1 Corinthians 14:34-40 Women in worship and other issues

Alright, well I have to say that this is one of those passages that when you look at it out of context you're bound to get all riled up. So I'm going to refuse to let us do that. by keeping things in context. So let's go ahead and we'll read 1 Corinthians 14, 34-30, which will not provide us an immense amount of context, because that's just the passage we're going to look at this morning, but we will then move backwards as we discuss the passage and we'll look at some of the other verses.

Alright, so Paul writes, The women are to keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves just as the law also says. If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.

Was it from you that the word of God first went forth, or has it come to you only? If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandment. But if anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. Therefore, my brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy and do not forbid to speak in tongues. But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner."

So this morning I want to really, really hone in on proper hermeneutics? How do we properly interpret God's Word and how do we dig into things so that we can understand them in their proper context? Upstairs in the class that Craig and my dad are teaching, they're going over hermeneutics. How do we study the Bible?

How do we know what the author intended? There's a phrase that gets used often in document interpretation and that's called authorial intent. So we want to know what did the author intend, what did they mean, and in part of that we need to know about the author and in part of that we need to know about the audience that is receiving the text. So if I were to ask you what has chapter 14 been about so far, what would you say?

What's the context? Prophecy and tongues. What else? Anything else? Order in the church. That's really the answer I was hoping someone would say. I'm glad that Roger has that. But prophecy and tongues are in context for order in the church. And just as prophecy and tongues are, and actually he talks about music, and he talks about other things that are in the order of the church, so these first two verses that are so divisive are also in that context. So we don't get to think that Paul just changed topics, he's actually on the same trajectory.

But we see these two verses, we hear gender issues, and how many of you are aware of the feminist movement? That's mostly a joke, right? In my lifetime I've watched gender issues change really intensely and radically and in the last decade it's changed even more extremely at least as far as public decryment of what is equal and what is right. The irony in all of those things is that their definition is based on evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology But we don't get evolution, and I'm not promoting evolution by the way when I say this, we don't get evolution unless we have two genders. On average you don't have reproduction without properly aligned gender. There are some extreme edge cases of some species that can change gender, but that's rare and abnormal. Gender issues. Let's talk about gender issues.

Just kidding, we're going to talk about that in a minute. Let's talk about the context. Let's go through this. Let's walk through Paul's reasoning that led us to this point. And we want to do that because when we hit on these things, it's going to ask us to set aside our modern culture. So let's get there scripturally rather than emotionally.

Just for starters, I think the elephant in the room is Paul is still A lot of the time when the Jews as a nation still have the opportunity to go for the Lord Jesus, even though they're in a state of rejection, it hasn't solidified permanently for them, they still have an opportunity to be drawn to the Lord as a nation.

It's not like it hasn't happened, it's not going to happen, but in God's timing it will. It's just that the timing was available even then. Sure, the gospel was there and actually that's going to be part of the transition in the next set of verses. that he's going to lead into chapter 15, which is of course one of the most off-sided New Testament passages on salvation and the clear presentation of the gospel. So yeah, the gospel is part of what's going on here. That was a major focus of how the gifts were used in order in the church, right? Was that we have to have order in the church so that when the gospel is proclaimed, people will not think you're a bunch of loonies, right? Wasn't that part of last week's lesson? That they think you're mad? Right? You're crazy?

So let's step back through 14 as we go through this and watch Paul's logical argument as he's getting here. Because we can't divorce these two verses from the earlier passages. So I've got here a bullet point list on your handout. You don't have to follow along there. You can listen. I'll speak to it. You don't have a handout? Yes! That means you have to listen to me. I'll make sure that there's a handout. I sent it. I got confirmation. It printed just fine.

We'll see what's going on. That being said, if you open your Bibles to chapter 14, you can follow along, starting in verse 11. Paul writes, If then I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be the one who speaks like a barbarian, and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me. And so we have this idea here where Paul is saying there's chaos and there's lack of order if this goes on. So he's already saying, okay, let's watch how speaking in order is going on.

In 14.12, the very next verse, He says, so also you, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church.

