1 Corinthians 14:26-40 - All Things in Order
Marc Minter
1 Corinthians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 36 viewsMain Point: The whole church is built up (spiritually matured or edified) when everyone and everything is in order under the lordship of Christ.
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Many of us will know that one of the first things we come to realize as new Christians is that we are terribly out of order. When we first believed the gospel, we realized that God would take us as we are… that we didn’t need to straighten ourselves out first. Instead, we learned that God showed His love and grace toward sinners like us by sending His own Son to live and to die in our place. We learned that Jesus was the one who represents us before God – both by taking our sin upon Himself and by giving us His righteousness.
But then, we found all sorts of new desires bubbling up from within us… we really wanted to do right, and we often felt even more ashamed when we still did wrong. And the more and the harder we tried to get ourselves in order, the more frustrated and disappointed and depressed we sometimes felt.
Or maybe some of you don’t know just how sinful you are, and you have never felt like I’m describing it here. Consider the psalmist’s words “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me” (Ps. 139:23-24). I wonder how many mornings you might pray that prayer before you are you are crying out with Isaiah, “Woe is me! For I am lost” or “undone” or “destroyed” (Is. 6:5).
For many of us (maybe most of us) soon after we were born again or converted, we realized that we were terribly out of order… and we needed to learn more about what the Bible says about how we are to live… and we needed God’s help (and the help of other Christians around us) to put that stuff into practice.
If you think about it, it’s no surprise that a local church would be a lot like that. A church is an assembled body of Christians who are baptized in the name of Christ and covenanted together with one another in mutual discipleship and obedience to Christ as Lord. And since a church is a gathered or assembled group of Christians, then it is no surprise that a bunch of Christians would be just as out of order as a group as any one of them might be by themselves.
Today we are continuing our study through the New Testament book of 1 Corinthians. It is a letter from the Apostle Paul to a church in the ancient town of Corinth… and this church was completely out of order.
Let’s read through our main passage today, and let’s consider together the principle of order and prioritization we find here… and let’s consider how this teaching applies to us today.
Please stand with me as I read 1 Corinthians 14:26-40.
Scripture Reading
Scripture Reading
1 Corinthians 14:26–40 (ESV)
1 Corinthians 14:26–40 (ESV)
26 What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.
27 If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. 28 But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God.
29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. 30 If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, 32 and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. 33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.
As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
36 Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? 37 If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. 38 If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.
39 So, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. 40 But all things should be done decently and in order.
Main Idea:
Main Idea:
The whole church is built up (spiritually matured or edified) when everyone and everything is in order under the lordship of Christ.
Sermon
Sermon
1. All for Edification (v26)
1. All for Edification (v26)
Our passage today begins with a rhetorical question. Paul says, “What then, brothers?” (v26) or “How is it then, brethren” (KJV) or “What then shall we say, brothers” (NIV) or “What should you do then, brothers and sisters” (NET). The Apostle Paul has been talking about various ways in which the gathered church ought to practice order when it gathers since the beginning of chapter 11, and now Paul has arrived at his summary conclusion.
“What then, brothers” (v26), Paul says. Because there is a social order – men and women are to look and speak and act like men and women (1 Cor. 11:2-16), and because the order of a unified local church body displays something of the profound nature of the gospel and of the kingdom of Christ (1 Cor. 11:17-34), and because God has designed the local church to be a mutually edifying group of various individuals with distinct gifts and skills and life-experiences – various members of one unified body (1 Cor. 12:1-31), and because love is that preeminent spiritual gift which is to centrally mark or distinguish the people of Christ in the world (1 Cor. 13:1-13), and because speaking and explaining the word of God in an intelligible or understandable way is the method by which we are all built up or edified as Christians (1 Cor. 14:1-25), Paul now says, “What then, brothers” (v26).
“When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation” (v26). But what is the church of Corinth to do with all these church members who have something they want to sing, something they want to say, or something they want to teach? …“What then, brothers?” (v26).
