1 Corinthians 12:7-11 gives us a list of spiritual gifts for the lives of believers. The gifts are not narrowly defined, and we want to take a couple days and highlight a couple of them. The first, we will examine in the gift of knowledge (v8). This gift logically precedes the gift of wisdom, because knowledge comes before wisdom, and it is a broad term which refers to perceiving and understanding the truths of God’s Word. God gives certain of His saints a special ability to study His Word and discover the full meaning of the text and context, of individual words and phrases, and of related passages and truths, and thereby help provide understanding for others. The gifted person is supernaturally enabled not only to discover truths from the facts of Scripture but to explain and interpret those truths in order to help others to understand them. We must understand that any word of divine knowledge or wisdom MUST BE BASED ON THE WORD OF GOD! Anything that is contrary to the Bible, or contradicts its truths is spurious, and must not be trusted. It has nothing to do with future events, or predictions, and has only to do with the ability to read, understand and explain the truth of God’s Word. People ask, “Why is church important?” Without the local church we are doomed to understand the scripture with our own limited capacities, even those who are gifted in this area, are not done so for their own edification, but for the edification of the church body. Use your gifts to encourage, enable, and strengthen the body of Christ this week.