What is the Perfect? (1 Cor 13:8-13) | Adult Sunday School

Good morning everyone, come on in and find your seat and we'll shut those doors along.

The back. All right, we have a guest teacher this morning for adult Sunday school class as well as the main service. Andrew Rappaport was the very first equipping conference speaker that we had in October of 2018.

Andrew runs the Striving for Eternity's Ministries, the Christian podcast community. He is the host of Apologetics Live and he is the host of the Rappaport. And many of you already know Andrew because you have had a relationship with him where you were here several years ago and got to hear him speak and of course preach on a Sunday morning.

So it is with that that I'm pleased to turn over Sunday school to Andrew Rappaport. Come on up Andrew. Thank you.

Well good morning. Some of you might have been here about two weeks ago. There was a message on baptism. I think Jim announced that the church has been growing. It's grown since the last I was here. His attempt to get rid of people through controversial messages obviously did not work.

So let me make my attempt. If you'd turn to the book of 1 Corinthians, we're going to deal with something controversial. Jim had asked me what I had ready, what I had prepared, and I told him I have just recently done a study on one word.

We're just going to look at one word. No, we'll look at more. And that is in 1 Corinthians 13, and some of you think the one word is? Yeah, you're all wrong. It is the word perfect. What is the perfect?

Because whatever that word is tells us whether tongues continue for today or not. And so that's what I had prepared. So it is not directed toward anyone who believes differently than me. I didn't have that in mind.

But if, you know, Jim was trying to chase people out with controversial topics, I figured I would just continue. You know, obviously it didn't work. But let's start with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we come before you, we are so grateful for all that you provide.

The breath that's currently in our lungs is more than we deserve, and yet you have been so long-suffering with us. You not only have been long-suffering, but for those of us who know you, you have given us your grace and your mercy.

It is unconceivable to us that you would care for us. The psalmist says, what is man that you're mindful of him, and we understand that. You are so great. As we look into your word in this hour, we ask that you would use this to help us to better understand you, to understand who you are, and to understand your word so we would live appropriately.

We ask this in Christ's name, amen. Well, let me read 1 Corinthians 13, 8 and following. That'll be the text we'll look at. I anticipate that this will be more of an interactive, so if you have questions, just feel free to raise hands and ask the questions.

I'll repeat them so that everyone else can hear, except of course for Paul in the back there because he's going to ask me difficult questions. It is good to be here with friends, people I know well. See, Paul wasn't here when I came here.

He came afterwards. This is Jim's way of getting people to join the church through inviting them to speak, right? All right, so let's look at verse 8. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away.

As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned like a child, but when I became a man, I gave up childish things.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face, now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I have been fully known. So now, faith, hope, and love abide. These three, but the greatest of these is love.

So let's deal with this question. This is a question that many people have, many are, you know, will be asking a lot more. There's a film coming out soon called Sensationist. I'll encourage it for all of you to check it out.

Your pastor will be in that, I have a feeling. You won't miss him. He's in a bright orange shirt for the film. Granted, I'll give you his defense. He didn't know he was going to be interviewed that day.

They just saw him and asked whether he would, you know, come and so. But this is something a lot of people have questions with. Ever since really about the 1900s, early 1900s, this became an issue within churches.

And many people have questions with it. Do tongues continue for today? I'm going to take a very strong stance. I'll give you my conclusion up front. The answer is no. Now I'm going to say that I think, I have many dear friends who say no as well, and I have some who say yes, that they continue.

One of my best friends does think that they continue, but that's okay. He and I have debated on many things where I think he's wrong. God will correct him in heaven. But I think that people say, well, is there a passage that says tongues will cease?

And I believe this one actually says that. Let me read that again. Tongues will cease. There you go. Hey, what do you know? Now the only question is when. When we look at this passage, there are a couple different views of this passage.

Many will take this, and many that say that tongues will cease will take this and say that this is referring to either Christ's second coming or the end times. And I think that that becomes difficult within the context to make that case.

Some others. There's actually, I have an article on Striving for Eternity, What is the Perfect, I think is the title of it, and it goes through all of the different views. One view that I think some people have that actually could be plausible is when we die.

