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The Gift of a Word of Knowledge

God is omniscient, knowing all things, even the deepest secrets. And through the gift of a word of knowledge, He shares parts of His knowledge with His sons and daughters. As Sam Storms says, a word of knowledge “pertains to information,” as compared to a word of wisdom, which “pertains to instruction.”

The church has understood the gift of a word of knowledge in at least two distinct ways. In his book Discover Your Spiritual Gifts, Peter Wagner described the first as the ability God gives to a scholar “to discover, accumulate, analyze and clarify information and ideas that are pertinent to the growth and well-being of the Body.” He described the second as “information that God gives by revelation for a certain situation.” Regardless of which kind of knowledge we mean, it is a spiritual gift and is therefore supernaturally derived.

In this devotional, we will focus on the second definition. The revelation of details about a person that could not otherwise be known by the speaker, such as the person’s name, physical circumstances, and hidden needs, provides convincing proof that God wants to bless that person beyond his or her limited expectations.

I had an opportunity to travel around the country of Albania for several weeks, right after Communism was lifted there in 1992, teaching leaders in several cities about the present-day ministry of the Holy Spirit. The territory of Albania overlaps that of ancient Illycrium, a Roman province where Paul preached and actively showed the people the power of the Spirit. We know about Paul’s ministry there from his letter to the Roman church.

One of the cities in Albania where I held meetings is called Shëngjin, which is Albanian for “St. John,” and their tradition holds that Paul once preached there, in addition to Titus and John the Beloved. As it turned out, I was part of the first public meeting in recent history at which the gospel would be preached. Only God could have set things up so well to confirm the truth of the gospel.

There was no church building for our meeting, so we gathered in a fortress-like community building on a cold, rainy February evening. There were maybe a hundred and twenty people packed into the room, all wearing their winter coats because it was as bitterly cold inside the place as it was outside. Except for my Christian interpreter and the friend who came with me, everybody else in the room spoke shqip (pronounced roughly like “shkeep”), which is the Albanian language.

I had been praying specifically for a word from God for these spiritually hungry people who had gone for so long without one. Through my interpreter, I began to preach about how God sets us free from rejection and oppression, and I told a little bit about my background and testimony.

I kept speaking for a while, although I could see I wasn’t getting much of anywhere. Then the name Sarah floated through my mind. That was the second time it had happened that day. Earlier, as I had been preparing myself in prayer for the meeting, the same name had occurred to me. I had put it aside because I felt I was supposed to minister to the whole group, not just to one person; and anyway, I had reasoned, Sarah is not an Albanian name.

But now that the name had been brought to my attention a second time, I had to assume that God had given it to me for a reason. I turned to my interpreter and asked, “What is the name ‘Sarah’ in Albanian?”

“Sabrina,” he said. 

“Is anyone here named Sabrina?” I asked. A youngish lady with a somber expression raised her hand. Everyone seemed to know her. I asked her to step out into the aisle and to come forward, which she did, bundled in her coat. Only then did I start to grasp more of what to say to her. My words were translated for her as I said, “Your name is Sabrina. You have never heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ ever in your life. You are thirty-two years old. You have a tumor in your left breast, and Jesus wants to heal you.”

The woman looked startled at my words, and she began to tremble violently. She knew the words were true. The rest of the people knew it, too, because they knew her. Sabrina gave her heart to Jesus in front of the group, followed by others. Even those who may not have been saved that night definitely had an encounter with the power of the living God. We all forgot about being cold because God’s presence was so intense.

Eventually things settled down, and everyone went home except for my friend, my interpreter, and me. We didn’t have a hotel or a home nearby to go to; we were supposed to travel to the next city, where we were lodging. The security guard escorted us down the hill to the street, where we hoped to be able to hail a taxicab, although cars were scarce in all of Albania, and the roads were terrible. All we could do in the rainy, dark night (no streetlights, either) was to try to thumb a ride.

Amazingly, a car pulled over. It crossed my mind that this was like the incident in the book of Acts where Philip got into the Ethiopian official’s chariot—and God got in, too. (See Acts 8:26–40.) The driver was willing to take us to the next city, so we got into his “chariot,” and our God-sent chauffeur set out, navigating around the potholes in the dark.

I occupied the front passenger seat, with my interpreter and my friend in the back. The interpreter translated for me as I started telling the guy the story of what had just happened at the community center. All of a sudden, the driver was seized with trembling, and it wasn’t because of the bad road; it became clear to me that I was in the middle of another divine appointment. This man turned out to be Sabrina’s husband! He was a Muslim, and he had never heard the gospel before, either. He kept driving, and I kept talking. Before we arrived at our destination, he was saved, too, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

After that, I knew I could make Paul’s words to the Corinthians my own: “My message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Corinthians 2:4). God was doing a mighty work in northern Albania!

You may not hear about that sort of thing happening very frequently in your immediate neighborhood, but it is a fact that the Holy Spirit is demonstrating God’s power through His church much more widely than we realize. The Spirit is at work everywhere in the world, and “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

Purposes of the Gift

The gift of a word of knowledge overlaps with the gifts of healings and workings of miracles, helping to create an atmosphere of faith. It is not necessarily that a word of knowledge heals but that it releases confidence to people that God knows the details of their situation and that He loves them. Faith rises up, and the atmosphere becomes pregnant with expectancy; people feel that almost anything can happen.

Producing Conviction

Words of knowledge also produce conviction. When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well, He confronted her with a word of knowledge about her life that brought her—and many of her neighbors—to the point of conviction. The woman knew for a fact that she was in touch with the God who knows all things, and she wanted to surrender herself to Him. (See John 4:4–40.)

Preparing People for a Future Event

Another purpose of a word of knowledge is to help get someone ready for a future event. For example, toward the end of his life, Paul said, “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me” (Acts 20:22–23 NIV).

Paul was not worried by the Spirit’s repeated warning. Even when he received confirmations and further warnings from the prophet Agabus, he continued resolutely on his way toward Jerusalem. (See Acts 21:10–15.) The word of knowledge prepared his heart and gave him courage. Sometimes a word of knowledge delivers us from a difficult situation, and sometimes it creates faith. Other times, it prepares us for the cost of what is coming; this is the mercy of God.

How to Receive a Word of Knowledge

Most of the time, a word of knowledge comes to us by a quiet impression or sense. We could call this “hearing internally,” or “having a gut feeling.” You just “know that you know,” but not how you know it. Depending on what the Holy Spirit indicates, you might share this sense with others, or you might not.

Such an internal knowing may well be confirmed by a “quickening” of a passage of Scripture, as happens with other kinds of senses from the Spirit. 

One of the most common expressions of this gift is what I would call the “spirit of counsel.” A deposit of a word of knowledge is given when you are writing a letter, counseling, or praying for or about someone. The word is first received and then shared at the instigation of the Holy Spirit, and it provides godly help for the recipient. In such cases, you can see how closely it becomes allied with the gift of a word of wisdom.

How to Operate in the Gift

When a word of knowledge is accurate, it is a wonderful thing. But if you speak something that is not actually a word of knowledge, it can be embarrassing, at the least, if not downright damaging to people. If you feel that God wants you to use this gift, it is important to heed the following important advice: the best way to grow and develop a reliable track record is to submit your words for discernment to someone in spiritual authority over you. This person can help you to confirm, to disconfirm, or to fine-tune the words. It is all-important to respect the other members of the body around you. We all need to walk with each other and to build a history together. Finally, even if a word of knowledge never gets delivered, it can still inform intercessory prayer.