Why is there a service? Why is there a gathering? For the edification of the body. For the edification of the church that's there. So, what's a condition for actions that these men, based on this verse that we're looking at now, we're guessing that men are leading the service, what is the condition that they're doing things? For the edification of the body. Are you making a morally, spiritually guided decision based on the Holy Spirit's direction, based on what God has put in place for the building of the church, or Are you doing it for your own edification?

Because the Corinthians liked to raise themselves up, and I'm pretty awesome. I'm wearing name-brand clothes, I'm cooler than you. Whatever it is that the Corinthians were doing, that's part of the issue. So, as we saw, Paul would rather that they seek to speak five known words to that body, so that they can be edified.

Alright, so we have order in the church leading up to what is spoken and how things are being done verbally. Order in the church. 1423, so we move forward here. 1423, he says, Therefore, if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad? So there's got to be order because evangelism matters.

If they come in and people are, you know, as there used to be in, I don't know if it's still going around, I haven't kept track, but this Toronto Blessing thing that happened a couple decades or 15, 20 years ago, where people were barking in the Holy Spirit. they said.

But as it turns out, I don't know what kind of evangelism happens when you're barking in the Holy Spirit. It's one of those things where you have this idea of chaos ensuing And the secular mind is going to come in, and a few people who are very existential might get excited about the experience of it and be like, wow, this is really different, it was cool. I've never been to a church service like that. But most rational people are going to probably not be edified and probably not respond to the gospel. I don't even know how you would need a translator to interpret barking into English. I don't know.

So chaos in the church is a serious concern and edification in a meaningful way so that people don't think that the church is crazy is important. 1426 he reiterates this idea of edification and then let's take a look at 1427 and 28. Of course, he looked at these last week. If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must interpret. But if there is no interpreter, he must keep silent in the church and let him speak to himself and to God.

So, first of all, based on the context of this passage, since he's isolated women in 34 and 35, we have to assume he's speaking to men in this earlier passage. And the men were to be quiet. That's going to bruise somebody's ego for the men, right? The recipients of this letter. But the men were also to be quiet in this context. So there's order in the church and there is a command here in 34 and 35 for the women to be quiet, but it's in context and it's not something that we see the men are not equally told to be quiet in the proper context. Okay, so I want to call that out because when we read this the first thing we see is women should shut up!

Right? Isn't that what you interpret that as? And then you go, ah, gender issues. Tom? The underlying pain there is, like you said, it's already been mentioned, Well, and they want to upstage each other, and when we want to upstage each other, you've got to come up with something that's bigger and brasher and bolder, right?

Is that what God has intended? Here's handouts. And lastly, even though it is In verse 33, and I failed to mark the reference there in the last bullet point, but you're looking at the handout, it says, For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. God doesn't have confusion, He has peace, or order. So, the men have to shut up if the Holy Spirit is not enabling the right context, and so when we get here to 34, we see that there is a context of the church service and a context of order because God is a God of order.

So let's dig into this. Now that you've got the handout, you'll notice that I've spent most of the handout's writing space on this topic compared to the other two that we'll take a look at. So the context for this is obviously in a modern scenario weird for us. But let's take a look at some of the other elements of what's going on here.

The first one is if we look at Acts 18.26 we learn about Priscilla and Aquila. So let's take a look at Priscilla and Aquila.

And Paul is the pronoun of he in verse 26. And it says, And he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And it's plural. They, plural, Priscilla and Aquila, outside of the synagogue, contributed to Paul's spiritual clarity. It's like telling him, kid, you need an update. Here's further clarity, Paul. And the thing is that Priscilla and Aquila did it. The husband and the wife were able to communicate with Paul.

It is not that the woman knew nothing and was, let's just say, ignorant or something like that. That's not the context here instead. They had been given truth by God and so Priscilla was able to minister to Paul and help clarify doctrine. It was just not during the church service or in the synagogue. This was Apollos, not Paul. I'm sorry, you're correct. In verse 24 it's Apollos.