Paul gives us the answer right there at the end of v26. He says, “Let all things be done for building up” or for edification or for growth in maturity (v26). In other words, the Scripture teaches us that there must be a filter through which someone (or a group of someones) decides how to practice or use or give time to or make room for every church member’s individual contribution in order to benefit the rest of the church body. And that filter (at least one of them) is edification.
Does this edify? Will that song touch your heart, but will it dull or mislead someone else? Will this teaching seem interesting to you, but will it distract or unnecessarily confuse someone else? Will it feel encouraging to you if you see that person preaching or leading a prayer or singing a song, but will others see such a preacher or prayer leader or song singer as inappropriate or even as sinful?
In our own day, we might even include other features of churching together. Will that program or ministry be nostalgic and enjoyable to you, but will it be tedious and unproductive for others? Will that event or activity be exciting for you, but will it be completely uninteresting to others? Will this church calendar or structure or practice be preferable to you, but will it needlessly impose on others?
Now, don’t get me wrong… Paul is not promoting here the idea of “majority rule” in the church. There IS a standard by which “all things” should be judged as either edifying or not, and Paul concludes our passage (as well as this whole section of the letter) by pointing to the standard of the written commands of Christ (v37). Scripture itself, which is the written word of God, tells us what things a church must do “when” it “comes together” (v26), and Scripture also teaches us quite a lot about how those things ought to be done.
Everything that a church does when it gathers on the Lord’s day… everything a church does with its combined time and treasure and talent… it should all be done with the overall goal of edification… the goal of building up the body of Christ… the goal of making disciples by baptizing and teaching, and by patiently and lovingly stirring one another up toward faith and good works… until we die… or until Christ comes.
The Scripture says plainly here, “Let all things be done for building up” (v26). But in order for that to happen, there has to be order, not chaos… intentionality, not just passion… leadership, not anarchy… responsibility, not just desire… regulation, not absolute democratic or egalitarian freedom.
And that means we all have to choose… We have to choose what words will bear authority among us and what words will be silenced.
2. Spiritual Order (v27-33)
2. Spiritual Order (v27-33)
In our passage today, the Scripture issues the command of “silence” upon two different kinds of people (v28, 30, and 33). And it’s important for us to remember the context of our whole passage in order for us to rightly understand and apply these commands for some to “keep silent” (v28, 34) or “be silent” (v30).
Since chapter 11, Paul has been giving instructions about what ought to be done (or not done) and how it ought to be done (or not done) in “the churches of God” (1 Cor. 11:16). Paul has been writing “instructions” for “when you come together as a church” (1 Cor. 11:17-18).
Earlier in this letter, Paul gave instructions about the way the Corinthian Christians ought to live regulated lives out in the world… as a scattered church. But these chapters, which we are concluding today (11-14), have been full of commands about how to act or behave when they assembled in the name of Christ on the Lord’s day… as a gathered church.
And here in our passage this morning, we see the word “church” or “churches” appear several times, and this word means “assembly” or “gathering.” Remember the phrase Paul used in v26, “When you come together.”
These are not necessarily commands for all of life, but especially for the gathered people of Christ who are assembled in His name for the purpose of glorifying God through mutual edification. We may certainly consider some broader implications of these commands, but we ought to be careful to understand the context and the specific application before we move beyond there.
The first kind of people who are to “keep silent” (v28) or “be silent” (v30) are those who would like to express or practice their spiritual gifts. And just as Paul has been doing for a while now, he highlights two particular spiritual gifts – “speaking in tongues” (v27) and “prophecy” (v29).
I tried to address the meaning of these spiritual gifts last Sunday, but let me offer a quick refresher here (and maybe even a clarification).
The gift of prophecy is the practice of speaking and/or explaining the word of God. As I said last Sunday, God used specific people at specific times to miraculously speak as His mouthpiece to those around them. This happened in the Old Testament and in the New, and one of the main features of the New Testament (or New Covenant in Christ) is that every believer is indwelt or filled by the Holy Spirit. Thus, many Christians (young and old, male and female) miraculously spoke the word of God as bonafide prophets.