Okay, when we're in a glorified state. That actually would be plausible because if someone has a gift of speaking in languages and they immediately go to heaven, guess what? They don't need a gift of languages anymore.

We'll all understand each other. But as we look at this, looking at the context, it's saying that in verse 8, as for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. And as for knowledge, it will pass away.

Now notice the phrase pass away is twice. It's tied to prophecies and knowledge. But tongues is a little different. It says tongues will cease. Now this is also seen a little different within the Greek.

The pass away in the Greek is something that will be caused to pass away where the tongues that will cease, cease on their own. The action occurs on itself. Now what is the prophecy and the knowledge?

I would argue that those are revelatory type of gifts. So that is gifts that are required in providing revelation, such as this right here. When Paul writes 1 Corinthians, that is prophecy. It's not just telling the future, that's prophecy.

It's also a knowledge. And what we end up seeing there is I think that this is speaking of gifts that were given to give revelation. Well if God doesn't give more revelation, guess what?

They stop.

And they stop immediately because something caused it.

What caused it?

God stops giving the revelation. But how do tongues stop on their own? First off, tongues is a poor translation in our generation. I really enjoyed the Holman Christian Standard Bible because they clarified the issue in my opinion and referred to tongues as languages.

And so, you know, that is the proper way we would understand it. We speak languages. Some of us speak multiple languages. My brides grew up speaking Cantonese. Paul Taylor, I don't know what that language is he speaks, but we would like him to speak English.

Any of you need translation for him? I've learned how to translate whatever that is he speaks there. That is a longtime joke that he and I have had. We spoke at a conference together. I kept asking people if they needed translation for him.

And we were in the Midwest. And so at the Q &A, Q &As are the best part by the way, at the Q &A, we're sitting there and I asked the moderator, I said, you know, Michael, can you get us some water? Because that's how you pronounce it in the East Coast.

And without missing a beat, Paul picks up the microphone because Mike goes, what is that you need? And he picks up the microphone and goes, he would like some wa-ter.

I deserved it.

So as we look at this though, we look at the gift of languages, it would be the ability to speak a language you don't know. So in the case where, you know, I butcher the Cantonese language, my wife would confirm that I usually try to order food and get something different than I thought I ordered.

But it would be me suddenly being able to understand that language. Now, there's differing views with this and there really isn't a lot of Scripture that we have nor historical documents that we have to, that describe this gift of languages.

So there are some differing views. You know, the one view that, well, Justin Peters would hold to, and you guys in here know him, he would say that it's a gift that you can speak a language, but you may not know it yourself and someone else would have a gift of interpretation.

My view is that it would be that you have a gift that you suddenly understand that language, which would then make sense that this would cease on its own because when someone, when God stops giving that gift, then what would happen?

People would still have that gift until they pass away. They would still know that language. So it would cease on its own when those that were given that gift stop, you know, stop.

Living.

And so my view of this is that what we see is that the tongues or languages is something that ceases on its own. It's different than the prophecy and the knowledge. But here's the interesting thing when most people look at this.

Let me give you some things that people will do with this passage. They look at the verses toward the end there, verses 10 and following, where they see about the childhood coming to manhood. They look at knowing it, looking in a mirror dimly versus seeing face-to-face.

Maybe you'll focus on that phrase face-to-face. And the other is knowing as I'm fully known. And what many people will do is say that, well, when are we going to see face-to-face? Well that's when we see Christ face-to-face.

When will we fully be fully known? When we see Christ. And so they'll say this is the end times. There are some that will take that same phrase and they will apply that to them when we die and we see Christ face-to-face individually.

However, I don't think that's the context. So let's start with what the word perfect means. Many people think perfect. Some people will say perfect must be Christ because he's the only perfect one. However, perfect, this word teleos, is the same word that Jesus used on the cross.

It is finished. It's the same idea. It's the idea of something that comes to completion or maturity. So it's not just the idea of perfection as some tend to think. Our English gives us that idea. But if this was translated when the completion comes or when the maturity comes, we wouldn't think it's Christ.

