|
To listen to audio click
here
To save for later, right click
and ‘Save as…’
1 Corinthians 14
What did you expect this evening as you came
to church? As you walked through
those doors, what were you hoping would happen tonight? Did you have any expectations? Are you prepared for anything to happen
tonight? If so, what? How?
How do you think of these meetings that we have on a Sunday?
I think this chapter will challenge us.
Paul knew what to expect when he went to
church at Corinth. A lot of noise,
a lot of bluster, a lot of different factions and cliques, a lot of
people standing up with impressive and ecstatic spiritual gifts saying
‘look at me’. People speaking over
each other all the time. Some were
getting drunk on communion wine, others were missing out altogether. That was almost the expectation for a
Sunday service at All Souls, Corinth.
It reminds Paul of a noisy orchestra, all
playing something different. Look
at verses 7-8:
7Even in the case of lifeless things that make sounds, such as the
flute or harp, how will anyone know what tune is being played unless
there is a distinction in the notes? 8Again, if the
trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?
The Corinthians were a bit like the noise an
orchestra makes as it’s warming up before a concert. You know how the flutes and clarinets
and running up and down the scales, the strings are lost in a world of
their own sawing away dramatically, the trumpets are giving a fanfare and
the trombone – the most arrogant of instruments just gives the loudest
blast it can. It sounds like chaos
until the conductor taps his lectern, and then they’re off with the
symphony. The Corinthians were
like the chaos, Paul wants them to be the symphony.
And so chapters 11-14 are devoted to their
orderly worship. And verse 1 here gives a good summary of the last three
chapters. Have a look with me:
1Follow the way of love and eagerly desire
spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.
There are three phrases here. And the middle one sums up chapter 12: ‘eagerly
desire spiritual gifts’. This is
how we serve each other and build up the body. Chapter 13 is summarized by the first
phrase: ‘follow the way of love.’ This
is the context in which we exercise our gifts – love. And now in chapter 14, you could
summarize Paul’s teaching with those last five words: Especially the gift
of prophecy.
Much of chapter 14 will be Paul arguing for
why we should prioritize prophecy.
The Corinthians had their own favourite gift – it’s in v2 – the
gift of tongues. Paul wants them
to change their priorities. This
chapter will tell us why we should prioritize prophecy.
Now given that it’s 40 verses, we’re not
going to have time to work through verse by verse. I thought what we could do is to ask
and answer 4 questions you might have as you read this chapter. Now every one of these 4 questions are
controversial, and pretty much all of them have split churches and
denominations at some point or another.
Which, when you think about Paul’s intention in these chapters, is
an absolute travesty. The one
thing Paul wants in these chapters is unity in the body and we take these
chapters as an occasion to split.
But I hope we’ll be mature enough and loving enough to be able to
look at some explosive issues tonight.
Here are the four questions:
What is tongues?
What is prophecy?
What’s the deal with verses 34 and 35?
What’s the big idea?
I know it doesn’t sound very glamourous just
working through 4questions, you might think your concentration will flag
by the end. Something tells me
when we get to question 3 I’ll have your undivided attention. Just a hunch.
What is
tongues?
Do you remember the day of Pentecost? Jesus had ascended to heaven and then
ten days later the Holy Spirit comes in power on the apostles and they
start to preach about Jesus to an international gathering of Jews and
Acts 2:6 says “each one heard them speaking in his own language.” Each of the visitors heard the apostles
speak in their native languages and they exclaimed (Acts 2:11) “We hear
them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues.”
This is a very appropriate gift to show that
the gospel is going out to all nations and it greatly helps the gospel going out to all
nations. Twice more in Acts the
gospel reaches a new people group and there is ‘speaking in tongues’
(10:46; 19:6). Originally
therefore this gift seems to have had a missionary purpose – speaking in
other languages – the word translated tongues is simply the same word as
for languages. And if you have a
supernatural ability to speak another person’s language so that they hear
you in their native tongue, praise God, you have the gift of
tongues. But I also think if you
have an uncanny knack for picking up languages and can therefore put the
gospel in ways that really address people of other languages, that’s a
wonderful missionary gift.
