1 Corinthians 14:26-40 Controlling Our Tongues

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsick preaches from his sermon series titled, 1

Corinthians, Sinful Church, Powerful Gospel. Let's listen in. Welcome to Recast Church.

As Ben said, I'm Don Filsick. I'm the lead pastor here. And I wonder how many people are going to show up at 10 o 'clock this morning.

See if anybody rolls in an hour late and goes, Oh, that's right. That was today. Unfortunately, Apple and Android help us with that a little bit more than in the past.

So we're gathered here to be built up in our faith. I hope that's why you're here. And just like you might leave a workout at the gym a bit sore and beat up from time to time, feel a bit tired and your muscles exhausted,

I expect that sometimes our gathering will be just as challenging, but on a spiritual level. That is quite possible from the text this morning.

Our text is one of those that highlights our core value of truth, that we believe that God's word is capital

T truth. Our church name is an acronym for our core values, replication, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.

And the reason I mentioned truth, truth by truth, we mean that we take God's word as revealed in the 66 books of the

Bible to be the faithful declaration of God, what he desires for us to know. It talks of his character and his desire for humanity.

The way he desires for us to roll and the way he's designed us. I'm talking like this because our text is one that is often used by unbelievers as an evidence against God and against his word.

Paul threw out a couple of his texts, a couple of things that he writes in letters to the churches.

It is often accused of being misogynistic. The Bible has been accused of being outdated. And a church that believes the section of Scripture that we're going to go over this morning will increasingly be accused of endorsing the patriarchy.

So as we dive into this, you will see exactly what I mean. But in context, it's very easy to miss the purpose of why this was written in the first place.

To understand the context and to see the flow of Paul's argument. The overarching purpose of this text in this section of 1

Corinthians is about controlling chaos within the gathering of God's people. In this sense,

I truly believe that every component of these 15 verses is written with one primary goal in mind.

It is to reorganize the church in Corinth towards decency and order.

We're going to see that by the end of the text, that phrase, decency and order. And you'll actually see it somewhat throughout.

The church, what you need to understand about Corinth is the church was trending toward chaos in their gatherings.

Growing in faith together was out the window. Clear teaching was being inhibited. Shameful interjections were being entertained in the midst of the people.

In a phrase, the church gathering at Corinth was a free -for -all. And don't lose sight of what was stated earlier.

To demonstrate the debasement of this church, how utterly crazy things were.

They were getting together, they were having a meal, then they would have some teaching and different things, and then they would take communion together.

And some, it says in 1 Corinthians, earlier in this letter, some were even getting drunk at their potlucks.

How many of you are going, like, that church is crazy. Like, that church is getting wild. I mean, some were even getting drunk at their potlucks.

So, everything since the start of chapter 11 has been written to correct wayward behaviors within the church gatherings in Corinth.

And this passage wraps up those corrections with some final instructions for everyone to control their tongues in the gathering.

So, let's buckle up and open our Bibles to 1 Corinthians 14, verses 26 -40.

Again, 1 Corinthians 14, 26 -40. And this is

God's holy word. I hope you remember that, and I hope you can reflect on that as we read this together and as we wrestle through it and try to understand what

Paul is getting at here. 1 Corinthians 14, starting in verse 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. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two, or at most three, and each in turn.

And let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God.

Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent.

For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.

For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. 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.

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.

Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things

I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.

So, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy. And do not forbid speaking in tongues. But all things should be done decently and in order.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you that you are concerned for the way that we live and move and relate to one another and interact within the church.

That you are indeed a God of peace, and not a God of chaos, not a

God of disorder. That you are driving everything toward peace. Father, when we look at the relationships in the world around us, when we look at the dividedness of our country, the dividedness of our nation, between left and right and red and blue and male and female, ins and outs and haves and have -nots, not even to mention or hardly to mention even race.

Father, I ask that you would be highlighting for us the way that you have a desire to draw all in together.

Different parts, different functions, different roles, but all for the betterment and the blessing of the body.

Father, I pray that you would illuminate this text and give me your grace as we seek to understand it this morning.

As we seek to understand who you are, how sovereign you are, how in control you are, how you have designed us, how you have ordered things.

And I thank you that we are not just in the dark, just trying to find our way. You guide us and you direct us through your holy word, your revelation.

Father, I pray that you would meet us in this place as we have an opportunity now to sing songs of praise to you. Our voices mingled together in gladness and in joy.