We tend to think it's Christ just based on an English word and we should never interpret the Bible based on English. We should always, when we have issues, go back to the Greek or the Hebrew and make sure we have a right understanding of those words in the original language.

So the word means to be complete or mature or perfect in the idea that, you know, if you have, for example, a jigsaw puzzle, if any of you do jigsaw puzzles, some of my daughter and I very much enjoy, and my wife kind of just looks at us strangely.

And so when you have a jigsaw puzzle and it is partial, it's just not complete. It's not perfect. But when you get all done with it, we always step back and look at it and it's perfect. Now is it perfect without flaw?

No. It means that somebody, my son, hasn't taken a piece away just to drive us absolutely nuts. Because there's nothing like a jigsaw puzzle of 10 ,000 pieces and you get done and you can't find the one piece.

And so it's the idea of the perfection. So, when we look at this word, it doesn't mean perfect as many say. So the question, though, is what is this teleos? Because whenever the teleos comes, that's when the tongues will cease.

Well, one of the main rules of interpretation is context. And so as we look at the context, let's start, it says here, as we look in verse 9, it said, actually, yeah, for we know in part, we prophesy in part.

So right there, he's taking two of the gifts that he just mentioned, right? What is going to pass away in verse 8? It's going to be prophecy, tongues, and knowledge. Now he's referring to the prophecy and the knowledge.

And he's saying that we know in part, we prophesy in part. Some translations end up saying no versus, you know, as reference to the knowledge. And so what we see here is two of these gifts, and I'm saying these are two revelatory gifts, are tied directly to the context here.

So whatever the perfect is, is something that is tied to revelation, in my opinion. I'm drawing this out from the context. And so as we look at this, I think that you see the prophecy and the knowledge, for we know in part, we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, when the teleos comes, that which is partial is done away, right?

So if you have something that's in part, now it's complete, you don't need the part anymore. In other words, if you were headed down to California, I don't know why any of you would want to do that. I unfortunately got a rental car with California plates, and every Idahoan, yeah, thank you.

I was like, I want to get a sign that says, it's a rental. Please don't blame me. I understand Idaho. But say you were, for some reason, wanted to torture yourself and see what hell was like, so you wanted to go to California, and you decide to go, and you're really not sure the way, maybe your phone gave out of its internet, and now you have to do a thing called following those signs.

California, 300 miles, 200 miles. What's the sign do? It points to something, right? Do you need the sign once you enter California? No, you need to get out of there as quickly as possible and ask yourself what you were thinking.

But you don't need the sign once you arrive. Well, once you have the completion of something, you no longer need that which was partial to lead you to the completion.

Does that make sense?

And feel free to ask questions anywhere throughout. I will be happy to ignore you. But when you get to the perfect, to the fullness of something, you no longer need the partial. That's the idea of this.

So when we have something that's completed, we no longer need this partial. The partial being the prophecy and the knowledge. And that's directly in the very context of the verse that everybody brings up.

Why do I mention that? Well, because of the fact that what many people end up doing is they, to interpret what the teleos is, they will look at verses 11 and following. But where is that verse mentioned or that word mentioned?

In verse 10. What's mentioned in verse 10? The knowledge and the prophecy that are partial. So it's a direct connection here between these revelatory gifts being partial, tied to this completed thing.

That would lead me to believe that whatever is partial, being revelation, is then completed with revelation. That I believe is the direct context. And so I believe that once the canon of Scripture was closed, there was no more need for revelatory gifts, and the gift of languages was included in that.

And so many people then say, but look at the rest of this, that would say it's end times. Well, okay, let's take a look at that and see if that's what it says. And I should have asked Pastor Jim, what time do we close Sunday school?

10, 15? That's a really sad thing.

You know, I can be on the street doing open-air preaching for three hours, no one stops me. And so as we look at this, notice here what we end up seeing is three illustrations of the main point. The main point that we see is in verse 10.

You have revelatory gifts that are partial, they get completed. Now he illustrates this with three different illustrations of something that's partial to completion. And one of the rules of interpretation is that you do not take an illustration and make it a literal.

