God's Purpose for God's Church: Unity

Paul has repeatedly pointed the Corinthians back to the ways of Jesus, the way of the Cross, to remember their calling by God out of darkness and into light.

Most recently we’ve seen in Ch 13 that Paul has called them to a much higher way of living - the way of love, which transcends all their divisions and disputes.

Now, today in Ch 14 Paul returns to the discussion he began in ch 12 regarding spiritual gifts to correct the Corinthians’ over zealous infatuation with the gift of tongues. Unfortunately, 2000 years later the church is still radically divided over this and it is in large part because we have not heeded the guidance of the Apostle Paul.

While Paul laid out the groundwork in Ch 12 that all believers are important and all gifts are important, he also made it clear that not all gifts are treated the same way, just as not all body parts are treated the same way. So while they are all important and all necessary, they have varying levels of importance or application at any given time.

In corporate worship not all gifts are created equal. Not that some are not important but that some are better suited to corporate gatherings and the purpose of corporate gatherings.

It’s similar to saying all of the Bible is important but it is not all equally applicable all the time. There are times when a certain passage or portion of the Bible is more applicable and thus more valuable at a given point of time. I don’t think anyone would read the story of Judas hanging himself to someone who is grieving the suicide of a loved one. That would be insensitive and uncaring - even thought it is Scripture.

Similarly, as we will see, there are times when some gifts are more prominent than others. To use a more visible example, I am currently the prominent person in the room. You see me front and center, you see me on the stream, etc. but the only way anyone can see me on the stream is if the person in the back of the room that you can’t see - unless you’re in the room and turn around - pushes the button to make me show up on the stream. Likewise, they control the sound as well. So, while I may be the most prominent at the moment, they are serving the body alongside me.

Though you may not feel your capillaries are even recognize they are doing their job, you will surely notice if they stop, which is why Brand and Yancey call pain, one of God’s greatest gifts to mankind - it is our fire alarm system.

So when it comes the corporate worship Paul has already corrected the Corinthians regarding their mistreatment of each other, their selfish attitudes, their abuse and dishonor of Christ in the Lord’s Supper and now in Ch14 he continues his rebuke, chastening the Corinthians for making members feel like outsiders, for making outsiders feel like they’re attending a circus and for distorting the message and meaning of the cross of Christ.

So what is the purpose of corporate gatherings?

We can quote a well known passage from Hebrews

Hebrews 10:24–25 CSB

24 And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, 25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

But we can just as easily learn the purpose of why we gather together from a cursory look at 1 Cor 14, our preaching portion for today. In fact as we read the passage this morning you should hear certain words repeated frequently.

We could look at Acts 2.42-47 as well, but since we’re studying 1 Corinthians, which was written before either of those books, let’s just look at what Paul wrote there.

1 Corinthians 14:1–19 CSB

1 Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy. 2 For the person who speaks in a tongue is not speaking to people but to God, since no one understands him; he speaks mysteries in the Spirit. 3 On the other hand, the person who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouragement, and consolation. 4 The person who speaks in a tongue builds himself up, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. 5 I wish all of you spoke in tongues, but even more that you prophesied. The person who prophesies is greater than the person who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets so that the church may be built up. 6 So now, brothers and sisters, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I speak to you with a revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? 7 Even lifeless instruments that produce sounds—whether flute or harp—if they don’t make a distinction in the notes, how will what is played on the flute or harp be recognized? 8 In fact, if the bugle makes an unclear sound, who will prepare for battle? 9 In the same way, unless you use your tongue for intelligible speech, how will what is spoken be known? For you will be speaking into the air. 10 There are doubtless many different kinds of languages in the world, none is without meaning. 11 Therefore, if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker will be a foreigner to me. 12 So also you—since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, seek to excel in building up the church. 13 Therefore the person who speaks in a tongue should pray that he can interpret. 14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. 15 What then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with my understanding. I will sing praise with the spirit, and I will also sing praise with my understanding. 16 Otherwise, if you praise with the spirit, how will the outsider say “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not know what you are saying? 17 For you may very well be giving thanks, but the other person is not being built up. 18 I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you; 19 yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, in order to teach others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue.

