EP: 473 The Gifts of the Spirit, Real and Counterfeit with Michael Miller

October 13, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

When Michael Miller was praying for a woman with endometriosis, she started hyperventilating, then released. Two weeks later, she texted him about her menstrual cycle—the pain and blood loss were gone for the first time in her life. She is a doctor. She will not say she is cured, because she knows you need surgery to confirm that. But she has no symptoms. Miller's point is not that every ailment hides a demon. It is that the gifts of the Spirit—healing, prophecy, tongues, discernment—are real, biblical, and routinely counterfeited, and that the only way to tell the difference is to stay anchored in the text and in humility.

What the Gifts Are and Why They Are Controversial

The New Testament lists spiritual gifts in four places: 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4. The most familiar list is the nine gifts in 1 Corinthians 12: healing, prophecy, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, discernment of spirits, faith, working of miracles, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. Paul never defines them in that passage, so you have to extrapolate from surrounding texts. The controversy, Miller argues, is not new. The Corinthian church had every gift but was also the most immature church in the New Testament—people getting drunk at communion, a man sleeping with his stepmother, and believers shouting in tongues without interpretation. Paul's response was not to sh

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What you'll learn

1 (04:41) **Welcome and Setting the Stage** - Michael Miller returns to discuss the gifts of the Spirit, their biblical basis, and the controversies surrounding them.
2 (14:41) **Defining the Gifts: The Nine in 1 Corinthians 12** - A breakdown of the nine spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12, with a focus on how they are often misunderstood.
3 (16:05) **Old vs. New Covenant: The Democratization of the Spirit** - Explains the shift in how the Holy Spirit operates from the Old Testament to the New Testament.
4 (19:50) **The Counterfeit and the Real: Avoiding Syncretism** - Discusses the human tendency to be seduced by "magic" and the need to distinguish between the genuine gifts and counterfeit power.
5 (22:13) **Deep Dive: Prophecy and Word of Knowledge** - A detailed look at the gift of prophecy, including a practical definition and a remarkable real-world example.
6 (35:36) **The Counterfeit Prophecy Problem** - Introduces the dark side of the gifts, where counterfeit and real supernatural power can be confused.
7 (39:58) **The Gift of Healing: Not a Magic Command** - Explains the nature of the gift of healing, using biblical examples to show it is not a power that can be exercised on demand.

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Show Notes

The gifts of the Spirit are real, and so are the fakes. That tension sits at the center of this conversation with returning fan favorite Michael Miller, pastor of Reclamation Church and co-host of Remnant Radio. Prophecy, tongues, healing, discernment of spirits. The modern church mostly ignores them, partly out of fear of looking charismatic and partly because the people shouting the loudest about them are so often the ones abusing them for status, money, and fame. Michael walks Luke and Nate through what Scripture actually says, and why the greatest argument against the gifts is not theology but bad charismatics.
Then he backs it with stories that are hard to explain away. A woman who secretly begged God to have a visiting preacher call her by a fake name, and then heard Michael say it out loud. A man who understood a prayer spoken over him in a language no one in the room knew. Endometriosis and decades of back pain that lifted after a prayer of deliverance. Then it gets personal and practical, especially on Freemasonry. Michael explains why he believes Masonic oaths bind families for generations, cursing descendants from the waist up with conditions that keep surfacing until someone finally breaks them. He names the spirits he says sit behind the lodge, including a syncretic god called Jabulon stitched together from Jehovah, Baal, and Ra, and he walks through the exact prayer he uses to renounce the oaths, reject both the curses and the hidden blessings, and command those spirits out. This is a grounded, honest look at real power, real counterfeits, and how to tell the difference.

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