Father, I pray that you would inhabit our worship with thoughts of gospel, of thoughts of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf that unites us.

I thank you for the value that all of us have in Christ, the hope that we all have in Christ, and the joy that can be ours through Christ.

And it's in his name that I pray. Amen. Now you can go ahead and be seated. I encourage you to get as comfortable as possible and keep your

Bibles open to 1 Corinthians 14, verses 26 -40. And I know we just had a break, but if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donut holes or if you need to use the restrooms, those are out the barn doors down the hallway on the left -hand side.

Take advantage of that. And just kind of start off with, despite the fact that two verses out of these 15 are going to grab our attention when we read it more than others,

I'm going to ask you to take this passage as it comes at us and see the flow of it so that you can see that the call in this passage to hold your tongue silent is the word that appears multiple times and actually forms the outline of our text.

But that phrase or that word, hold your tongue, has a place and time for all of us within the church, even those with speaking gifts.

At times it would be hubos to be quiet and listen. And so verse 26 needs to be clarified first because it serves as somewhat of an introduction to this conclusion of what has been a larger section of this passage or this section of 1

Corinthians. He's been seeking, Paul has been writing and seeking to bring a chaotic gathering within Corinth into more order and more love and more building each other up, that being the focus, the building up of one another.

He has been warring against selfish arrogance, loudmouthed clashing gongs, who've been seeking the spotlight there in Corinth.

And so verse 26 grants a general reminder that the parts and roles of a worship gathering in Corinth must all have the same goal.

All the components, all the things that happen in a worship gathering of a church has variety in it, but all the same goal, whether it's a song that we sing together, a prayer being offered, a message being delivered, an announcement being given.

Whatever is brought forward in a church gathering should be with the focus of building others up.

I hope you have heard that consistently throughout this series as we've been going, especially past several sermons in this series, going over this section.

All of it for the building of one another up. If it is not for the edification of others, then it is meant to be practiced elsewhere or maybe not even practiced at all.

So now our outline is as follows. Here's the outline. Silence uninterpreted tongues.

That's your first point. Silence uninterpreted tongues, verses 27 to 28. The second is silence an interrupted revelation, verses 29 through 33.

The third is silence wives during challenges to theological accuracy, verses 34 through 35.

And then the fourth is silence those who deny Paul's writings, verses 36 through 40.

So the idea or the concept of holding our tongue is found in all four of those points.

So we'll start with silencing uninterpreted tongues in verses 27 through 28. Right away the word if should grab our attention in verse 27.

If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or three at most, two or at most three, and each in turn and let someone else interpret.

The word if ought to grab our attention. There's absolutely zero expectation that it is a normative part of a church gathering that someone speaks in tongues.

You see that right away. If. If it happens, which implies that it's quite likely or possible that it doesn't.

I mentioned last week that Paul sees a severely limited value to this practice in the gathering of God's people.

And where we get to verse 29, the conditional if is absent from declarations of the prophetic revelation of God's Word.

It doesn't say if somebody prophesies when you gather together. The expectation is that that is going to happen. That's a set part.

That's going to happen when you gather. But what's not guaranteed is that somebody is going to speak in tongues every time you get together.

And that gives me hope because we haven't had that here. It's going to be said, let two or three right away prophesy, not if.

And this should matter to us a ton as a church where we have not experienced and do not expect tongue speaking within the gathering of God's people.

We follow this passage by not prohibiting it, as we're going to see by the end. It's going to say, don't prohibit it. Don't prohibit speaking in tongues, but we find comfort in the if of verse 27.

Amen? Find comfort in that? We are not an illegitimate church because nobody has spoken in tongues here.

There's a big if there at the start. What he's saying here is if it ever happens, there should be a plan.

In the event that it happens, there should be a plan. Every church ought to have a plan, an if, if this takes place then.

And so we actually do have a plan here. It's kind of rusty and needs to be dusted off from time to time, and this is just as good a time as any.

But if it ever happens here, we would stop the service. If somebody got up and spoke in tongues at some point in the message or in the service or during songs, we would stop the service and pray for an interpretation.

That's exactly what we would do. Depending on the results of giving what would likely prove to be an awkward few minutes of silence or quiet for an interpretation, if an interpretation is given, there would still be a step of discussion among the elders later to determine the nature of the tongues and interpretation, whether or not it's consistent with God's Word and all of that.

But in the absence of an interpretation, we would seek to follow the clear instructions of verse 28 here and encourage any tongue speakers to remain silent and only speak tongues silently to God.