God Himself decided which of those spoken words would be written down and recorded for believers of later generations, and today we all have access to all the words of God in the written record of the Scripture. We may still say, “Thus says the Lord,” but we may only say that when we are pointing to the words of the Bible… not merely our own wisdom or feelings about something.
Similarly, the gift of “tongues” (or the ability to speak in a real language of the world that is not naturally known to the speaker) was another NT sign of the universal outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all believers (see Acts 2). Throughout the book of Acts every Christian convert spoke in tongues… this is either explicitly stated or implied by the context.
And whether you believe that the Christian speaking in tongues knew exactly what he or she was saying in a foreign language, the sign was a miraculous display of God’s design to unite believers of all languages and peoples in worship and thanksgiving toward the one true God… on the basis of the person and work of Christ… and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Now, I’ve also said that I believe these sign-gifts (the supernatural ability to speak the words of God and the supernatural ability to speak in an unknown language) were specifically given by God to Christians living during the time when the New Covenant was being revealed (during the time of the Apostles). And again, let me say clearly that you don’t have to agree with me on this point to be a member of this church. But we all do want to recognize that the Scripture is yet again (in our text this morning) urging Christians (even those Christians who lived during the apostolic period) to refrain from exercising the gifts of “tongues” and “prophecy” in a disordered or chaotic manner. In other words, just because you think you have the ability to do it doesn’t mean you should when we come together as a church each Sunday.
The way Paul says it here, in v27-33, is that “tongue-speakers” and “prophets” are both to “keep silent” or “be silent” in “church” rather than to cause “confusion” (v28, 30; cf. 33-34). Specifically, “If any speak in a tongue,” there must be “one to interpret” (v28). And if any “prophets” speak, “others” are to “weigh what is said” (v29). And no one is to “speak” out of “turn” (v27). “For,” the Scripture says, “God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (v33).
In the first century, only a very few Christians had access to the written word of God. The texts that we know today as the Old Testament were largely kept by Jewish leaders associated with synagogues, and the text of the New Testament was still being written. This is why the office and role of the Apostles was so vitally important, and this is also why there is the sense in our passage that several members of the church were responsible for “weighing” what was said by anyone who rose to speak among the gathered church on the Lord’s day (v29).
Was brother Bill’s prophesy true? Well, the only way to know was for the gathered church to “weigh” brother Bill’s words against any written words of Scripture they had, against the words of Scripture that they had memorized, and against the teachings of the Apostles… either the apostolic words they had in writing or the ones they had heard an Apostle say on some previous occasion.
As I’ve mentioned already, you can see this governing standard expressly mentioned in v37. Paul told the Corinthian church that anyone who thought of himself as “spiritual” or as a “prophet” should “acknowledge” or “know” or “understand” that “the things [Paul himself] was writing to [them] are a command of the Lord” (v37). In other words, God’s words – written down or spoken by an Apostle – were held up as the highest authority… even over those who claimed to speak directly from God. And this is the way it always should be for Christians.
In our text today, there is a clear teaching on spiritual order. All are ordered under the authority of Christ (expressed in His word), and all ought to exercise whatever spiritual gifts they have in an orderly fashion “so that all may learn and all be encouraged” (v31) or “comforted” (KJV) or “exhorted” (NASB) or “instructed” (NIV)… Once again, the goal is edification among the whole church.
Whatever else we might learn about the use or practice of spiritual gifts here, the emphasis of our passage is on order… spiritual order… and even Christians with extraordinary spiritual gifts are to be subject to this rule or order or regulation when the church gathers.
But there is also an emphasis on social order… and here we revisit the gender distinctions we’ve already covered earlier in this letter… only this time the application is a bit more explicit.
3. Social Order (v33-35)
3. Social Order (v33-35)
I said before that there are two kinds of people in our passage that are commanded to “keep silent” (v28, 34) or “be silent” (v30) in church. The first is “spiritual” people – those who have extraordinary gifts (v28, 30). And the second is “women” (v34).
The words probably fell (at least for some of us) like sour notes on our ears when I read them out loud earlier. Look at v34, “the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission” (v34). And the end of v35, “it is shameful for a woman to speak in church” (v35).