Hopefully as we read the first 19 verses of 1 Cor 14 you heard the word build or build up repeated numerous times. This morning I want to ask you a question? Are you actively working to build up God’s Church or are you working, purposely or not, to blow up God’s Church?

That’s right, I want you to draw a line in the sand and ask yourself if you are helping to build God’s church or blow it up.

When Paul use to be Saul, he was actively trying to blow up God’s church. He was persecuting the followers of Jesus, throwing them in prison, having them killed. he was there when Stephen, the first Christian martyr was stoned to death in Acts 7. But God…But God was actively building up his own church as well and so as we talked about many weeks ago, God called Saul and turned him into Paul and transformed him from someone that was blowing up the church to someone that was building up the church.

And for everyone of you that God has called into his church according to 1 Cor 1.1-9, he has called you to be an active part in building up his church as well.

Unfortunately, the Corinthians fell prey to the sins of their culture and the sinfulness of their own hearts and were sabotaging the very thing that God called them into. They were literally sabotaging their own home, if you will.

As Paul has just come out of Ch 13, the great love chapter, trying to show the Corinthians a better way of doing life, he now picks back up with one of the issues they were dividing over - the gifts God had given them. Like immature children debating who has the better toy that their Father had given them and refusing to play with each other because they thought their own toy was better, the childish Corinthians are short-circuiting the plan of God for their own lives and that of God’s church in general.

Paul’s first point is that

Prophecy is Preferable

The Corinthians had become super focused on speaking in tongues and had elevated that to an unnatural level, claiming spiritual superiority - something they had a habit of doing with many things they had been given by God!

Unfortunately, this is still very common today. When God saved me in 1993 as a freshman in college I was soon thereafter caught in the midst of debates between different groups of Christians on campus and much of it revolved around assurance of salvation and gifts of the spirit, specifically speaking in tongues. A few years later when I moved to Missouri to attend Bible College and Seminary this happened again - the same controversy.

In modern debates the issue of tongues is often tied up with assurance of salvation but Paul says the way of love is to focus on gifts that build up the body. That’s the main focus here - build up the body.

And because that’s the main goal - tongues takes a back seat to prophecy and other gifts because tongues, in and of itself can’t build up the body because it’s not understandable. Look again at 1 Cor 14.3-4

1 Corinthians 14:3–4 CSB

3 On the other hand, the person who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouragement, and consolation. 4 The person who speaks in a tongue builds himself up, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.

The goal of prophecy is not to tell the future. The goal of prophecy is to proclaim the good news and good works of God himself. It is to be a spokesman for God. There is debate about most, if not all the verses in the chapter and there is not enough time in a week to get through them all.

Our goal here this morning is to focus on the main point so that you can meditate on what God wants you to do this week as it regards his church.

Whatever you think prophecy is or isn’t - at a minimum it involves proclaiming the truth of God’s word. At times God gave people very specific messages to proclaim. We have many of these recorded in the books of the Bible we call Prophets, in the OT.

At other times people have regularly proclaimed God’s truth in a culture that disagreed and this was prophetic by its very nature.

As I stand here this morning proclaiming God’s truth it is prophetic in that sense as well. It is debated, in the context of 1 Cor 14 as to whether or not Paul was referring to just preaching or more impromptu inspired speech from the Holy Spirit. Some of this debate is because of the difficulty of translating Paul’s words. Some of it is because we don’t know exactly what was going on in Corinth. Some of the difficulty is due to our own preconceived ideas of words and their meaning - which often were understood differently 2,000 years ago.

Because of these uncertainties, we want to refrain from being dogmatic about things that are in question yet be clear that the Bible’s main point is not in question and here Paul’s point is that your chaotic church meetings with unintelligible noises is not building up the church. The only way tongues has a benefit to the church corporately is if it is translated - without this Paul says don’t bother with it - keep it at home.

At least seven times Paul refers to building up the church.

In 1 Cor 14.16 Paul says people can’t even agree with you (say Amen) if you’re speaking in tongues because they have no idea what you’re saying.