The instructions in verse 27 give a glimpse to what things must have been like in Corinth.

Many people speaking in unknown tongues, which would account for Paul's statement back in verse 23 that if everyone is speaking in tongues and an unbeliever comes into the church gathering, they will say the whole church is nuts, that you're all insane, right?

And that's what he said in verse 23. So Paul is clearly limiting the number of tongue speakers in a gathering to three at the most.

And his mention, it's kind of intriguing and interesting. When he says two or at most three, I believe that betrays within Paul a bent that he would prefer less than more.

He'd prefer less than more. When a person says two or three, maybe, what they really mean is,

I guess we could put up with three, but it would be nice if it stopped at two. You know what I mean? Like if you say two or I guess three, you know, that's kind of the way of stating it.

Taken with the if at the start of verse 27, a picture emerges in which he expects there to be between zero and three tongue speakers in any specific church gathering.

Between zero and three, not 25, not 100, not everybody doing it at the same time as is often practiced in many charismatic churches today.

But further, tongue speaking is commanded to be orderly. He says take turns. This implies something that might be kind of confusing to those of us who have never experienced this, haven't been at a church that follows

God's word in chapter 14 about the practice. It implies a high level of control over speaking in tongues for the one who has this gift.

They can wait. They can wait their turn. They can even go so far as to skip it.

Even if they feel it welling up within them, they can skip it if there is no interpreter. They may feel they have this gift, but they can go without it.

It's not a frenzied trance that comes over a person producing chaos in the gathering where they just begin to,

I just couldn't control it. The spirit came over me and I just had to do it. No, that's not what the text says.

Then what you have is something different than what God is talking about here. That's kind of scary to think about, but what do you have that you can't control?

What do you have that is coming over you that is requiring you to do this thing?

That's scary, but our first use of the word silence in this passage that gives us some structure is hold your tongue that comes in verse 28 and is reserved for tongue speakers where there is nobody to interpret.

The second use of hold your tongue occurs in an interesting place. He instructs the church to silence an interrupted revelation.

It's kind of a weird place to put the emphasis in verses 29 through 33.

Again, I think prophecy is a gift best described as the ability to reveal truth, capital

T, truth from God that gives the knowledge of God and reveals mysteries. That comes from chapter 13, a definition there.

It's a generic word for revelatory, intelligible speech from God about God, about His will, about His ways.

To clarify, because there seems to have been some confusion over the past couple of weeks on what

I understand prophecy to be, I got a couple of emails this week not critiquing, just asking for clarity.

It's the revelation of God's specific words to His people. When you think prophecy, think

God's words, God's words being revealed. And since they had no really thinking about their context and understanding, why is he talking about prophecy to the

Corinthians? Well, they didn't have the book of 1 Corinthians until it arrived, let alone they didn't have 2

Corinthians. And likely they had no access to the gospel of Matthew or the book of Romans, for example. They didn't have those in their possession.

So God would reveal His word to the early church in more miraculous manifestations than He does today.

So the word prophecy is broad enough to encapsulate any of the revelation of God that includes

His word. So some preaching, and really preaching is meant to be prophetic in nature, some preaching is prophecy, and when it makes, it is prophetic when it makes

God's word better known, and I hope to preach in a prophetic way where you understand

God's word better and you hear from Him better because I've explained the text. But not all prophecy is preaching.

Some prophecy is more spontaneous, like it would have been in this gift given to some in the church in Corinth. But prophecy always has at its heart knowing

God better and understanding the mysteries of God better as a result. It is not centered on us, it is not centered on our future plans, it is not centered on which job to take, it is not centered on who to marry, it is not centered on the individual, but rather centered on the corporate gathering of God's people hearing from God.

You get it? It is always for the up -building of the congregation, not for the up -building of the individual.

Get it? So that's what I mean when I'm talking about prophecy. No, no, no, no, prophecy is not equated with preaching, but preaching is meant to be prophetic.

And still, in the church today, I believe that the primary mode of prophecy, what is given to us now in a completed canon, is preaching.

So the primary way that we are meant to be prophetic is in the teaching, the teaching and the preaching and the discussion and the community surrounding

God's revealed word, Genesis to Revelation. So in the era of church history when the

New Testament was unavailable, the church depended much more on the Holy Spirit to grant specific revelatory prophecies to fill in the gaps of their understanding of what was lacking in the

New Testament. We now take for granted that we can turn to 1 Corinthians or Revelation or the

Gospel of Mark, but the church in Corinth didn't have those prophetic words available to them, so God gave them real -time prophecies in their gatherings so that they might more fully know the

Gospel and know God's will for them, all for the purpose of up -building and edification of the church.

