1 Corinthians - Week 24

0:00 Good morning. Thank you to Ian and the band. Thank you, Rachel, for that prayer as well. We are in part two of where we started in part one last week in the thought flow of what Paul is talking about here in chapter 14 to this church in Corinth. So we need to get stuck in straight away. A lot to get through this morning. So let's read this passage together. We're beginning at verse 26 and going to the end of the chapter.

0:25 What then shall we say, brothers and sisters, When you come together, each of you has a hymn or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. If anyone speaks in a tongue, two or the most three should speak one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God. Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. And speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn, so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets.

1:10 For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace, as in all the congregations of the Lord's people. Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home, for it's disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. Or did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? If anyone thinks they are a prophet or otherwise gifted by the Spirit, let them acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. But if anyone ignores this, they themselves will be ignored.

1:52 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues, but everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way. Another easy week. With this being part two of last week's part one, I thought it's really important, especially given that it was half term and it is half term, that we, and a few people may have missed this that we go back to last Sunday and just give a little brief overview of what we picked up on last week. We first of all examined the context that Paul was writing into. This church in Corinth where the gift of tongues was regarded as this badge of super spirituality, where my spiritual experience was clearly taking precedence over the building up of and the unity of the church, and where as a result of lots of people speaking in tongues at the same time, their worship gatherings were chaotic. We then spent time building up our understanding of these Holy Spirit-given gifts of tongues and prophecy. And here, hopefully, if we've got a slide, is where we got to after those 25 verses and picking up what Paul was saying, just lifting it off the page. So on the gift of tongues, let's just go back over this.

3:14 Here's what we gleaned so far. It's a gift from the Holy Spirit that is still for the church today. Verse one, it's to be eagerly desired. Verse one, it involves speaking to God, not to others. Verse two, it builds up the individual themselves, not others. Verse four, any person who speaks in tongues should also eagerly desire and pray to be able to interpret what they have said. Verse 13, Paul himself spoke in tongues more than anyone in the church, although not, it appears, in their gatherings. Otherwise, he wouldn't have had to tell them the first place that he spoke in tongues.

3:47 Verse 18. 10,000 uninterpreted words in tongues in a worship gathering are less, according to Paul, than five intelligible ones which build up people in that same gathering. Verse 19. Uninterpreted tongues have the potential to alienate other believers worshiping. Verse 11 and verse 22. And they can also lead unbelievers to think that you have lost your mind. What about prophecy then? What do we draw from this to help us understand that gift?

4:16 Well, again, it's from the Holy Spirit, verse one. Again, it's still for believers today. In fact, to quote our Discover Glen Abbey materials, which a lot of you will have gone through, and it puts it very helpfully. All these gifts remain in God's toolkit to be employed as he determines so that the church may function effectively according to his purposes in the world. Prophecy's part of that toolkit. It's to be especially desired over tongues. Verse one, it involves speaking to others for their strengthening, encouraging, and comfort. Verse three, it builds up the church.

4:51 Verse four, Paul regards it as greater than tongues for this very reason, because of its edifying impact on the church. Verse five, as far as Paul is concerned, let's swap it around, five intelligible words of prophecy are worth more than 10,000 uninterpreted words in a tongue in the worship gathering. Verse 19. Prophecy is for believers in the sense that it unites where tongues have the potential to alienate and divide and builds up in the way that tongues cannot. Verse 22. And then finally, as people exercise this gift in the church, God can use what is said to convict unbelievers of their sin, lay bare the secrets of their heart, and lead them into worship and into faith in Jesus. And then, at the end of last week, we considered some of Paul's overarching principles, and we began to think about how those might apply to us. The first one was pursue love, the central command which sits above everything else.

5:52 Eagerly desire the Holy Spirit and his gifts, especially those that build up the church, including prophecy. Try to excel in those greater gifts. As well as that, strive to give others the opportunity in your gatherings to say amen in what is said and prayed and sung. Strive for clarity and for unity. And then finally, desire and seek the Holy Spirit's work and power in your gatherings so that through prophetic speech unbelievers might be convicted of their sin and exclaim, God is really among you. So if you missed last week, there's a what? Three, four, five minute little overview to catch you right up. That's a good reminder for the rest of us.