In 1 Cor 14.6-12 Paul lays out several examples to reiterate the same point - tongues without interpretation is like a trumpet that can’t play any distinct notes - no song, no melody, just noise. Tongues without interpretation is as good as nothing - no use of even speaking.

In fact, in addition to the repeated use of ‘build up’ Paul also uses the word speak or speaking at least 20 times in this chapter. Paul is laser focused on the speaking going on in the church and its impact and effect on the body of christ and on outsiders that may visit.

In fact regarding the outsiders Paul will say they will think you are all out of your minds - which is the opposite of what you want them to think when they see you gather to worship. You want them instead to see you proclaiming the plan of God. Look with me at the next section starting in vs 20.

Proclaim the Plan of God

1 Corinthians 14:20–25 CSB

20 Brothers and sisters, don’t be childish in your thinking, but be infants in regard to evil and adult in your thinking. 21 It is written in the law, I will speak to this people by people of other tongues and by the lips of foreigners, and even then, they will not listen to me, says the Lord. 22 Speaking in tongues, then, is intended as a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is not for unbelievers but for believers. 23 If, therefore, the whole church assembles together and all are speaking in tongues and people who are outsiders or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your minds? 24 But if all are prophesying and some unbeliever or outsider comes in, he is convicted by all and is called to account by all. 25 The secrets of his heart will be revealed, and as a result he will fall facedown and worship God, proclaiming, “God is really among you.”

Now here Paul becomes concerned not just with the impact of these divisions on the Corinthian Church but as I’ve mentioned before Paul has a bigger picture in mind - the whole plan of God and God’s desire to see all the nations saved - that’s why it matters what we do - they’re watching.

Paul says that when people visit a church service they should hear the word of God, some some chaos. They should be able to convicted by the proclaiming of the Good News of Jesus Christ and come to salvation. In fact, next week when we get to the high point of the entire letter, Ch 15 Paul will lay out the foundation of the entire Christian life and the importance of the message of the Cross of Christ as the central component of the church’s message.

In this chapter, as he anticipates heading there, he wants to pave the way by arguing for the need for the message to be understood by all. This is the very concern William Tyndale had when he set out to translate the Bible into English. He wanted everyone everywhere to be able to read AND understand what they read. For his efforts he was killed - but for his efforts we have Bibles in our own language today. Like a seed, Tyndale had to be willing to first die, in order to see the fruit of his labor and sacrifice for His God.

Paul is saying that the message of the Cross, that the work of God in Christ, is too important to be hidden, and too significant for us int he church to diminish it by letting other things or even gifts of God take priority.

As Paul unpacks his argument he quotes from the OT to illustrate how God had both judged Israel for not listening to the prophets he had sent them and to show how they had become strangers and aliens in a foreign land under a language they did not understand.

Part of what Paul is saying is that when someone speaks in tongues without interpreting it makes both believers and visitors feel like outsiders.

Regarding believers, they should never be made to feel this way because as Paul already explained in Ch 12 we are all part of the same family of God. And for visitors, our goal is for them to join the family so making them feel like an outsider is not going to accomplish that.

Instead of building others up, the Corinthians were pushing people away. Like the person that’s so focused on their own needs they don’t think about others and because of their actions they push away the very people that could have helped them.

1 Corinthians 14:21 “21 It is written in the law, I will speak to this people by people of other tongues and by the lips of foreigners, and even then, they will not listen to me, says the Lord.”

The First Epistle to the Corinthians iv. Maturity as Love for the Other: Gospel and Home for Believers and Outsiders (14:20–25)

Ronald Clements explains the situation which Isaiah addressed. “Isaiah found himself in conflict with certain priests and prophets of Jerusalem”: their self-indulgence in festivities and drink had confused their speech and their thinking, and led them to mock the serious declarations of Isaiah about divine action.210 “Isaiah turns back their mockeries on their own head by warning of the way God himself will punish them (v. 11) … [with] the coming of the Assyrians.”211 “Whom will he teach knowledge?” (28:9) alludes to Isaiah’s wasting his time because the scoffers are too drunk, confused, and self-confident to care. The Hebrew of 28:10 suggests “onomatopoeic … representation of the din made by the revellers” who found Isaiah’s rebuke “foolish and childish,” while in 28:11 “the reference is clearly to the harsh-sounding Assyrian language which … ‘this people’ would soon be hearing.… [These foreigners] would soon be teaching them a lesson.…”212 Bruce, Kistemaker, Allo, and Schrage paint a similar background.213

