I like big books I cannot lie.

Mark Driscoll is hilarious.  I could not stop laughing on my drive home when I was listening to his podcasts.  Who would think that the subject of spiritual gifts could be so funny?!  I sure wasn’t expecting to be driving alone at night laughing my head off.  From previous podcasts, I know he uses a lot of humor, but I was still surprised at how funny he made the topic while keeping it relevant and important.  I’m sure part of why I found the comments so funny is because I see myself and others as embodying the characteristics.

For example, he talked about the gift of knowledge and some characteristics of those who have this gift.  Granted, he did touch earlier in the podcast about the difference between spiritual gifts and natural talents and abilities, but I’ll refrain from going into further depth on that subject (listen to the podcast!).  First off, he indicated that this is one of his primary gifts, which also helped the humor.

Definition: “the ability to research, remember and make effective use of a variety of information on a number of diverse subjects”

Evidence:

1. You are an information freak.
2. You can’t wait for the amazon.com guy to show up
3. If you get a book written by a dead guy, you dance a jig
4. If you get a book out of print, you immediately run around to anyone in the vicinity showing them the “out of print” book so they too can stand in awe
5. “I don’t even believe in the rapture, but if it does happen I’m going to grab my books and take them with me”
6. You love footnotes and appendixes
7. You like big books and cannot lie.
8. What do you do on your day off? Study.
9. You love to learn and are not content with surface level knowledge on a topic
10. After reading a book, you think: “I know there are other perspectives….I need to get more books to look at all the perspectives.  I’m going to look at all of them just because I can.”
11. You get frustrated when you hear bad teaching from someone who hasn’t done their homework— example: that’s not what the greek text says
12. You are compelled to do long hours of research so that others can benefit
13. You love when people ask questions and are excited to share your insight
14. You don’t like to be more than arms length away from a book. i.e. You keep books in your car, room, bag, backpack, satchel…basically everywhere
15. Reading and knowledge simply make you happy.

Also, Mark Driscoll described his library. Man, I was drooling… I can’t wait to have a house and a library!!  He explained how he has a 13 foot desk like the Starship Enterprise and is surrounded by books.  The books of course are cataloged in the same way as the Library of Congress and he can search from his computer by date, subject, time, author, ect. Finally, the reminder came that the whole point of study is Jesus.  Driscoll called himself a “google for Christ.”  Zach Hubert used this gift to create (in his spare time!) a whole website to “help make the Greek New Testament more accessible to the beginning Greek student, the Greek scholar, or to anyone who desires to experience the Bible in its original form.”

In terms of text, Driscoll used 1 Corinthians 12:8 and also suggested doing a character study on Solomon, Timothy and Ezra if you are interested in the gift of knowledge.

*Podcast on iTunes: Spiritual Gifts, Part 1

*Zach Hubert’s website= The Resurgence Greek Project