So that's what's going on there in prophecy. But even as valuable as prophecy was to the early church and is to us in the gathering,

God still puts limits on it. Paul seems to assume that prophecy will be a part of every gathering. We know that the early church devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, according to the book of Acts.

So we know that it was a component of the gathered church. But in verse 29 he says, Again, I think hoping for the lower end of one to three prophets in each gathering.

But he adds here that the rest of the church should weigh or judge what is said in prophecy. There's an immediacy to this judging or weighing, as the

ESV talks about it, that once again helps us to define what the prophecy was about.

The implication is that on the spot and on the fly, a group of guys, particularly within the church, would be able to determine whether or not what was said was actually from God or not to some degree.

The weight of the importance of prophecy in the gathering requires immediate analysis. Is this indeed truth from God?

This emphasizes the verifiable nature of this gift on the spot. This is not something that is going to be checked over the coming 20 years as someone has stood up and prophesied that I declare over this child that they are going to grow up to be a powerful preacher.

How many of you know that's going to take a while to verify? You know what I'm saying? And this is implied.

Everything in the language here in the text implies, no, no, when a guy stands up and prophesies, it's going to be clear and it's going to be increasingly clear as you begin to think about what was said, whether or not this comes from God, whether it's consistent with him.

Tested on the spot. This is something tested on the spot because it is true knowledge of God and the revelation of the mysteries of God.

And this is to be checked on the basis of available Scripture, the apostles' teaching, possibly other criteria that's not spelled out in the text.

Like is it self -centered on the part of the prophet? Or is it edifying everybody? Does it build them up?

Is it consistent with things that build people up? There might have been some other criteria, but obviously what was already existing in Scripture.

Does it disagree with the Old Testament? Throw it out. This guy's a bum. But this implies that even in the very orderly early church service, there could be an alleged prophecy that is weighed and found false.

And I imagine this happened, as Paul encouraged this weighing here, that there were times when charlatans and false teachers would get up and just spout words with an attempt to get a following.

And I imagine it would have been just as clearly awkward then as we imagine it could be now if there's disagreement at that level.

This equates to our gathering as some level of feedback on the validity and accuracy maybe of my sermons.

Whether this was done vocally in the gathering or later at a later time is unclear, but the way that the prophet would get feedback is it appears it happened in real time.

And the way that verse 29 connects with the text implies an inaccurate prophecy would be weighed and called out and corrected in the gathering of God's people.

And what I think is happening in verse 30 where we find our second verse that really commands to hold your tongue or silence is one person standing offering a revelation from God when another stands up as a sign that they also have received a revelation, a prophecy.

And when this happens, the first is to silence themselves, literally to hold their tongue while the second one speaks.

What I think he's getting at here is that when the one person is standing talking and somebody else interrupts,

God may be verifying, correcting, rebuking, or otherwise weighing that first prophecy. There is nothing that seems to prohibit the first from eventually finishing the prophetic word, but the primacy given here to the interrupter is a way to keep things in order and a church dependent, unlike us, dependent on prophetic utterances in order to understand the whole counsel of God.

You have it in your lap. Right now, this process can be as simple as you cross -referencing while I'm preaching.

You can access all of God's Word right now, and you can search it. You can look at a word that I say or a word in our text, and you can look it up and see what the rest of the

Bible has to say about it like that. Isn't technology amazing? Isn't it awesome what we're able to do today, even compared to when

I was a child? I mean, the technology is just amazing what we're able to do, but the ability to check and to weigh and to look into these things are right there on your lap and available to you, and I encourage it.

I encourage you to consistently check up and see if the things that I'm saying are consistent with God's Word.

We have the whole counsel of God now, and Paul is strong. By the way, I would ask by your kindness to never stand up and just shout me down.

I mean, that might be awkward. I'm going to say it's probably going to be awkward for you, and there may be a time and a place for that.

If it's something that severely needs to be corrected, then we can talk through that. I've offered corrections up here before.

I mean, the next week, if it's something that I feel like I've gotten wrong, we may have a misunderstanding or something like that.