But here’s what seems to be going on in
Corinth. Verse 2:
2For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men
but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his
spirit.
The Corinthians were exercising a gift not of
tongues per se but of a tongue.
Whenever Paul talks about the Corinthians’ gift he uses the
singular. The Corinthians don’t so
much speak languages, as speak in a private language. And they don’t speak so that others
understand, no-one understands them, they utter mysteries with their
spirit. So the Corinthians speak
in a tongue which was for them a private prayer language and verse 4 says
– this gift edifies them. It
doesn’t edify others, other’s are none the wiser. But v14 it’s a way of praying with your
spirit. And people can find that very upbuilding.
But the problem with the Corinthians was that
they were bringing these private gifts into the church meeting and babbling
on. So Paul says, if you exercise
this kind of gift – this tongue – then pray that someone will interpret
it, so everyone else gets the gist.
If that doesn’t happen, keep it to yourself.
So, v13:
13For this reason anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that he
may interpret what he says. 14For if I pray in a
tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. 15So
what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my
mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind. 16If
you are praising God with your spirit, how can one who finds himself
among those who do not understand[e]
say "Amen" to your thanksgiving, since he does not know what
you are saying? 17You may be giving thanks well enough,
but the other man is not edified.
18I thank God that I speak in tongues more
than all of you. 19But in the church I would rather
speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words
in a tongue.
And
then v27:
27If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should
speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. 28If
there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and
speak to himself and God.
Now I know for a fact that within this
congregation there is this Corinthian style private prayer gift. But you’d never know from our public
meetings because they exercise this particular gift, the private gift of
a tongue, biblically.
I’ve been in churches where the bible is not
followed on this. I was once doing
some street evangelism with a Pentecostal church in London and we had a
public prayer meeting before hitting the streets at which non-Christians were
present. The leader said, ‘We’re
going to pray for three things, first we will pray that God leads us to
speak to the right people on the streets.
Everybody ready?’ And then
all of a sudden all the Pentecostals shouted ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus’ and
then the room erupted with tongues.
And for ten minutes everyone prayed simultaneously, in tongues, no
interpretation. And every now and
again I tried to look across to the non-Christians and make eye-contact,
but I think they thought I looked even madder. In front of unbelievers, all at once, no
interpretation. And I’m quite
certain that the guy on my left did not have the gift. He was just saying ‘La, la, la,
la.’ And every now and again he’d
look up to see if he was doing it right.
And then back to ‘La, la, la, la.’
And my heart went out to him, because there he was in the midst of
a church that tells him he’s not really a Spirit-filled Christian unless
he speaks in tongues. So either he
goes ‘La, la, la’ or he’s not a real Christian, what would you do?
This is not pleasing to God. Not everyone has the gift of tongues,
Romans 12:6 makes it very clear that everyone has different gifts. And even if you have the private prayer
gift, you keep it to yourself unless it’s interpreted. The bible’s very clear on this.
But that’s tongues.
What about
prophecy?
Well prophecy is from two greek words – ‘pro’
means ‘before’ and ‘phemi’ means speak.
So a prophet is one who speaks before. It’s a bit like the word proclaim – you
state claims before. You proclaim,
you speak before. And you can hear
in the English that that could mean two things. You could speak before a group of
people. Or you could speak before
events happen. The first kind of
speaking before is proclaiming truth to people. The second kind is proclaiming the
future before it happens.
In the bible future-telling is by far in the
minority to simply proclaiming truth in the here and now. The Old Testament prophets sometimes
predicted what was about to happen.
Mainly though they spoke the word of the LORD into their
contemporary situations. In the
New Testament, prophets seem mainly to speak the word of Christ into
contemporary situations. One
exception is the prophet Agabus who in Acts 11 predicts a famine and in
Acts 21 predicts how Paul is going to get arrested if he goes to
Jerusalem. What’s interesting
about that second prophecy is that even when Agabus warns Paul, Paul
basically says, Interesting. I’m
off to Jerusalem. Even when the
future is told, there’s not a big deal made about it.
