Throughout church history, this gift has often been viewed as a teaching gift and connected with being able to understand scriptural truth.
The Catholic Encyclopedia defines it as "the grace of propounding the Faith effectively, of bringing home to the minds and hearts of the listener with Divine persuasiveness, the hidden mysteries and the moral precepts of Christianity". Among
Pentecostal and some
Charismatic Christians, the word of knowledge is often defined as the ability of one person to know what
God is currently doing or intends to do in the life of another person. It can also be defined as knowing the secrets of another person's heart. Through this revelation, it is believed that God encourages the
faith of the believer to receive the healing or comfort that God offers. According to this definition, the word of knowledge is a form of revelation similar to
prophecy or a type of
discernment. ==References==