Billy Graham on Continuation of spiritual gifts
Open in principle, cautious in practice
You may have been given a certain gift by God, but it would be a mistake for you to say everyone else should have that same gift.
THE POSITION
The Spirit chooses which gifts each believer receives, and every believer has at least one; but no gift is to be required of everyone (as BGEA quotes The Holy Spirit, 1978). In The Holy Spirit (1978), read in an unofficial excerpt, he says he does not see from Scripture that speaking in tongues is a necessary accompaniment of being filled with the Spirit. Nothing read says the gifts ceased. The cautious half of the stance is in his words; the open half rests on the absence of any cessationist statement in what was read, so the state is a lean. A hand-typed copy of the book's chapter on the sign gifts calls tongues a gift of the Spirit, but it was not checked against print and is not relied on here.
4 There are different gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are different ministries, but the same Lord. 6 There are different ways of working, but the same God works all things in all people. 7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in various tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, who apportions them to each one as He determines.
5 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Evangelist of the citywide crusades from 1947 to 2005, ordained a Southern Baptist minister, founder, with L. Nelson Bell, of Christianity Today (1956) and convener of the 1974 Lausanne Congress. He is generally reckoned to have preached in person to more people than anyone before him and was the public face of postwar evangelicalism. This entry rests on sermon texts dated 1951 to 2005 that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association republishes on the Decision magazine website, his recorded Billy Graham Minutes, his daily devotions, interviews he gave to Time, Christianity Today, Newsweek and Robert Schuller, and the My Answer column that ran under his name. By the standard account the column was written with staff, so cells that rest on it say so.
Cite this page
"Billy Graham on Continuation of spiritual gifts", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/graham/spiritual-gifts (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/graham/spiritual-gifts).