There is no doubt that words like these in the Bible have been used to degrade and disrespect women at times in the past. Some people today may even still point to a passage like this in order to set women aside and keep them from using their spiritual gifts to edify others among a local church.
I hope that none of the women among our church membership feel degraded or disrespected, and I trust that our aim at FBC Diana to “equip” all church members for “the work of ministry” will pay dividends over time (Eph. 4:11-16).
And yet, in our day, there is a tendency to overcorrect when we find abuses or misuses of biblical teaching. It is far more likely to find a church today that ignores this passage than it is to find a church that applies it too broadly.
As a matter of fact, the biggest evangelical denomination of churches in America today (the Southern Baptist Convention) is hotly debating the role of women in the gathered church. And there are many who are arguing that women can and should have the title of “pastor” if they are gifted teachers and/or disciplers. It’s also important to note that the Southern Baptist Convention is one of the last remaining denominations in America to state publicly that the office of pastor is only for men as qualified by Scripture.
In short, I know (and you should know) that the position we hold as a church is the tiny minority in our culture… and the tiny minority even among those who would claim to be Christians. But it is also true that the position we hold as a church on this matter is the overwhelming majority view of all the Christians who have lived since the time of Jesus’s earthly ministry.
I do not want to be brash or insensitive as I say what I must this morning, but neither do I want to give the impression that I am embarrassed or ashamed of the teaching of Scripture. I hope you’ll weigh what I say against the text of the Bible, and not filter my words through the expected norms of our present cultural moment. One day, we will all stand before Christ and give an account for what we say and how we live, and I am speaking today in light of that day.
More could be said about all of this, and if you’d like to discuss this more after the service, then I would be happy to do that. Let’s get together.
But for right now, let’s look to our text, and let’s see two major implications for what we read in v33-35. The first is that women are not to take an authoritative teaching role among the gathered church on Sundays; and the second is that men ought to feel a great weight of responsibility to lead at church and at home.
First, women leading in church. I said at the outset that it is vital for us to keep the context in mind as we aim to understand and to apply these verses about keeping “silent” (v34). Remember, since chapter 11, Paul has been giving instructions about what and how things ought to function when the church gathers. And Paul began in chapter 11 with the teaching of gender-based authority.
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11:3, “I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” When we studied through that passage several weeks ago, I argued that the whole thing was about an ordering of authority and that God has designed men and women with gender-roles that complement one another.
And the principle we saw on display in chapter 11 is being applied here in chapter 14. The principle in chapter 11 is that men who avoid authority and responsibility in the church dishonor Christ, and wives who assert authority in the church dishonor their husbands… remembering that this relationship between authority and responsibility cuts both ways. Wives ought to display submission to their husbands in the public church gathering, and men ought to step up and take responsibility… especially to pray and to teach God’s word among the church.
Now, here in chapter 14, Paul is applying that principle by saying that “women should keep silent in the churches” (v34). And Paul makes a general reference to “the Law” of God, which he says commands a woman to “be in submission” to her husband (v34).
There is no explicit citation, so we are left to make an educated guess about what specific “law” Paul is talking about, but there is no shortage of Old Testament or New Testament passages that refer to the reality that God has designed a hierarchy of authority (both in the home and in the church). The Scripture (i.e., God’s law or Christ’s law) teaches us that husbands are to lovingly lead their wives and wives are to respectfully submit to their husbands… not in ways that lead to sin, but so long as a husband is not commanding something God forbids or forbidding something God commands, the wife is to follow his lead.
For a specific application of what happens in the church gathering, it does not seem to me that Paul is saying that women shouldn’t speak inside the church building or that women shouldn’t speak in public. These would be an abuse or misuse of the text. But it is pretty clear that Paul is saying that women ought not be the ones stepping up to authoritatively teach the congregation or to direct what is being said when the church gathers (even if they feel spiritually gifted to do so).
Just as spiritually gifted men (who spoke in tongues or who had the gift of prophecy) should “keep silent” or “be silent” (v28, 30) to prioritize order and edification in the church, so too should women “keep silent in the churches” (v34) during those times when the church is gathered as a whole to hear God’s word spoken and explained.
