Some wise words from St Basil the Great on receiving charisms or spiritual gifts:
it is necessary not to think that the gift of God is acquired with money or through any other device. (Ethics 58.1)
The import of what he says is easily overlooked because of his reference to money. Simony is a decidedly medieval sin – not something we expect to encounter today! But the sting in the tail is ‘or through any other device’. For ‘other device’ read technique, and we have an unmistakably contemporary warning.
It is perhaps not so obvious in Orthodoxy, but certainly in the wider Christian world there is a plethora of writing and teaching about spiritual techniques. The traditional spiritual techniques are re-presented as techniques. Among charismatic circles, there are techniques for receiving ‘the gift of tongues’. And so forth.
But any approach promising that you will become a better, stronger, more mature Christian if only you do X, Y, and Z is simply heretical. It is an invitation to achieve theosis by works rather than grace.
Basil reminds us that charisms are gifts. They are not something we can grasp by our own efforts. They are given by God that we may use them for the benefit of others. Our role is simply to accept them and use them with thanksgiving.
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