What are Spiritual gifts
and how many of them are there?

What are Spiritual gifts and how many of them are there?
What are the fruitful gifts?

Q. What are Spiritual gifts and how many of them are there? What are the "fruitful" gifts?

(Submitted by: D. N. )

A. Beginning with your second question, about fruitful gifts, there is one Scripture that gives a general answer, but more of that later:

" . . . that you may have a walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God." (Colossians 1:10)

This has a connection to the subject of your first question which is broadly covered in many Scriptures.

The first, the most important Spiritual gift is actually available to all truly converted people and it is GRACE:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2:8, See also 2Corinthians 9:14-15; Ephesians 3:7; 4:7.

Because of conversion and grace God uses the individuality of each person to impart some particular gifts, skills or aptitudes (1Corinthians 12:11). They don't have to be great qualities, as humans would view them, but God sees them with the perspective of the Master Builder:

"For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that." (1Corinthians 7:7, See also 1Peter 4:10)

The Spirit of grace (Holy Spirit) should produce what you call fruitful gifts, but the Bible calls them fruits of the Spirit, and are listed in Galatians 5:22-23,

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law."

Notice that LOVE is first on the list. Chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians lists the special spiritual gifts that we'll see later, but first notice what the end of that chapter, verse 31, has to say:

"But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way."

This verse is the introduction to the following chapter, 13, which is the "love chapter". Love, then, is the greatest gift, the result of God's work on a Christian. Without it, as the Scripture says, it is all to no avail.

The fruits of the Spirit, with love at the head of them all, are also labeled the "gift of righteousness," as Romans 5:17 reveals:

"For if by one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ."

Now, the fruits of the Spirit, as they are generally being referred to, are best described in 1Corinthians 12:1, 7-11:

"Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant: But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills."

Romans 12:6-8 also names Spiritual gifts and includes ministry, a word wrongly translated, reflecting the doctrinal opinion of traditional Christianity. The word so translated is the Greek διακονία, or in English diakonia, and, according to the Strong's Concordance number G1248, means attendance, aid or service. It does certainly not mean what the various religious hierarchies would like to make of it, to justify their ecclesiastic, unscriptural system.