But yeah, just kind of handle that in a kind way. But Paul is strongly driving for orderliness, where chaos has been the way in the

Corinthian gathering. All who will prophesy within a gathering, he has already said no more than three in a specific gathering, so all three can prophesy one at a time, so that all in the gathering might learn and be encouraged, hearing from God.

Again, we see a bit of the definition of prophecy here in the result. Paul doesn't say, do this in an orderly way so that one person can figure out their fortune, or do it in an orderly way so that one person can figure out where to go to college, or so that one person can be encouraged to go to seminary because the prophet has declared that God has anointed them for ministry.

No, the byproduct of prophecy rightly understood from Scripture is not like a fortune teller coming to town.

No, the result of prophecy practiced in the context of the early church, and really even for us, was for the education and encouragement of those who were gathered, that all would learn, and that all would be encouraged.

What was spoken brought knowledge and revealed the mysteries of God's saving work.

Learning and encouragement is the result of prophetic revelations, just like learning and encouragement are some of the results of preaching the written prophecies, in the here and now.

We have much less need for miraculous revelatory knowledge of God in an era where we have access to the very written words of God.

And in this sense, prophecy in our context is more frequently found in preaching and teaching, as I've already said, that which occurs here in this gathering and in community groups where the prophetic words of God are studied and read, or wherever.

I mean, prophecy can occur over a cup of coffee, where you're studying and you're going through God's word and you're understanding it better.

Or God gives you something to just share with an individual in a moment of, like, wow, this verse just pops in your mind.

Share that with them. And that can also be prophetic in nature. But so far in these first two instructions toward orderliness, it requires that some hold their tongues.

We find in verses 32 through 33 that self -control is a feature of the gifts.

Tongues in prophecy can be applied in an orderly, and are to be applied in an orderly fashion.

God is a God of rightly ordered, peaceful organization. The dissemination of truth in an organized, intelligible way.

He is not a God of confusion. So let the tongue speaker with no interpreter just pray in that tongue to God in silence, holding their tongue out loud.

And let the one who is gently interrupted by a second or third prophet hold their tongue to hear why

God has seen fit to interrupt. The phrase, as in all of the churches, goes best with verse 33 and not with verse 34.

Some put it with verse 34, but I like the English Standard Version, and there's a variety of reasons to study and understand why it goes with verse 33.

But I think that God, through Paul, is saying the orderliness and peaceful nature of our

Almighty God is the standard in all of the churches. You see, what he's getting at here in verse 33 is that Paul doesn't see exceptions to the orderliness of a church because of the nature of the

God that we serve. Why should we avoid chaos and wild rantings and just kind of like shouting and emotional fervor and just like blah, and people running up and down the aisles and clucking like chickens and barking like dogs and the ministry of the

Toronto blessing and the laughter, holy laughter for hours. Why is that not a thing?

Well, why is it a thing, but why is that not a legitimate thing? Why limit the number of tongue speakers and the number of prophets?

Because God is a God of orderly peace, not confusion. Amen? There is no room, there is no room in this passage for a rogue church that says, well, we roll a bit different over here because God has called us to be kind of the crazy stepson.

We're the chaotic one. We're the chaotic one.

So that's just kind of how God has placed us. God is consistently, across all of the churches, a

God of order and a God of peace, not an order of chaos. So now we come to the third theme of the text,

Silence Women During Challenges to Theological Accuracy, verses 34 through 35. Really, really tough passage.

And I think you guys feel the weight of that passage just even as I read it. And we get to this point and it's like, okay, here we are.

I would encourage that we keep with the theme of the passage where Paul now speaks uncomfortable words about women in the gathering.

The theme has been bringing order out of the chaotic meetings in Corinth, and Paul is most surely addressing here something that needs correction in Corinth.

Something is happening there on the ground that leads him into this discussion. So many things have been written about these next two verses that there are no fewer than seven main interpretations and dozens of minor, more easily dismissed interpretations of this passage.

But there are two primary reasons for so much disagreement in the text. If you go forward to that next slide there, the first is that Paul appears to contradict himself, and the second is that people don't like the content.

So you can kind of imagine why that is an issue. The first is that Paul clearly said that he permits married women to pray or to prophesy in the gathering as long as they respect their husbands by wearing the sign of a marital relationship when they do so, which in that context would happen to be a head covering.

And I'm not going to get back into all the head covering stuff. There's three primary passages that swirl around women in ministry.

There is 1 Timothy 2 .12, there's 1 Corinthians 11 about head coverings, and now this passage, and after this morning

I will have preached all three of them. You can go back and listen to them, and I would even refer you to the 1 Corinthians 11 passage about head coverings if you want to know more about head coverings.