See how I do that? the swap there in my head. Well, because I was wondering why would they have to explain something that you're correct. And I said it and it was like, wait a minute, that's right. So sometimes you say stuff and it's wrong because you have a switch in your head that you ask. You're thinking about the next thing you need to say. This was me. I was wrong. So that's good. That's awesome. That is the best kind of context for this, right?

Thank you, Roger. Let's not go there. Okay, so let's move to another place in Acts. Acts 16, 14, and 15, where we will see Olivia. Acts 16, 14, and 15. A woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshipper of God, was listening, and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay. And she prevailed upon us.

So here she is a brand new believer but she knows right away she has been given material possessions that she is able to use those things. We don't know for sure based on what's here, but it would seem like she might have been a widow or something like that. But either way, she's got a whole household and she's got responsibilities that are there. And the reason I suspect widow is household often implies children or whatnot. So there's a little bit of presumption in that. I want to be careful to call that out. But here's this really important woman that helped further the gospel. made sure that her whole family would hear the gospel and then be able to respond to the gospel, and then said, use my home as a home base for the sharing of the gospel.

So those are key women in Acts where we find these things being called out. If we were to look at the end of books such as Romans, in chapter 16, Paul calls out and sends his greetings to various people, including women. So this is not something where when we talk about this order that we're saying that anybody is lesser or that anybody is incapable or anything else like that. But what we have is Paul establishes, as we see in the second half of the verse, that there is an order based on the Old Testament and the establishment that is put in place there. When we look at Titus chapter 2, what are older women supposed to be doing in Titus chapter 2?

Teaching the younger women. There is a teaching ministry You don't teach from a position of ignorance, you teach from a position of having been equipped, and that is definitely not something where we're saying, okay, dumb people teach dumb people, or some strange thing that might be contrived from a negative perspective on gender.

The wives of deacons and presumably elders in 1 Timothy 3.11 are to be full of character and carrying on doctrinal truth and having integrity.

Any questions so far on the gender issue? I want to keep going, but I don't also want to go blitzing through this and cause any consternation. The next section that we have here is, I want to call out that Paul is looking for these saints to be growing. These wives, in this context it's mostly wives based on what's here, but we'll discuss some variants on that as well. Verse 35, if they desire to learn anything, and the assumption is that they do, the idea in the language in the Greek is that this is first-class conditional. There's a very likely implication that he's saying, you're going to want to learn, but if that's the context, let them ask their own men at home, or husbands at home, for it is improper for a woman to speak in the gathering.

I have a wife and two daughters at home. So this passage right here is extremely relevant to my day-to-day living. I'm in charge, as the head of my household, for their spiritual growth, their emotional growth, their physical growth, and their health and their well-being. The fullness of their being, I have a stewardship that I'm responsible for. We do Bible studies in our house every week, and we talk about things. We often talk about things while we're driving somewhere, when we're spending time together as a family over dinner, and where constantly spiritual truth is being brought up. It's not even optional for them. Whether they want to learn, they get to learn. That's how we operate in our house.

I love them dearly, and there's no intent that I have for anything less than them to be really difficult for some other guy to come along when they're of marriageable age to take advantage of their ignorance. I want there to be as little ignorance as possible so that they're a good catch, right?

I will say this, I have had several Sunday school students, high school Sunday school students, and even some friends here at this church, for example, Kaylee Case, where they learn New Testament Greek. These were gals that learned New Testament Greek. And some guy is going to have to come alongside and be spiritually leading these women who are not coming out of a very mild and gentle Christian home. They're coming out of these homes where things are being thought through and challenged. And that's the kind of daughters I want to raise. I want them to come out here. I want them to learn. I want them to grow. And Paul's implication here in verse 35 is that growth should be expected.

And I have to say, when I look around the households between the husbands and wives and children in this church, that's not a concern. Winnie, do you feel like Jack has really failed you in bringing spiritual food to you and your daughters in your house? No. So while we can look at this and we can say, okay, there's some gender issues, I think that within our lives, we've seen the Holy Spirit lead us to modeling these things out in the general household.

This is not about subjugation. This is about order. So let's ask an important question. We have a few single gals in the room. How should single women be learning as they do not have a husband at home? I mean, that's kind of implied they don't have a husband at home. That's single, right? How are they learning?