So what is prophecy today. I believe you could have an Agabus
today, sure. But if anyone claims
to predict the future and gets it wrong, disregard them immediately – the
bible frowns on that, to say the least. (Deut 18:20-22). But essentially prophecy is
proclamation – pro-clamation –
declaring truth before others for their own upbuilding.
And Paul loves this gift. Look from verse 3:
3But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. 4He
who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the
church. 5I would like every one of you to speak in
tongues,[c]
but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than
one who speaks in tongues,[d]
unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified.
And the whole thrust of this chapter is that
prophecy is to be honoured, encouraged and desired because prophesy.
Now prophecy overlaps a great deal with what
happens from the pulpit. But by no
means is it limited to the pulpit.
You could be prophetic as you encourage one another over a drink,
as you send a letter or even a text message you could be prophetic. Have you ever received Christian words
from someone else that did v3 – they strengthened, encouraged or
comforted you? You’ve received
prophecy. And Paul says eagerly
desire that gift so that you can speak prophetically into others’ lives
too. Do you do that? Do you eagerly desire to be able to
strengthen others in the body – pray for the gift of prophecy. Jesus loves to give this gift to His
church because it builds up His body very much
Now two things about prophecy before we move
on to question 3. The first is,
how do you discern good prophecy from bad?
Well verse 29 is a help: Two or three prophets should speak [in
the Sunday meeting], and the others should weigh carefully what is said.
Prophesies are to be weighed. What do you weigh them against? Look at v37:
37If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him
acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. 38If
he ignores this, he himself will be ignored.
Paul says weigh every prophecy
carefully. But does he encourage
the Corinthians to weigh this letter?
No chance. Paul was aware
that he was writing Scripture, his words are absolutely the LORD’s
command. If anyone tries to weigh
1 Corinthians and say ‘Actually, I’m not so sure that’s the word of the
Lord.’ Paul says ignore them –
they cannot have a true prophetic gift.
The bible is top dog.
Everything gets weighed against the bible.
But second thing to say about the gift of
prophecy before we move on: women have it. That should be beyond question. Women have the gift of prophecy. Back in Acts, on the day of Pentecost,
Peter quoted from Joel chapter 2 where it says:
'In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all
people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
18Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those
days,
and they will prophesy.
In Acts 21, we learn about Philip’s four
daughters all of whom prophesied (v9).
And just flick back to 1 Corinthians 11 for a second. Verse 5: “Every woman who prays or
prophesies with her head uncovered dishonours her head.” Now don’t worry about the head covering
bit, that was a few weeks ago, just notice that Paul expects women to
pray and prophesy and to do so in the public meeting.
Ok?
Now let’s think about question 3?
What about verses 34-35?
Here’s my best stab at it.
Let’s get some context and read from verse
29. Paul’s just spoken about the
tongues situation, here he speaks about the prophecy situation.
29Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh
carefully what is said.
Now Paul is introducing two things here –
speaking and weighing. And I think
the best way to understand these verses is to see verses 30-33 referring
to the speaking of prophecy and verses 34-35 referring to the weighing of
prophecy.
So, v30 (we’re talking about the speaking of
prophecy here)
30And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the
first speaker should stop. 31For you can all prophesy
in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. 32The
spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. 33For
God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
And now I take it Paul is addressing the
weighing of the prophecy:
As in all the congregations of the saints, 34women
should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but
must be in submission, as the Law says. 35If they want
to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home;
for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
We know from 1 Corinthians 11 that women can
speak prophecies but something is being forbidden here. A popular solution is that the final
arbitration for prophecies lies in the hands of men. In the weighing process women should
leave it to men. I think that gets
us a good way towards an answer here.
I’d also note though that the words for women and men are the same
words in greek for wives and husbands.
And that’s worth mentioning.
More often in the New Testament the word that the NIV has
translated women here means wives elsewhere. Some places in the English speaking
world are like this. If you ask my
parents-in-law who I am to Emma, they might say I’m ‘her man’. Man means husband. Woman means wife. And there’s a very good chance that
wives are in view in these verses, not least because of v35, “If they
want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at
home.” I think it makes most sense
to see these verses as something like this:
Men and women can speak in church, but wives
must not speak over or speak against or dismiss the prophecies of their
husbands. Can you imagine a wife
interrupting and saying ‘You talk a good game Mr Preacher Man but you’re
not telling them what you said last night, are you?!’ I have recurring nightmares about Emma
doing that. The Law Paul refers to
could be any number of passages from the Old Testament but most often in
these circumstances Paul goes back to Adam and Eve and says how right
relations between husbands and wives model the gospel to the world.
