Final answer:
The spiritual gift of ruling, or administration, refers to the governance role within the church which historically has intersected with secular authority, as religious leaders often held significant influence over both spiritual and temporal matters. Modern traditional authority such as patrimonialism reflects a ruler's control over administration and can influence both secular and religious realms. In Christianity, there has been an ongoing debate on the separation between temporal and spiritual powers, emphasizing that all Christians are part of the spiritual estate.
Step-by-step explanation:
The spiritual gift of ruling (or administration) refers to the ability given by the Holy Spirit to certain members of the church to steer the church community and organize its functions efficiently. In history, this often overlapped with secular authority, where religious leaders like priests, bishops, and popes held significant sway over both spiritual and temporal matters. Priests, serving as full-time religious leaders, managed and administered the church's various functions and held positions of high level within the religious bureaucracy. Similarly, medieval secular rulers, including kings and princes, sometimes challenged the church's authority, desiring control over the churches in their territories, highlighting the interplay between spiritual power and political power.
Modern examples of traditional authority, such as patrimonialism, show a ruler's dominance through personal appointees within the administration and military, indicating that all forms of authority, including spiritual, can be closely tied to the ruler's will. This was evident in the political organization of ancient societies like Egypt, where the Pharaoh's decrees mobilized the entire nation for projects such as pyramid construction.
In the Christian context, the relationship between temporal and spiritual powers has been a subject of intense debate, with reformers arguing for the independence of the spiritual from the secular, emphasizing that all Christians belong to the spiritual estate, differing only in their roles and functions within the church and society.
Corrected question: What is meant by spiritual gift of ruling (or administration)?