What does the Bible say about spiritual gifts today?

The question of spiritual gifts — particularly whether gifts like tongues, prophecy, and healing are still operative today — is one of the most practically significant debates in the modern church. Christians I deeply respect land on different sides.

The two main positions are continuationism and cessationism.

Cessationists argue that the miraculous sign gifts — tongues, prophecy, healing, miracles — ceased with the death of the apostles and the completion of the New Testament canon. Their argument: these gifts were given to authenticate the apostolic message during the foundational period of the church (Hebrews 2:3-4). Once the foundation was laid and the canon closed, the need for authenticating signs passed. 1 Corinthians 13:10 — "when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away" — is sometimes applied to the completion of Scripture, though this is contested.

Continuationists argue that there is no clear biblical statement that any gift has ceased, and that cessationism reads more into texts like 1 Corinthians 13 than is actually there. They point to Joel 2:28-29 — "your sons and daughters will prophesy" — as a promise for the entire New Covenant era, and note that the New Testament gives no indication that its gift lists are temporary.

What is not in debate: the gifts listed in Romans 12 — teaching, encouraging, serving, giving, leading, showing mercy — are clearly expected to continue, and these are the gifts that build and sustain the church's daily life. Every believer has been given at least one spiritual gift (1 Peter 4:10) and is responsible to use it.

On the contested gifts: I lean continuationist but with significant caution. The charismatic world has produced genuine fruit and genuine excess in equal measure. 1 Corinthians 14 gives careful, ordered guidelines for how gifts like tongues and prophecy operate in the gathered church — guidelines that are often ignored today. Whatever your position, the test of a genuine gift is whether it builds up the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 14:26).