A Layman's Questions

Why try to gage spiritual gifts like talents and abilities?

There are similarities and differences between talents and spiritual gifts. Both come from God and grow in effectiveness with use but are not the same. Spiritual gifts are given to believers at or after salvation as seen in Ronas 12:6 and 1 Cor 12:1-11. While these gifs given for the good of the body of Christ. We are given talents or other advantages at birth which come from genetics and environment.

This is why I always laugh when churches give out tests like personality tests to find peoples spiritual gifts because while these tests are great at discovering personality and bent but they are irrelevant when diagnosing true gifts. Some gifts such as Teaching might be confused with the talent of teaching even these two are different though complimentary things.

The talent of teaching is honed and based on facts and personality while the gift enables individuals with or without training to connect and convey learning beyond their natural abilities and this is with the more so called lesser giftings or callings. If one is truly gifted prophetically, for instance I know of no test that can determine this!