6:40 So to this morning then, here's where I plan to go in the time we have left. First of all, I'm gonna go to verses 34 and 35 first. Yes, those ones that I could see, many of you visibly twitched as I read them out. I think it's better to start there and talk about those so you're able to listen to whatever else I am saying. Then we're going to complete our picture here of what Paul has to say about this gift of tongues or languages and talk about how what he says informs our perspective and practice here at Glen Abbey. And then we'll spend most of the time we have focused in on completing our picture of what Paul has to say about the gift of prophecy. And again, lead that into thinking about the use of that specific spiritual gift in our own context here as God's church of Glen Abbey. And then after that, I want to go away and lie in a dark room and take a couple of months off.

7:40 I think it would be a good thing. So let's first consider verses 34 and 35. Women should remain silent in the churches. They're not allowed to speak, but must be in submission as the law says. if they want to inquire about something, they should ask their husbands at home for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. Now, if the apparently plain reading of this text is the correct one, in our service today already, and week in, week out in our services, we are flagrantly disregarding Scripture. So is that the case? Is it just because this is too much of a cultural hot potato for us to handle?

8:26 Or is there more to it than that? Well, I hope if you've been around here for any length of time, that you would know and you would hope too that there would be more to it than that. I also hope that you remember where we were a few weeks ago in 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul spent a number of verses talking about what both men and women should do with their heads when they are praying and prophesying in the gathering. In other words, it's clear from chapter 11 that Paul both expects and welcomes the contribution of women in worship gatherings, which therefore brings a plain reading of what he says here into question. Surely, based on chapter 11, that plain reading doesn't make sense. So the question then becomes, well, if Paul doesn't mean what he appears to say, what does he mean? And I have spent the last couple of weeks looking at a number of biblical scholars' perspective on this, and the only consensus on that question is that they really don't have any idea. There are numerous proposals made on what Paul might mean here, but out of those, there are probably two major ones.

9:45 The first connects Paul's prohibition to the testing of, to the weighing of prophecy that has been spoken in the gathering. And that's something we'll talk about a little bit later on. The second, then, links what Paul says to his overall goal of this part of the letter. His overall goal is to replace chaos with order. It's to replace confusion with clarity. it's to replace discord with unity. And there are suggestions that part of the problem in this church was perhaps that as some men were prophesying, they were being interrupted by or questioned by their wives in a disrespectful way, and that this was adding to the chaos and the strife and the disorder of what was going on in the gathering. But again, each commentator that puts forward a proposal does so with the proviso that they're not really sure.

10:48 And I've got to say the same goes for me. Now, what I think we can say, and what we do know, is this, that whatever the problem was in Corinth, we're not dealing with it here. And as long as love and respect and order and unity and all that we talked about back in chapter 11, and if you missed that and listen to it again and go and study that portion of the letter. If all of those things are present in our context, then we can very carefully, and in this absolutely unusual and exceptional instance, and only because of that other clear biblical material that is available to us, we don't apply the plain reading of that to say that women must remain silent in our context. so that's that one you can discuss that one in your home groups this week now we move then from women to tongues from one straightforward topic to another so is there anything from these verses then as we look at the spiritual gift of tongues that we can add to what we already looked at last week well the first thing to notice here is this there is a shift in what Paul is talking about here in verse 26. With the question, what then shall we say, brothers and sisters? Up to now, he has been building an argument.

12:20 That's what we were looking at last week. He's been laying principles, but now this is him outworking those principles in practical terms in their context. When you come together, he's saying, here is what you need to do differently than what's been going on already. And Paul reiterates then that core principle to them, centered on love, everything must be done so that the church may be built up. If we forget everything else about these three or four weeks, let's remember that. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. And it's this central principle that guides his specific instruction here. Paul's focus is, as I've already said, on bringing order and clarity and intelligibility into their gathering.

13:07 So he limits those speaking in tongues in a gathering to three at the very most, and actually to zero, to none at all, if they're not clear that there's someone with a gift of interpretation in the room. If not, Paul says, the tongue speaker or speakers should keep quiet in the church gathering and instead exercise this gift freely in their own private prayer life at home as he himself obviously chooses to do. And so here in Glen Abbey, based on this principle, based on Paul's own example to pray with both his spirit and with his mind in the gatherings, based on what he says about the five words and the 10,000 words, based on all of this together, our perspective is that we strongly encourage that in the time that we spend together, that everyone speaks in an intelligible way in the language of the listeners so that we all might be able to say amen. And in all discussion and in all debate about this topic, we want the most excellent way of love to be at the center. Again, to quote from our Discover Glen Abbey materials, which I think put it so well and so succinctly. We feel, this is what it says It is vitally important that the principles of love for one another and practical unity in the local church arbitrate in instances where there is disagreement over a matter which is not foundational of the gospel, as I suggested last week. Those who believe they have the gift of tongues should not despise those who do not. That's what was going on in this church in Corinth, and that could be the experience of a number of people here in other contexts.