The First Epistle to the Corinthians iv. Maturity as Love for the Other: Gospel and Home for Believers and Outsiders (14:20–25)

This misses the subtlety of Paul’s dual point: (i) tongue-speaking in public worship is inappropriate in the first place because it places many of God’s own people in the situation of feeling like foreigners in a foreign land and “not at home” in their own home; (ii) second, tongue-speaking, contrary to some mistaken assumptions about “spirituality” in Hellenism, will not bring the message of the gospel of Christ home to unbelievers. The cross is more than “religion” or “religious phenomena.”

So, if through Paul’s sometimes lengthy argument you lose focus, he makes the point for you in vs. 26

Purposely Promote Orderliness (Shalom)

1 Corinthians 14:26–40 CSB

26 What then, brothers and sisters? Whenever you come together, each one has a hymn, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Everything is to be done for building up. 27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, there are to be only two, or at the most three, each in turn, and let someone interpret. 28 But if there is no interpreter, that person is to keep silent in the church and speak to himself and God. 29 Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should evaluate. 30 But if something has been revealed to another person sitting there, the first prophet should be silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that everyone may learn and everyone may be encouraged. 32 And the prophets’ spirits are subject to the prophets, 33 since God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but are to submit themselves, as the law also says. 35 If they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home, since it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. 36 Or did the word of God originate from you, or did it come to you only? 37 If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, he should recognize that what I write to you is the Lord’s command. 38 If anyone ignores this, he will be ignored. 39 So then, my brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. 40 But everything is to be done decently and in order.

So now Paul moves from why Prophecy or Proclaiming God’s Truth is better than Tongues to why the whole church service needs to be re-evaluated.

Here, Paul is concerned with orderliness rather than Chaos. As is normally the case, Paul makes several assertions that are difficult for us modern readers to understand and appreciate so we will try to stick to the main point again.

The constant refrain of building up each other and in particularly using our speaking in corporate services to build each other up brings Paul to a point of curtailing various aspects of the Corinthian church service. This is done to more properly reflect God and His orderliness.

Personally, I think this is analogous to the idea of Shalom that is found throughout the OT. While most people think of the basic meaning of peace, Shalom more specifically refers to everything being in its proper place. Paul, too wants things in their proper place in a worship service - not a free for all. Yes, utilize your gifts, serve others, don’t disparage others but do things decently and in order.

In our Western Churches, the first thing we probably need to ask is - are you using your gifts at all? The majority of the American Church isn’t even involved in the building up of the church, so we need to just start there, if we were to be honest with ourselves.

The Corinthian Church; however, had people definitely using their gifts, but not for building up the church - just like all the other areas Paul addressed, there was abuse of gifts, minimizing of some, elevating others, etc. So now Paul lays down some guidelines to help them

Verse 26 is basically a What now? or What does this mean? All that you have said so far? The So What? part

Mutuality - give others preference. Now evidently these early church services were a bit different than others. Maybe we’ve swung the pendulum a bit too far the other way and not enough people are involved?

Notice priority of prophecy

Notice preference to others (mutuality)

Notice people are to be silents

Tongues w/out interpreter

Prophet if others speak

Women

Can’t be all encompassing bc in ch. 11 allowed

Likely related to honor of husbands as was similarly discussed previously in Ch 11 w/ head coverings

The real issue is not the extent to which a woman may participate in the work and worship of the church, but the manner. - Essays on Women in Earliest Christianity, Vol. 1

1 Corinthians 14:40 CSB

40 But everything is to be done decently and in order.

Invitation

Baptism

2 Songs

Announcements: Lunch Celebration/Oct 1 Last Stream of Services (last sermon in series)

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