We have elders and Bible studies and maybe some hospitality and meals and people getting together. It's not that this is an unsolvable situation. It's just a different context. So we have order, as we talked about at the beginning of the handout and in the lesson, we have order in the church that is the primary focus. This is the greatest concern is order in the church. I've broken a pin. We've got order in the church that is designed for the edification of the whole body. And Paul is referencing structure and order in the Old Testament as part of his foundation for that.

One other thing is that women, I'm single, still have the same Holy Spirit that everybody else has and that we can still learn from Him too. Absolutely. But there are questions that come up that you know, that we don't have the answer, so that's when we... Sure.

Well, and I know from observation of our body here that there's lots of questions that get asked right when the service is over because people have been ruminating on it upstairs. And the men weren't also raising their hands and interrupting the service, and the women weren't raising their hands and interrupting the service, because there was order in the service. And we moved through it And then as soon as it's done, people pop up, right?

Like, there's been a few occasions when we've scheduled something with my parents right after church, because of bad timing or whatever else. And it's almost impossible to get my dad out of the church in a timely fashion, because we've got to go be somewhere, because people want to ask questions, and they want to grow, and they want to learn. And that's precisely a biblical model for handling that. Hey Randy, isn't it possible too that part of this is because at the time in the Corinthian church it was chaos.

That's precisely the point. There was total chaos. Paul doesn't ever do something just for a minute reason. He's very clear about it because he continues to harp on this topic But I think it's because the culture at the time was anything goes. Right. They were yelling out or, you know, it was just chaos.

Yeah. To complement that, there's an assumption here that asking your husband at home means your husband is informed, correct? Yeah. Well, and those kinds of things. One of my favorite, and this is anecdotal and I apologize, but one of my favorite parts of being married to Jessica was after nine months of being married we moved to Texas and we took seminary classes together.

We were in the classes together and we had one car and we'd drive for 45 minutes to work because Dallas traffic is not ever kind. There's at least 45 minutes, right? And then 45 minutes back and we do our homework during our lunch breaks. And so we would talk about God's Word for hours and hours and hours together and it was absolutely phenomenal.

It is the foundation for our marriage that I am extremely grateful for. Even if I was in the Texas heat. When I first moved there, it freaked me out. I did not know what to do with the Texas heat. But I knew what to do with God's Word and I knew we spent time together and it was incredibly invaluable. My wife is brilliant, and I knew that getting into the relationship, I was marrying up. But she's been respectful and humble in those things.

I see in 35, and I've often thought this, that the wife is to be a forcing function in the marriage. She is to, in a way, gently move the husband to, if she has a question, that question needs to be answered by the husband. So it's to be a forcing function. Gently and lovingly to be a forcing function.

I think God sees that as part of the marriage relationship. So I don't think the woman should think this is a... It's an opportunity, actually. Because she's not going to speak in the public to me, she's going to speak in private to her husband. That's God's plan, and God's going to use that in His way.

I think, Roger, I'm interpreting that as sometimes men can be lazy, and if our wives don't push us in that area, we might fall short. I say that only half-joking. Also, our wives know us, so we can get by in class. At home, it's a little bit different. But driving the car, it's totally different. For sure. Just because we want to keep in context the Gentile culture as well. Remember Corinth was this hodgepodge of different cultures. It was entirely common in the Gentile world for a woman to be illiterate and staying at home.

So culturally, unfortunately, there may have been, from a secular perspective, a somewhat belittling context for this, but that's not what Paul's talking about. Paul's talking about there being opportunities for learning and growing which would change that.

That would make a Christian household stand out in contrast to the secular world. A woman could still own possessions and we see that with Lydia, so it's not like she's without property rights. That's not the case. But the perspective tends to be from a secular angle, something that is not as rich as the Christian context for who a woman is in Christ and what marriage entails. So the question I've got here is, how do these secular treatments of women contrast with biblical rules? And when I say rules, I don't mean that legalistically. What's the contrast?

What's the most a worldly mindset can present of a woman versus what's the most that a spiritually minded person can present of a woman? In the Lord's eyes everyone is totally equal so the culture may suppress the women whereas in Christ we're all we're all, there's no male, female, black, white, whatever.