In other words, if I'm illustrating something, if I'm saying that I'm so hungry I can eat a cow, you do not assume that I can eat a full cow, unless of course you haven't seen me eat. Josh tried to make me eat an entire cow the other night.

I did my best, but I have gotten older. It says here, the first illustration, verse 11, when I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child, but when I became a man, I gave up childish.

Things.

He's talking here about what? A child becoming a man. What do we call that? Maturity, right? He's maturing. Oh, isn't that the very definition of the word teleos?

Yes.

A child becoming a man, maturing, and what do we do when we have the maturity? We put away childish things. Well, okay, some of us do. I'll mention in the next hour that some people don't. But the reality is that we should put away childish things.

And so, this is the idea that when this completion comes, which I'm going to argue is the canon of Scripture, we no longer need any of these gifts that are the partial. We don't need revelatory gifts.

Now, a good friend of mine who holds to the fact that gifts continue, we've actually debated.

It.

You can go on my YouTube channel. His name is Matt Slick, and he and I have debated this issue. He bases it on the fact that 1 Corinthians 1 .7 uses the word charismatic or charisma and says that the church will not be lacking any charisma or charismatic gifts until Christ.

Returns.

So, his argument is these gifts would have to continue until the second coming of Christ. The only problem with that is when we look at 1 Corinthians 1 .7, it says the church will not lack. What does the word lack mean?

It means there's a need for something you don't have. Well, if there's no need for something, guess what? You don't lack it. Once we have a completed canon, we no longer lack revelation. We have everything we need for faith and practice.

That doesn't mean this answers everything, right? This tells us everything we need to know for faith and practice. It does not tell us everything we might need to know. Is it going to answer questions of, you know, what is a woman?

Well, actually it does. Sorry, I shouldn't have used that one. But there's things that we might have in science that this isn't going to answer. Is it going to tell us the origin of monkeypox?

No.

Is it going to tell us the origin of coronavirus?

No.

Do we need to know that for faith and practice?

No.

Are we lacking then? No, our faith and practice doesn't lack because we don't know some of those things. But everything we need to know that God has revealed of himself to us, we have complete. And now we don't lack anymore.

So I can take 1 Corinthians 1 .7 and say I agree with it. The church is not lacking any revelatory gifts because it doesn't need them. Why doesn't it need them? Because we have a completed Word.

Okay?

Does that make sense?

All right.

So as we look at this, we see that the first illustration is a child coming to manhood or to adulthood. By the way, you know, since I mentioned what is a woman, many people have this wrong. If you've seen that documentary, Matt Walsh gets it wrong.

A woman is not an adult female. A woman is whatever God, the creator of women, says they are. That's where we base it on. What they're actually trying to do is get away from the creator. That's a side note.

Just because a question gets asked by Supreme Court justices and they don't know. But as we look at it, the first illustration he gives us is childhood to adulthood. Paul goes on, if you look in verse 12, and this is something that we struggle with in.

Modern day.

He says, for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. And many people will take the word face to face and they take this not as an illustration, but as a literal and say, well, when are we going to see Christ face to face?

Well, first off, where do you see Christ in here mentioned? He's not. They assume that from the word perfect, but it's not mentioned. What is the context of this? Looking in a mirror dimly being compared to seeing face to face.

And many of you are going, well, I looked in the mirror dimly. Hopefully you didn't have the reaction I have every morning. But we look in a mirror every morning and we go, well, that's clear as day. That's because we don't have the mirrors of the first century.

Go in your cabinet, take a spoon, polish it up real nice, and then look at it. That's the mirror of that day. You're going to be able to see if there's some broccoli in your teeth? In that, no, you're not.

The comparison is looking in the mirror of that day, which is not so clear and you can kind of see rough images. An illustration we could have today is for some of us who have glasses, just take your glasses off, especially if you have a really, really strong prescription, and then look.

At everybody.

And then put the glasses back on. That is what Paul's illustrating. The idea of seeing dimly, seeing vaguely, not really seeing the detail versus when we look at each other and see one another face to face.

The idea is of something that you can't really see completely and then you see it clearly. Now, is there anything in the text that makes me think that it's seeing something clearly? Well, yeah, because it says looking in a mirror dimly.