14:52 And those who do not accept this gift should not judge those who do. we do not attempt to regulate how our members pray in private but like Paul we encourage people to use the language of the listeners in public gatherings so that all can benefit and that unity can be maintained so that's tongues if not in any way nailed down at least hopefully given a clear pastoral framework that you can understand why we do things the way we do things here in Glen Abbey. And if anyone has any further questions on that, I'm always open for somebody buying me lunch. That's fine. You can do that. Invite me out. So from women in the church to tongues, and then thirdly to prophecy. As we turn then to the spiritual gift of prophecy, and this is where we're going to spend the rest of the time that we have, how does Paul add to our understanding through what he says in these very practical and specific verses.

15:56 Well, again, that love-centered, love-driven principle, everything must be done so that the church may be built up, sits at the heart of all that he says. Again, he's concerned with order and understanding. Again, he very practically, very pastorally limits the amount of people who should prophesy in any gathering so that their gatherings don't go on all day. That's one plus of that. He makes it clear too that only one person should be speaking at a given time. And through what he is saying here to this church, we can read between the lines about Corinth's practice, that it seems to have involved people talking over each other. It seems to have involved people interrupting each other and blaming that disorder and that lack of control on the Holy Spirit, saying things along the lines of, you know, I couldn't wait. I just had to speak out because the Spirit was so strong in me.

17:01 But Paul is very clear here with him in verses 29 to 33. That excuse is nonsense, he says. you're perfectly able to wait your turn. You're perfectly able to say nothing at all. In fact, your spirit is under your control. God is not a God of disorder. He's a God of peace. And whatever prophecy is, it is not, and we can add this to that picture, it is not out of control.

17:35 It is not worked up. It is not frenzied in any way. It is not lacking in care or assessment of the situation or circumstances. It does not have to be said right at that moment. It does not subvert the autonomy or the decision-making ability of the person prophesying. It is in line with a God of order. It is in line with the character of Jesus. Calm, ordered, careful, humble,

18:13 I'm motivated by love. What else then can we add to the prophecy, Jake? So, well, verse 29 gives us a crucial piece. Two or three prophets should speak and the others should weigh carefully what is said. So whatever prophecy is, it needs weighed. It needs evaluated. In verse 37 as well, Paul says, If anyone thinks they are a prophet or otherwise gifted by the Spirit, let them acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. In other words, it is clear with Paul that prophecy must come under the authority and does come under the authority in their case of his apostolic authority, of his apostolic commands.

19:03 And then the equivalent, of course, in our case is that prophecy must always come under the authority of scripture of God's infallible written word. In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul makes a similar point. He says this, do not quench the spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt or do not despise prophecies, but test them all. Test them all. Hold on to what is good. reject every kind of evil. And we'll come back to the do not quench the spirit and do not despise prophecies a little bit in a little while.

19:41 But what these verses make very clear here is that the spiritual gift of prophecy is not in any way infallible. New Testament prophecy is not in any way infallible. When someone communicates a prophetic message, what they communicate is not somehow the infallible word of God that must be accepted? If it was, why would Paul say here? And why would Paul say in 1 Thessalonians that it needs weighed, that it needs tested? As Paul says in chapter 13, we know in part and we prophesy in part. New Testament prophecy is absolutely spirit gifted, spirit-inspired, spirit-prompted. But in our fallen humanness,

20:34 we don't see it clearly or perfectly or wholly, and we're not able to communicate it clearly or perfectly or wholly. Whatever is said is a mixed bag of mixed quality. It does not have automatic authority. It does not have to be accepted without question. In fact, it doesn't have to be accepted at all. It can be rejected in part by the hearers, or it can be rejected in full. It needs assessed. It needs weighed.