Colossians, yeah. And that to me, when I read through Ephesians chapter 1, and I've been doing a Bible study with some folks through Ephesians chapter 1, when I read through it, every single one of those verses in chapter 1 just makes me go, wow! This is the Christian! Wow! This is the love God had for the Christian over and over and over again, and it's not just saying, okay, only the guys.

So in contrast, the secular world says, okay, this is the most, what's the most possibility, it's limited, it's finite, it's not in the eternal state. Yeah, but so many Christian denominations have done exactly the same thing. Right, but we're going to worry about expositing the scriptures and living out the right thing, so that's true. But that's what I mean, that they have ignored exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, but we just don't want to do that. It's not what God intended, nor is it what Paul taught.

And instead we see the richness of who we are. When we look at, for example, Genesis. If we look at Genesis, what do we get from Genesis chapter 2 on Adam and Eve? And Moses exposits it for us. What do we get? The two are one flesh. When we jump forward to Ephesians, Paul in chapter 5 does this really interesting thing where he blends the relationship of Christ and the church, and he draws parallels between a husband and a wife. And the only way... Oh, did you have a question or a comment? The only way you can end reading through Ephesians chapter 5 is to think that Christ's love for the church is massive and the only way a husband and wife can live out that relationship is through the Holy Spirit.

I was reminded of the passage in 1 Peter about saying that we're being heirs together of the grace of life. Yeah, absolutely. Do you have the address for that? 1 Peter 3, 7. Let's read that out loud because it's good. I intentionally cut out some verses because I didn't want to belabor everything but let's read this one because you called it out and it's great. So you husbands in the same way live with your wives in an understanding way as with someone weaker since she is a woman and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life so that your prayers will not be hindered. I have to say that last part of that verse scared the snot out of me for a really long time. I don't want my prayers hindered. Well, this is another nature in us, right? I mean, that love for our wives really is not of the flesh, it's really of the spirit.

And in fact, for a wife to be submissive, as we interpret it scripturally, is one whose respect for her husband is that unequivocal love, right? In other words, you're going to get down, I think, to verse 37 here, in terms of the responsibilities of the commandments of the Lord.

If a man thinks himself to be a prophet, etc. I think it's a perfect union in heavenly places. By faith we need both to live out that relationship. Absolutely. So the last question I have for this section, well I have two questions here but we'll focus on one of them and see how much time we have left after that.

What are the characteristics of the Proverbs 31 woman, and how does this cross-reference shed light on the sense of value that biblical womanhood upholds? Proverbs 31 woman. I've heard all kinds of teachings on the Proverbs 31 woman. Who is she? Is she a myth? Does she stay at home and just barefoot and pregnant? Always under the doormat opinion of herself? That's one teaching. Instead, she's intelligent, she's caring, she's thoughtful. The characteristics that she has, this is one of the pinnacles of the Old Testament teachings of femininity and womanhood. She's amazing. She's so amazing she made it into the scriptures. This is it. This is really quite a gal.

That doesn't say doormat. That doesn't say shut up you're stupid. That doesn't say any of the things that, as Margaret sadly pointed out, some churches have taught. That's not what Paul's teaching. He's talking about order. But I just want to belabor the point on purpose to say that that's not biblical teaching of gender and it's not biblical teaching on womanhood.

And I don't think that I would be able to say that of any of the women that the Lord has brought into my life in the church in 39 years. Although, let's be honest, the first couple of years I don't remember anybody. I have not included in your handout what I did was basically my own expanded and explained. It's not in your handout because I don't feel like I have the same authority as my dad or Roger or Mike to do an expanded and explained. But I'm going to read this to you. Hopefully it's edifying.

We'll just treat it that way. In alignments with other restraint in the service, the ladies in the gatherings, because where it says church we could translate it as gatherings, you all must restrain yourselves and hold back on saying things during the service because you don't have biblically ordered permission to speak out during the service. But you must act in a submissive way, just like the Old Testament law stated. But if any of you intend to increase your knowledge, you should do it at home and ask the man of the household for it's dishonorable for a woman to prattle on in the gathering. And the Greek word can be translated that way.

