Digging deeper into "giftings"

Like Alice, I'm finding out just how far this rabbit hole goes.

I've got a lot of feedback from people about the term "giftings" to refer to spiritual gifts. Scott Bothel, a youth minister in Seattle, pointed out that gifting implies a gift we "own":

The only problem i have referring to giftings is if we turn around the sense of a received gift to a possessed gift. Gifting (from an english teacher perspective) can be seen as a verb and the in reference to a past bestowal of gifts. Some of the senses of gifting found in the bible, such as charisma, actually have that sense of residing in or on the believer and then I think it is ok to refer to it as a gifting, somethng that has been bestowed on that person.

Mickey from Drinking Deeply goes the other way, and says gifting is more temporary:

My best guess for why people use the term "giftings" is that they are refering to the active "giving" of the spiritual gifts.

My co-worker and fellow blogger, National, also said "gifting" was probably meant to give credit to God, the Giver of the gift. In the comments section of the previous post, Bipin Sen gave the charismatic Christian's reason for using gifting:

... those who have responded don't seem to have tapped the fundamental charismatic meaning behind using the word "gifting" as opposed to "gift". the main idea is to give credit to the *source* of the gift - the spirit - and to take away the emphasis on the person receiving the gift. hence the verb usage is geared towards recognizing that it is the *spirit* who gives the gift.

Chris Daukas, a pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Phoenix and author of Gospel Musings, reflects my personal view, which is that there is no intended difference on the part of the speaker ... it's just something they picked up somewhere and repeat:

I would typically say "I don't have the gifting for that......" but what I am really saying is I don't have the gift to do that. I think that they are both saying the same thing really.

(By the way, Ps. Chris has an excellent blogseries defending charismatic practice. Check it out.)

Finally, I think I have to credit English teacher, blogger, and fellow believer Judy Callarman for setting the grammatical record straight. Without regard to the possible doctrinal implications of adding -ing to gift, it is just plain bad English. As she wrote on her own blog:

When I responded to “ts,” I said to him that “’Gifting’ is a verb and not even a main verb, actually.” But I suddenly realize that is wrong: “Gift” is a noun. You can’t put the verb ending “-ing” on a noun and use it as a noun. It is certainly not wrong to use an “-ing” verb as a noun, necessarily. We have gerunds in English—words like “swimming” and “reading”—that can be used as either nouns or verbs.

Oh, dear. This is confusing. Any time you try to put a universal rule on the English language, you are in trouble, because it originates from such a mish-mash of a number of languages. And English is always in the flux of change. But . . . I hold that people who write about spiritual gifts should say just that: gifts, and not giftings.

You heard it from the English teacher--"gifting" is not even a proper gerund (a verbal noun). Moreover, most people (including myself), aren't even conscious of why we use gifting rather than gift, which is a word even the King James Version translators deemed fit, as in 1 Corinthians 14:12, "Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church."