This is straightforward, and it leads us directly into that second major implication I mentioned just a moment ago… that men ought to feel a great weight of responsibility to lead at church (explicitly) and at home (implicitly).
From my perspective, one of the main reasons women have often played such a strong leading role in directing what is done or said in church on Sundays is that men have often neglected their biblical responsibility to lead. It is far easier to sit back and let others bear the responsibility, let others make the decisions, and let others bear the weight of criticism.
But this is a responsibility God has called godly men (and especially husbands) to bear! …both in the church and at home. Right here in our text we can see that the woman’s voice is not to be silenced everywhere. Her opinions are not to be unknown, and the woman’s “desire to learn” is not to be ignored (v35).
Rather, she is to “ask [her] husband at home” (v35). And this directly applies to a man’s responsibility to be what we might call the “spiritual leader” of his family. Men, we ought to be learning about doctrine and practicing obedience to Christ so that we can teach such things to our wives and children. We ought to talk about Jesus, discuss what we’re learning from the Bible, and think out loud with our wives and children about how to live in light of the biblical truth we know.
Young men, do you want to be good men? Well then, be an aggressive disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ right now! Learn what you can, do what you can, make yourself a learner and a grower so that one day when someone else comes along to lean upon you, you won’t bend and break like a young tree that’s only just sprouted out of the ground. Do the work now of cultivating spiritual growth in your own life, so that you’ll be able to stand strong when the times comes!
Ask me about a great little book by J.C. Ryle called Thoughts for Young Men… It’s fantastic for men of all ages, and it practically addresses what I’m talking about here.
In our passage, the context is focused on the weekly church gathering. And women play an indispensable role in the life of the church by singing and praying, discipling and serving, admonishing and encouraging. The only role women are not to play is that of authoritative teacher/leader among the gathered church… that role of a pastor or elder or overseer.
Christ Himself (in His word, and for His purposes) has designed the ordering of the church to function this way, and it is for our good. And friends, the whole church is built up when everything is in order, under the lordship of Christ.
4. Scriptural Order (v36-38)
4. Scriptural Order (v36-38)
Both of these next two sections basically form a summary caution and a summary teaching of all that we’ve been looking at today.
Let’s start with the caution or the challenge. Look with me at v36-38, and see here that Paul (as he commonly does in his letters) sort of turns to look his reader in the eye. He’s been teaching them about how to order themselves as a properly functioning church when they gather, and now he concludes this section with an aggressive challenge.
I said earlier that we would all have to choose… that we’d have to choose which words to silence and which ones to hear… and that’s what Paul is doing in v36-38. He says, “was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached?” (v36). These questions are aimed at the inevitable clash… the clash of Paul’s instructions and the current practices in the church of Corinth.
They were a chaotic and disorderly church. Those with spiritual gifts were talking over one another, and apparently at least some of the women were taking a more dominant role in their weekly meetings than they ought. So, when this church received Paul’s letter, they had to choose…
Would they argue that some of their church members were actually prophets, and that they were welcome to proceed in any way they liked?
Would they argue that some of their women were actually pretty great teachers of God’s word, and that they should be able to keep leading at least some of the teaching during the main church gathering?
Or would they hear Paul’s apostolic words… the words of Christ Himself… would they hear these words as a corrective for their errors, and would they silence those who might speak in opposition to Paul and to the Lord?
Paul says, in v37, “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge [or “know”] that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord” (v37). In other words, the Lord’s command stands in authority over any prophet, over anyone who seems spiritually gifted among the church… The Lord’s command stands in authority over ever church member and every gathered church!
This summary caution from Paul is one of the places where the Bible presents to us a principle that Christians used to call the regulative principle of worship. The idea of the regulative principle can be summarized by saying that if the Scripture does not command it, then we don’t do it as a gathered church. Again, if the Scripture does not command it, then we don’t do it as a gathered church.
Now, the forms of what we do may look different from church to church. Our music style might change, the length of sermons might be different… the time we meet each Sunday, the temperature of the room, and a whole host of other details might be different from church to church.