So that’s my take on these verses. If it’s talking about women in general
it’s about who has the authority at a congregational level to weigh
what’s said in church. And it
means women can do a thousand
things in church including pray and prophesy, but authority lies in male
hands. Or, if it’s talking about
wives particularly, then there are other Scriptures speaking about gender
and church, but this Scripture might not be one about women in general
but wives in particular. There is
submission here, naturally, but it’s the submission of wives to their
husbands. If they’ve got a
problem, don’t interrupt the sermon, ask in the car on the way home. Yeah?
Finally, What’s the big idea?
Why is Paul so concerned for
orderliness? Here’s the heart-beat
of the passage if you ask me:
23So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in
tongues, and some who do not understand[g]
or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your
mind? 24But if an unbeliever or someone who does not
understand[h]comes
in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is
a sinner and will be judged by all, 25and the secrets
of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God,
exclaiming, "God is really among you!"
In the book of Zechariah there’s some
wonderful prophecies about how the LORD will come as a Priest-King called
Jesus and He will build a kind of ideal temple and all the nations will
flock to it. And by the time you
get to Zechariah 8 you have people prophesies about what people will be
saying about this temple.
They say: 'Let us go at once to entreat the
LORD and seek the LORD Almighty. I myself am going.' And as they hurry on up to the temple,
men from all languages and nations will grab a hold of their robes and
say “'Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.'
" Or you could translate it
– God is among you.
That was the hope in Zechariah’s day – King
Jesus would build this ideal temple and all the nations would come
because God is really among them.
Do you remember how Paul described the church
in 1 Corinthians 3?
He said that Jesus Christ is the foundation
and what is built on this foundation?
We are.
16Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's
Spirit lives in you? 17If anyone destroys God's temple,
God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that
temple.
We are the ideal temple. Jesus is our foundation. And God is really among us.
So Paul says, Zechariah 8 is being fulfilled
– people from every language and nation are grabbing Christians by the
robe, going up to the temple – that is church – and when they see the
church body exercising its gifts, building itself up, they will say ‘God
is really among you.’
Now do you see why our church meetings are so
important? We are the body of
Christ. The Temple of the
LORD. God is really among us. We mustn’t be haphazard about how we do
church – let’s build ourselves up – especially as we proclaim Christ to
one another. When we do that,
outsiders will be convicted of sin and worship God.
Some churches are so weird, so foreign to
outsiders that there’s no chance an outsider could understand. Some churches are so bland and worldly no-one’s
ever going to say ‘God is really among you.’ Here’s what we’re aiming for –
understandable yet convicting.
Intelligible to outsiders but tangibly different.
And what does it mean for our own
expectations of church. We should
expect nothing less than an encounter with God.
Is that what you were expecting as you walked
through those doors? Here’s where
the Corinthians can teach us something.
They expected things to happen.
They expected a worshipping event.
They expected God to be among them and to move. Do we expect that? Or are we so used to going through the
motions that we’ve forgotten we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we are
the body of Christ, God is really among us.
Two questions as I close: Do we have expectation as we come to
church? Are we expecting an
encounter with God? The bible and
sermon is to proclaim it to us, songs are to get the truths down into our
hearts, prayer is to speak back to this living God, church family news is
for sharing needs and carrying each other’s burdens. Do we come to church expecting this to
be the case.
Second: Do we believe in participation as we
come to church? I just mentioned
church family news, maybe we need to think more about how we use that
part of the service. Again, the
Corinthians can challenge us here.
From v26 it seems like all the Corinthians came with something - a
prophecy or a song or whatever.
Not that they were always used, but they were ready. Are there ways we can participate more
in our services?
Let’s learn from the Corinthians’ mistakes
about tongues and prophecy. But
let’s also be challenged by the Corinthians’ expectancy and participation.
Back
to sermons...
|