21:04 It needs tested, and that needs done against a number of key questions. Let me give a few of those to you. Does what is said exalt Jesus as Lord? Does it exalt Jesus as Lord? Secondly, does it line up with Scripture? Does it line up with, does it make sense with the infallible written word of God? Does it build up? Does it strengthen?

21:30 Does it encourage? Does it comfort? Does it make sense in the context of the person or the people being spoken to? And what about the person then speaking? Are they a mature believer with a clear grasp of and a clear commitment to God's word over a long period of time? or are they maybe young and immature in the faith? I'm not saying track record should either mean something should be accepted without question or ruled out without question. I'm just saying that it should matter and that it should form part of the weighing up that takes place.

22:15 All of these things, all of these questions need asked, need brought into the process. And then it also makes good pastoral sense that where an individual or a group is unsure of something that has been said to them prophetically, that they should seek the counsel of other mature believers. Whether that's people known to them, whether that's the elders of the church, whoever, and ask them, what do you think of this? Will you help me test it? Will you help me evaluate it? With the experience and the understanding and the wisdom that you have. So that I can or so that we can truly hold on to what is good. And reject what is not.

23:01 So quite a bit more in these verses to add to our understanding of the gift of prophecy. But ultimately then. What does this all mean for us as Glen Abbey? As God's church right here, right now. As we've been asking week in. week out in this series in our very different context than the context of that first century church in Corinth. How are we to apply what Paul talks about here? And as I've thought about this over the last couple of weeks, I think that there are two very clear missteps that we can make when it comes to this spiritual gift.

23:45 The first is exercising the gift without care, without caution, without boundaries, without questions, with selfishness and recklessness in the pursuit of some sort of self-glorification rather than the glorification of God. It's misuse and it's abuse of this good gift. And sadly, as we know, that sort of thing is far from uncommon. And I'm sure that there are a number of people here who have experienced something of that in the past, and that's part of why they've run a mile in this direction. And I'm sure many of us too have also read accounts of that sort of thing happening. And when we've read that, it has horrified us. That's a clear misstep.

24:50 The opposite misstep, though, is to look at that misuse and look at that abuse and come to the decision that we're just going to avoid anything that might come close to being under the heading of prophecy or even smelling like the prophetic, because it's just too dangerous, it's just too subjective, It's just too open to abuse. But in moving this far, are we not putting our fingers in our ears to what Paul says here to this church? Repeatedly, Paul's saying to them, eagerly desire the greater gifts, eagerly desire those gifts that build up the church, including and especially prophecy. And as I've already mentioned, 1 Thessalonians 5, he's urging them, that church, do not quench the spirit. Do not hold prophecy in contempt. Don't despise it. Often our problem is that we end up thinking the right response to misuse is disuse.

26:01 But surely it's not that. Surely it is proper use of what God has gifted to the church. Proper use of this good, Holy Spirit-given gift. Proper use of this part of God's toolkit for us as his church. Surely that is possible. And surely that is what we should eagerly desire. Surely we can walk a careful yet confident path between these two poles if we work within the framework that Paul makes clear here in these verses, if we take what God's word says here seriously. If our motivation is love for others in response to the love of Jesus for us.

26:52 If our goal is building up the church. If the central question we are all asking is, God help me and guide me in strengthening and comforting and encouraging, instructing others in this body, if God's infallible, revealed, written word is truly our ultimate authority. If specific prophetic messages are indeed recognized as inspired, as prompted by the Holy Spirit, but that equally, they're also recognized as fallible because of the fallibility of the person that the Holy Spirit is working through, And that therefore they need assessed, they must be assessed, they must be weighed, they must be tested. And then if the ingrained culture and ethos of the church is an openness, is an openness that everything that is said by anyone in the church, including those in leadership, maybe especially those in leadership, must be weighed, must be tested, must be assessed against the authority of Scripture, must exalt Jesus as Lord, mustn't be at odds with the gospel of Jesus in any way. And if all of that is welcomed, indeed if all of that is encouraged, and then too if whatever is said under this label of prophecy in a way that is thoughtful and humble and careful and patient and under control.