And I think that's Paul's focus here. We need order in the service and we need to not have distraction. He's not saying any of the denigrating statements here. He's talking about order. So I think I've belabored that point. Hopefully everybody's on the same page and no one's been offended by that. Because we have other verses to offend us here. Okay, so verse 36. Was it from you that the word of God first went forth? Or has it come to you only? So Paul's writing to the Corinthians. He's like, come on, folks! Wake up! The church isn't just you. You're not the end. He's concerned about evangelism. He's concerned about order because he wants to make sure that it reflects the character and nature of God.

If anyone thinks he's a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandments. But if anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. So, the Lord's commandments. This is Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, carrying these things, writing them down, sending them, God preserves them, they get to Corinth.

If someone inside the church rejects any of these things, they are not authorized to be in a position of authority in the church. It's very blunt. If someone claims Christianity but rejects any of the commandments that Paul wrote, any of the clear statements of doctrine, they're not authorized. Now why is Paul talking about this authorization? This could turn into a tug-of-war. We don't need tug-of-wars.

We just need order, recognition, but above all, order. We have doctrinal alignment. Since you answered my question, I'm going to pick on you kindly. If Tom teaches proper theology, and I get up here and I start teaching something that differs from that, you need a way to recognize Reina's error. Not just that he accidentally switches Apollos out for Paul. That's good. I need that. If we can have correct teaching every time, let's do it. Paul is transitioning into doctrinal truth.

When we get into chapter 15, he's going to talk about the gospel. We need that to be one gospel that we all believe without any doubt, and we can then know we're saved. And if somebody inside the church body in Corinth or anywhere else is teaching error, it has to be stopped and they have to not be listened to.

They need to not be recognized using the English translation there. In a way that's a very well phrased statement because if you understand how political discussions go, somewhere along the line there has to be order in the court. So this is right in line with the best practices of that day. Some people just throw that out the window and say, let's just make it a free-for-all.

Order in the church matters a lot and consistency and clarity and purity of doctrine matters a lot. The church is bigger than the church of Corinth. That's what he's calling out in verse 36. The doctrine is bigger than the church. That's what he's calling out in verse 37. Doctrine actually matters.

I remember once when I was young, and I'm going to embarrass myself when I say this, so please do laugh at me at my expense. I remember saying, I don't want doctrine, just tell me what I need to do. How am I going to be a good Christian? Just tell me what cookie cutter things I've got to do, what hoops I've got to jump through, and then it'll be I'll be a good Christian. I just want God off my back. What am I going to do to make him happy?

I didn't understand. I didn't understand doctrine. No one taught me about abiding. No one taught me about this state of fellowship that I could be living in. They just taught me what I needed to do and I was happy with it. But Randy, unfortunately, that's a lot of Christianity. It's not taught as a relationship. Christianity is a relationship. And the funny thing is that the Lord's commandments here, when Paul's writing about these things, he's talking about order, he's talking about direction in the church, so that the fellowship can be established and growing in a healthy way.

So, I'm embarrassed for what I said, but I would like to redact that statement and say it's not the position I hold now. Core doctrines, orthodoxy, what are those? What are key doctrines that we need to be focused in on? If you don't get this right, we're going to kick you out. The facts of the word, okay, but like what?

I can come up with lots of synonyms, but what is it that Paul is concerned about? Christ died for us according to the scriptures, he was buried, he rose again, and he is seated in heaven. And we are seated with him according to the scriptures. And so when we look at the New Testament doctrines and the epistles that were preserved, what we get is truth that we can believe and we can understand in those pieces that come together in a clear and meaningful way, and we can preserve that so that when Paul writes to Timothy, he says, find godly men who will teach these things and pass them on, and that's the integrity of the scriptures that we can preserve.

So those are key things. It's also critical for the order of the service. Don't listen to the liars. They're going to screw the service up. Don't listen to the people who are teaching and speaking out of turn. They're going to screw the service up. Don't do that.