That's the indicator. He's saying that we can't really see clearly in a mirror of that day, but we can see clearly when we're looking face to face. So the idea here is not that we have to see someone face to face.

And I know the argument that's made, actually it was made in the debate I had with Matt, where he says face to face always means seeing someone in person face to face. There's a nice thing. When someone says always, all you have to do is find one case where it's not true.

Being a good friend of his, I know his debate, so I knew his arguments. So I only had to find one case in Proverbs where it refers to looking into water and it's translated face reflects face, but it's the same language, face to face.

That's the idea we have here, face reflecting face. So if we look in a mirror dimly, it doesn't reflect it clearly, but when a face reflects a face, it's clear. So again, this is an illustration of something that's coming to completion, to maturity, to fulfillment.

And so I don't take the face to face as a literal.

Why?

Because you don't take an illustration as a literal. And I see people that will say this and they suddenly take this as literal, but they will admit that the verse just before it was an illustration. And some will even admit this is an illustration.

Why take the face to face as a literal? I don't want to speak for everybody, but I think for some, not everyone obviously, but I think for some it's because they come to the text with a conclusion and they're looking to make the text say what they want it to say.

That's not true for everybody. And I will say that, you know, I am in my view that this is speaking of the canon of.

Scripture.

I know that I'm in disagreement with men like John MacArthur, but he'll be corrected in heaven on one thing at least, you know. But I think that, you know, people that will take this because they look at the face to face and take that as a literal.

And I just think that we have to always try to apply good hermeneutics to, and hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation, to every passage we look at. And so if we have an illustration, we have to say, what is it illustrating?

And that's what we examine, what it illustrates. It is only there to give us what it illustrates, not beyond. You know, one of the things you'll see with people, they'll take parables. You know, false teachers love parables and the Old Testament because they make parables and the Old Testament say things it was never meant to say.

And so what we have to do with it is look at what it's illustrating. So what it's illustrating is something coming to completion. We have one more illustration that he gives. He says, now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I'm fully known.

Now again, if I take this as an illustration, does this fit with the context that I'm laying.

Out? Yes.

This is the idea of something partial coming to completion. If I take this as a literal, which many people do, what do I get? Well, when will I be fully known? Well, either when I'm dead or when Christ returns I'm in heaven, the end times.

And that's where people get that view. They take this and say, well, I won't be fully known until heaven or glorification or the second coming. But again, that assumes that this is meant as a literal.

There's nothing in the context where he gives anything to indicate that he has shifted from his main point away from an illustration and turns it into a literal. So if this is an illustration, is knowing in part versus knowing in full, does that fit with the context of something partial to completion?

Yeah.

So it's fitting perfectly with our context. So as we go through this, we end up seeing that if we take these as three illustrations of the main point, the main point being that we see in verse 9, for we know in part and prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

That all fits within that context. You have partial to completion. Here it is in part, what's in part, revelatory gifts, prophecy and knowledge. Those are done away with when? When the canon is complete.

Why?

Because when God stops giving revelation, that gift, if it is a gift, doesn't continue. Now, this would be a different type of gift, by the way, because most of the gifts that we have, we have for life.

By the way, I think that most of the gifts we have today as Christians, we get at our salvation from the Holy Spirit, and we have them for life. So some of us would be gifted with the gift of, you know, admonition.

Just so you know, Thomas Leo is not that guy. But exhortation is his gift. And so, you know, some of you may have the gift of giving. Come see me later.

No, no, no.

Giving is more than money though. It's also your time, your resources. People think of it just as money, but some people have a gift of teaching. And there's a difference between a gift and a talent. Some people will have a talent.

You're just born that way. I mean, I make this distinguishing thing. I don't know what others do, but I think of a talent as something you're born with. I was born organized. I think I came out of the womb trying to organize the womb, okay?

I had a friend when I moved that he was helping me move, and he went into my attic, and he came down. He went to church the next day. He's like, even his attic is organized. I have a CD. My wife has curbed me of that.