But the elements of what we do ought always to be the same.
We ought to read the Bible out loud and hear it preached, because the Scripture commands pastors to “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, [and] to teaching” (1 Tim. 4:13).
We ought to sing and speak to Scripture to one another, because the Bible tells us to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Col. 3:16).
We ought to baptize new converts into fellowship and we ought to observe the Lord’s Supper as an ongoing sign of the New Covenant, because the Bible tells us to “make disciples of all [kinds of people], baptizing them… [and] teaching them to observe all that [Christ] has commanded” (Matt. 28:19-20)… and to “eat” the “Lord’s Supper” regularly “when you come together as a church” (1 Cor. 11:18, 20, 33).
We ought to be careful to do that stuff the Bible commands… and be careful not to do that stuff that the Bible does not command… because we are gathered under the lordship of Christ to do what He has commanded… and because that’s how the whole church is built up.
Embracing the regulative principle of worship may seem restrictive to some, but it is actually quite freeing. When we follow Christ’s commands for what we do and how we do it, then we are freed from the tyranny of the urgent, the tyranny of the loud, the tyranny of the demanding, and the tyranny of the majority.
As congregational Baptists, we love democratic processes. We vote as an assembled congregation on the most important stuff we do as a church. But church is not a democracy. The majority does not rule here. Christ rules here, and we all ought to “recognize this” (v38)… we ought not be “ignorant” of this (KJV)… and we ought not “ignore” this (NIV).
If we think we might have a good idea, if we think we’d really like to exercise our spiritual gifts, or even if we think we have prophetic knowledge about what God Himself wants for FBC Diana… Let’s make sure that we subject all of that stuff we think to the clear and numerous commands of Christ… the ones we can all see on the pages of Scripture.
5. All in Order (v39-40)
5. All in Order (v39-40)
Paul concludes our passage today very much like he began. “What then, brothers,” he asked in v26; and now he says, “So, my brothers…” (v39). The word “So” is like the word “Therefore.” It indicates a conclusion… or a consequence… or a result. And there are two things the Scripture teaches us here as our takeaway.
First, “earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues” (v39). As I’ve been saying all along, these particular gifts are not ones I expect to see practiced in churches today the same way they were practiced in the first century. But even if you do expect it, we can hear Paul’s priority on “prophesy” – the gift that emphasizes speaking or teaching or explaining the word of God.
Churches that build up or edify one another are those that prioritize the teaching and applying of God’s word in the lives of the members. When we make the word-ministry of our church the central priority of what we do, what we pray for, what we finance, and what we train more of us to do… then we are following Christ’s command for His people in the world.
In short, our first takeaway for today is that a rightly ordered church is one that prioritizes the ministry of the word. And the second takeaway is that the Scripture commands order… it prioritizes structure… there’s an intentional inclusion and exclusion… there must be careful planning of content and direction.
Paul says, “But all things should be done decently and in order” (v40).
This is the refrain and the emphasis of our whole passage today.
Brothers and sisters, the whole church is built up (spiritually matured, edified) when everyone and everything is in order under the lordship of Christ.
May God help us to be a well-ordered church… so that we might glorify Christ and edify one another… until He comes.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aland, Kurt, Barbara Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M. Martini, and Bruce M. Metzger, eds. Novum Testamentum Graece. 28th ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012.
Chrysostom, John. Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians. Edited by Philip Schaff. Logos Research Edition. Vol. 12. A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series. New York, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1889.
Ciampa, Roy E., and Brian S. Rosner. The First Letter to the Corinthians. Logos Research Edition. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010.
New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. Logos Research Edition. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
Sproul, R. C., ed. The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition). Logos Research Edition. Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Logos Research Edition. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016.
The Holy Bible: King James Version. Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009.
The Holy Bible: New International Version. Logos Research Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984.
The NET Bible First Edition. Logos Research Edition. Biblical Studies Press, 2005.
Vaughan, Curtis, and Thomas D. Lea. 1 Corinthians. Logos Research Edition. Founders Study Commentary. Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2002.