There's order here. There's a respect for what God has established. And so that's what his closing thoughts are. in God's establishing things. Therefore, my brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in tongues, but all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner. This verse 38 has some relevance here. If any man be eager, let him be eager. The idea here is not to encourage knowledge, but trust those who God has given the doctrine to teach.

You don't have to be one of those, you need to be in a position to listen. We need to have those who are recognized be the ones that are squared away. We saw that earlier when he was calling out the bad teachers. We need to have the bad teachers so that the good ones will stand out.

I believe that's in chapter 9. So 39 and 40, we've already talked about how spiritual gifts have ceased. 39 sounds like it might be conflicting with that, so let's take a quick look at what that might mean for us. Is Paul writing to the church where these gifts are actively supposed to be used for the edification of the church?

Yes. And so inside the church, after he's saying a lot of, let's be quiet, he's reiterating in 39, saying, listen, you need to be quiet, you need to have self-control, you need to have order and service, but that doesn't mean no one at that time could use those gifts. Because he knows the Corinthians, right? The Corinthians, when they hear, you shouldn't cross the street on a red do not walk sign, then every time they see a do not walk sign, even if there's somebody chasing them behind them with a hatchet, they're going to be like, well, we've got to wait. And it's like, maybe this would be a good time to look both ways and maybe violate the law while you preserve your life or something.

We won't say spiritual vigilantism, but we have this awareness that there's context for these things. And so here in 39, he's encouraging them for the edification of the body, because they need spiritual truth, because it's going to line up with the commandments of Christ, to this church, don't prevent it. If the gifts have ceased operating, we don't have to worry about whether or not we should forbid it. The Holy Spirit is not going to be doing those things in the body anymore. Verse 40, the summation of chapter 14. But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner. Let me ask this one last question. I think we're running out of time here.

If you're applying 1 Corinthians 13, where love is your motive, where you're abiding and the Holy Spirit is empowering you to benevolently live out charity, will there be order in the church? And it will be the glue, if you will, that holds the body together from chapter 12.

And so we see Paul as building big picture of who the body is, how the spirit is moving, what the love looks like that holds it all together, the order that comes in the service when we care about one another, and the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and the direction that comes, the self-control that comes, and the order that comes, so that it's like a duct, it's a tube, it's a pipe that the love of Christ moves through freely, instead of being obstructed, instead of being distracting. The gospel is preached clearly. They know what it is, because they've read chapter 15. It's a really big picture concept, but we've wrapped it up here in 14, so that we're all humbled by who we are together in Christ. with love, with respect, with honor, with benevolence.

Any other thoughts or questions? Brian hasn't rung the second bell yet. Let me ask the last question I have on the handout. Is it the last question on the handout? The funny thing is it printed on page four and nothing. Last question, does liturgy address these concerns of order in the service?

Liturgy is often promoted as a way to address these concerns. We will create a structure, we will print it out, we will run through it together, and because everybody knows what we're doing and it's the same thing, that's the liturgy and that's the outcome. I'm not a massive fan of liturgy because part of the nature of what Paul is describing Part of the nature of what Paul is describing is a spirit-directed service. We don't have a lot of chaos in this church, right?

When we go upstairs, you guys aren't expecting holy barking. You're not expecting Tom to get up in the middle and say, I'm going to work for the Lord. That doesn't happen. Gary's not going to stand up and give us a tennis analogy. That's not what we expect.

We tend to have order here. But that's in part because we submit ourselves to God's Word. We submit ourselves to the teaching that was clearly exposited and laid out by Paul. But guess what? The cool thing about spiritual growth is that we can still grow in the order of the service. We can still grow in our interactions with one another when we come together. So we're not done yet and that's cool. Alright let's close since the bell rang and we'll go upstairs and we'll practice what we just learned about it.

Heavenly Father we come before you we're super grateful for the amazing life of Christ coming and being an example for us and being a sacrifice for us and being the the strengthener of our inner man so that the world would see Christ through us. We just pray for your Holy Spirit to direct our words and our songs and our steps and our conversations as we go into the next service and the rest of the time that we have here on this earth, we pray for the return of Christ, Maranatha. In Jesus' name, Amen.