When we got married and she did laundry for the first time, and she's trying to explain how I do my shirts. They have to be in long sleeve versus short sleeve, then the type of shirt, then the color, the same material.

And she just looked at me and said, okay, we got two choices. You could do the laundry, or you could just deal with me putting them wherever I put them. I've learned. It was frustrating, but, you know, wives, so you know, men can actually be taught sometimes.

Just sometimes. Let's not overdo it. So what you end up seeing, though, is that a talent is, I was always organized, but there's a gift of that. But teaching something I was never good at until I got saved.

When I got saved, I started to be able to communicate to people, and that's, and giving was, if you knew me before I was saved, you would not think that I have a gift of giving or a talent of giving. I was very selfish.

Everything was for me, and if you had it, it was for me. If I wanted it, I sounded like a first grader, right, or a one-year-old, you know that story? If you have a toy and I want it, it's mine. You know, if you played with a toy, if I played with a toy 20 minutes ago, but I put it aside, it's still mine.

You know, if I just want it, it's mine. Well, that was me. But all of a sudden, a change occurred when I got saved. That's what I call a spiritual gift. So I make that distinction. And so I think that revelatory, what I call revelatory gifts, though, are in a category on their own because Paul didn't exercise this gift of revelation every time he wrote.

Because this is 1 Corinthians, we call it 1 Corinthians, and we have 2 Corinthians, but actually I think there is a letter that came before 1 Corinthians and a letter that came in between 1 and 2 Corinthians.

And they aren't in our Scriptures because they weren't revelation. And so what I see is that when we look at these gifts, specifically in this passage, to answer the question of when do these gifts end, when do...really the one of languages, when does it end?

I would say once the canon was complete, God's...the Holy Spirit stopped giving the gift of languages. And when he stopped that, people who had that gift continued that ability to have that gift until they passed away, and so it ceased on its own.

And so what we end up seeing is that we no longer need those gifts. I don't believe because we have a completed Word of God, and this is all we need. Now I will speak a little bit...let me just stop there and see, does anyone have questions with that?

Okay.

Yeah, let me repeat the question. So the question is on the third illustration, when it's knowing in part versus knowing fully, am I saying that this is the canon, that when Paul's writing it wasn't complete, and that the completion and knowing fully is the canon?

I would say yes.

Okay.

So the question is why do I think that knowledge is referred to revelation, right? The issue there...knowledge, I mean, we have words that are used different ways. For example, prophecy is used different ways, okay?

Some people will refer to when someone gets up at a pulpit and preaches, some people refer to that as prophecy. So prophecy has the idea of a forth-telling and a fore-telling. One is telling the future versus telling the past.

Knowledge is a similar thing. We have multiple meanings for that word. And so in the context of a giftedness, because that's what we...this is in the middle of three chapters, chapters 12, 13, and 14, that speak of spiritual gifts.

So it's the gift of knowledge. And so though we don't have a lot of understanding of what the gift of knowledge is, and I've seen a lot of different definitions, one thing that seems consistent with people is that the view is that this was a gift of knowledge that had to do with giving of revelation, that God gave a knowledge of what to write when writing Scripture or what to say that was God's Word.

So it's hard to pin down, though, because there's just not a lot of Scripture we could turn to. There's a hand over here first. Okay, so the question is, the Greek word teleos, and what Christ said on the cross was to tell.

Us.

They're the same root, though. And that's why.

Yeah.

But it's the most known, which is why I end up using it. It has the same base root, is to complete, to finish. There was a hand back here I saw.

Yes, sir.

Oh, well, pride...yeah. So the question is, is it that God doesn't Make sure I get the question right, but is it that the fact that we don't know everything we could know, is it our pride that God doesn't tell us everything?

Yeah.

Yeah, so there's a reason that we can't know everything. Well, yeah, one reason is we're finite, right? We're not omniscient like God is. But we've got to look at this within context. I'm not saying that God has revealed everything we could possibly know, because clearly not.

But I do think that what God is revealing is everything we need to know, what we would call His self-revelation. So everything we need to know about God, He has revealed to us. Now, think back, put yourself back in, you know, before Christ, would a Jewish person think that he had a completed canon?