple, yet profound: If God dedicated so much biblical space to spiritual gifts, how can we ignore them?
In Renner’s words, “Let all things be done.”
Let them be done, not for performance, but for the building up of the body of Christ—and for the undeniable revelation of a living Savior still moving among His people.
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James Lasher is staff writer for Charisma Media.
