Spiritual Gifts - Discussion 6 - Healing and Miracles

Exploring God's Supernatural Gifts
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Spiritual Gifts – Discussion 6

Pray

Pray together for the group meeting, and any pressing needs within the group.

Review

Each week you’ll spend some time reviewing the previous week’s lesson. Did anything happen last week that brought the lesson to mind, and what did you learn from it?

Watch

Watch the following discussion-starter video. It’ll set the topic of discussion for the group.

Discussion Questions – Video Recap

Discuss the following from the video introduction:

  • Faith and the Miracle of New Birth Experience
    • What role does faith play in the new birth experience?
    • Is the new birth experience supernatural? Discuss answer(s)
  • Story of the Woman with an issue of Blood
    • What do you think motivated the faith of the woman in the video?
    • What was the result of the faith of this woman?
    • How did Jesus react to this faith? What was significant about his reaction?
    • What was happening leading up to and after the woman receiving her healing (Luke 8)? What impact did this have on the Church?

Gift of Faith

Read, Re-Read, Retell – Acts 27:1-2, 9-11, 14-25

Unpacking questions: 

  1. What were the circumstances which caused Paul to be in this situation? What mission was Paul working to achieve? 
  2. What motivated Paul to speak up prior to the Journey? How was this received?
  3. What message did Paul deliver during the storm? Why did he deliver this message?
  4. What spiritual gifts are on display in this story?

The gift of faith is the supernatural ability to trust God, or to inspire trust in God, for a particular need or circumstance. It often comes in response to a trial or crisis that would overwhelm a person except that God grants special faith to overcome in spite of the circumstances. It may be a situation in which there is apparently no escape, but God gives faith to move a mountain out of the way.

Discussion questions:

  1. How would you define the gift of supernatural faith? 
  2. What is the difference between faith for salvation and as a fruit of the spirit (Gal 5:22) vs supernatural faith as a spiritual gift? 
  3. Have you experienced or witnessed the gift of supernatural faith? What was the situation, result, and impact on the Body of Christ?

Read, Re-Read, Retell – Hebrews 11:1-8, 32-40

Unpacking questions: 

  1. How did the individuals receive the faith as described in this scripture passage?
  2. Was this faith a gift of the Spirit? Why or why not? 
  3. What was the result of the faith described in this reading? 

The gift of faith may operate even when no miraculous deliverance is forthcoming. Stephen was “full of faith and the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5), and he exhibited an incredible faith when he was stoned to death, faith beyond the ordinary ability of humans (Acts 7:54-60).

Gift of Miracles

A miracle is “an event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God”. The working of miracles is the supernatural intervention of God that Transcends the laws of nature in a situation and operates through or with a human vessel

Read, Re-Read, Retell – Acts 28:3-10

Unpacking questions: 

  1. What gift(s) were displayed in this situation?
  2. Is it possible for the gift of Miracles to work without the gift of Faith?
  3. How did the people react to the gift(s) which were displayed?

Read, Re-Read, Retell – Acts 8:5-8 

Unpacking questions: 

  1. What was the impact of the gift of Miracles in this situation?

Discussion questions:

  1. How would you define the gift of supernatural miracles? 
  2. How do we know when a result is a supernatural miracle (as opposed to a natural occurrence which can be rationalized)?
  3. What is the purpose of the gift of supernatural miracles? 
  4. Have you experienced or witnessed the gift of a supernatural miracle?? What was the situation, result, and impact on the Body of Christ?

Some miracles are evident only to those who believe, whereas unbelievers will offer a natural explanation or give credit to luck or coincidence. Other miracles, however, defy all rational explanation. 

As with all spiritual gifts, we should expect the working of miracles, but we must not think we can operate our entire lives by this gift. We should trust God to supply our needs, expecting answers to prayer and the working of miracles, but we should not neglect our daily responsibility to act prudently with the laws of nature, society, and economics. We do not demonstrate faith by inaction but by works – by doing everything we can do and everything we know to do.

Discussion questions:

  1. What can we do to position ourselves to seek the gifts of faith and of healing?
  2. How can these gifts help the Body of Christ today?

Next Week:  Gift(s) of Healing

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