28:27 If the gift of prophecy is exercised within a framework, within a culture, within an ethos like this, then surely it can be a gift to be eagerly desired in Glen Abbey rather than feared or despised or ignored or avoided. As I close then, let me just give you a couple of very simple examples. A couple of very simple, straightforward examples out of my own experience that I would humbly venture to suggest land somewhere on the spectrum, if you like, of prophecy. Just to earth all this a little bit. To help us begin to think through and start a conversation really of what a healthy, obedient, careful, yet confident path might look like. On a couple of occasions, and I mean this only on a couple of occasions across the last eight years of my time as an elder, I have sensed strongly that the Holy Spirit has inspired me to share specific images linked to specific scriptures with the rest of the eldership team. On those occasions, as I look back, I think it would have been a misstep on my part to ignore very clear sense of prompting. But I also think it would have been a misstep on my part to demand that what I said should be automatically accepted.

30:06 I hope and I pray that I was motivated by love and was eager to build up the church. I hope and I pray that I communicated with humility and with care. I hope and pray my attitude conveyed my understanding that I was fallible, that it was possible that I got something wrong. And then that what I communicated should be carefully weighed and tested by others. I think in retrospect, that seems to be the most obedient path to follow. On another occasion, and some of you will know something of this, a few years ago I again strongly, persistently sensed God's Spirit prompting me to speak specifically to Keith Jackson, one of the other elders, you'll know him well at a very specific time, and communicate to him that sense that he had a particular role to play in what God was going to do through Glen Abbey in the future. And when I summoned up the sufficient courage to have that conversation, it acted then as a clear confirmation to Keith of how God's spirit had been working in him.

31:24 actually mirroring something of my own experience in my story of coming into ministry here. Again, I think it would have been a misstep to ignore that clear prompting and not share that message that God had placed in my heart. But equally, equally, if what I had said had left Keith absolutely cold, or if it hadn't made any sense to him at all, then knowing my fallibility, I would have had no issue in coming to the conclusion that I'd somehow got it wrong. What I said needed assessed, both by Keith and others who could counsel him wisely, and that's what he did, and that's what we did. And the rest is God-ordained history, and we're very, very thankful for that. The spectrum of prophecy stretches well beyond these couple of personal examples. Part of the difficulty is that Paul doesn't seek to define prophecy here in these verses, or so it appears to me. We might find that frustrating.

32:37 Certainly some of the questions I've had between this Sunday and last Sunday would suggest that lots of us find that frustrating, but that's the reality here. From what I can see, he seems far more concerned with safeguarding the gift, with giving this framework, and then with encouraging the church, even this very messy, messed up church in Corinth, to get on with exercising it according to how God has gifted them. Perhaps then, what exactly qualifies as prophecy or not? while it might be an important question perhaps it's not the crucial question that we should be asking perhaps the far more important question that each of us should be asking is something along these lines God by your spirit will you fill me with your love will you lead me and inspire me and empower me to play my part in building up your church according to your goodwill and according to how you have gifted me. Persistently praying that question might lead you into building up the church with a spirit-given gift of teaching, with a spirit-given gift of leading or serving or encouraging or giving or evangelizing or prophesying. humbly, carefully, graciously bringing specific spirit-inspired yet fallible words that will need weighed and tested into the needs of an individual

34:30 or into the needs of a group or into the needs and circumstances of the whole church whether that's in a prayer gathering whether that's in a home group setting whether that's through an act of preaching like this or in some other context, bringing specific words. Sometimes very specific scripture into a specific circumstance. Other times a specific communication of some sort. Spirit inspired yet fallible. Truth is this, this church needs more of that. This church needs more of that, not less.

35:13 We need more strengthening. We need more comfort. We need more encouraging to fix our eyes on Jesus and then keep on fixing our eyes on Jesus. So may we be a church who, inspired by the love of Christ for us, are a body who are pursuing love and who are growing in our eagerness for all of the good gifts that God has for us to be built up. And that includes prophecy and that includes all of the others too. Let's pray together and then we'll respond in praise. Father, this is our prayer.

36:10 Ultimately, we want to walk in obedience to you. We want to walk in obedience to your word. And so we pray that we might be more eager for more of your Holy Spirit. And for more of your good gifts that come through him. As we look out at your local and global church and we see or we hear evidence of misuse or abuse of gifts like this, that does, Father, horrify us, that does break our hearts, and we want no part in that whatsoever. But neither do we want to go to a place where we are quenching your spirit. So we ask that we may be guided by, that we may be governed by your word.

37:20 As we seek to walk a faithful and careful yet confident path in the use of all of the gifts that you haven't given to us by your spirit. Help us to do that. Guide us, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen.