God gives and forms intellectual power. That is what is called in Scripture "the ability." But examine our Lord's parable where He alludes to this very thing, and you will find that He distinguishes between "the gift" and "the ability"-He gave to every man "according to his several ability." God in calling men to serve Him, even before they are converted, fashions the vessel for His purposes. His providence singles out a person from his very birth, and He orders all the circumstances of his life which follows.
You have in Paul a most remarkable natural character, as well as no ordinary training and acquirements. All this was providentially ordered in Saul of Tarsus, but besides, when called by the grace of God, a gift was put into him that he did not possess before, a capacity by the Holy Spirit of laying hold of the truth and of enforcing it on people's souls. God wrought through his natural character, his manner of utterance and his particular style of writing, but everything, though flowing through his natural ability, in this new power of the Holy Spirit communicated to his soul. Thus there are these two things: the ability, which is the vessel of the gift, and the gift itself, which is, under the Lord, the directing energy of the ability. There is no such thing as gift apart from the vessel in which the gift acts. [12]