That's the place to go where that passage, I explained it, and I'm not going to re -preach it here. But Paul cannot both say that women can pray and prophesy in the gathering and that they must remain silent.

Is Paul contradicting himself? Does he forget what he wrote just a couple of chapters ago?

So people dance around the mulberry tree trying to fix this, trying to reconcile it, and that's where you get all of this vast array of interpretations trying to apologize for Paul.

But there's a second reason for so much disagreement here, and it's the content.

People don't like the content, obviously. Women should hold their tongues, he says. Women should be in submission, he says.

Ask your husbands at home, he says, and do not be so shameful as to speak up in church, he says.

Tough content. Some people find this to be hopelessly misogynistic. But I will tell you that the equal value

God gives to both women and men in creation is certainly balanced by distinct roles that he gives to male and female in the church and in the family.

The world's way of viewing gender is slipping into the logical outcomes of distancing gender from the

God who ordained it, who ordered it that way. And look how quickly we're sliding into a breakdown of culture in the battle of the sexes.

A battle, really, over gender. Let me say this about the distinct roles of masculinity and femininity.

Sin is an equal opportunity destroyer. It will destroy with misogyny just as easily as with feminism.

It will destroy with toxic masculinity, and it will destroy with radical feminism. Men who abuse

Bible passages to declare their supremacy are no better off than women who deny the parts of God's Word that they don't like.

Both equally in trouble. God's design of male and female, hear me carefully, church,

God's design of male and female is beautiful. It is glorious.

It is a glorious picture of Christ and His church. And when it goes well, it is amazing.

But when acknowledgement of His design for male and female is rejected, as we're seeing in our culture, we untie the boat from the dock with no oars or motor.

And the current of fallen human culture is always moving the boat away from God.

You see it? It's where we live. If you don't see it, you ought to open your eyes and look around.

So rather than give you a half a dozen interpretations, let me tell you what I think Paul is doing here. What is he going on about?

In context, he's concerned for the orderliness of the church. And this comes on the heels of him talking about weighing prophecies.

That's the last type of speech being referenced here. He's talked about tongues, he's talked about prophecies, and he's talked about weighing in on prophecies.

Now he's going to talk about women's role in that. Having already preached on 1 Timothy 2 .12, I've already taught what

I believe to be the clear teaching from that text, that a woman is not to give the authoritative teaching of the gathering, nor is she to exercise authority over a man in the church.

She may be a prophetess, and that God may choose to speak directly through a woman in the gathering.

And as contrary as that might sound to our ears, there is an elevation there in which a woman can be used, just like a man, as a typewriter of God, so to speak.

Him speaking his words directly through her, him speaking his words directly through a male.

Either way. But she is called to step back in the gathering when the weighing of prophecy begins.

And that's because scenarios in which a woman is teaching or authoritatively correcting a man in the gathering is what is being separated out here.

And knowing Corinth, I think what he's correcting in these two verses is likely more raucous and more wild than we are even imagining in our minds.

Yikes. I can imagine that the types of things he seems to be correcting could go all the way to a scenario in which, to bring it up into our modern times, a scenario in which

Linda gets up in the gathering and shouts me down disagreeing with my sermon. Can you imagine?

I mean, you can imagine it, right? But can you imagine it really happening? How many of you might find it a bit distracting or even confusing if she did that?

And a bit disconcerting? And we would all just kind of leave like I would leave right away. And I think all of us would be extremely uncomfortable.

Paul defends his command to women to hold their tongues while the church is weighing prophecy at the end of verse 34 by, he says, appealing to, he appeals to the law in this.

Now he's appealed to the law more specifically, and I believe he's here generically or generally appealing to the law, remembering that the law means

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Those first five books of the

Bible are what he would have referred to as law. So we think of law as like Leviticus, parts of Exodus, and Deuteronomy, right?

Like we think of law, law, like the giving of the Ten Commandments and all those other laws that are in there. But when a

Jewish trained person spoke of the law, they spoke of those first five books, including some of the history, some of that content from Genesis.

And so he did this and appealed to the law in another passage where he was talking about women's role in the church, and that was in 1

Timothy 2, verse, jot that down, 1 Timothy 2, 13 and 14. You can go back and look at that. There he appeals to the

Old Testament law, the book of Genesis, giving the order of creation and the order of the fall as reasons why a woman is not to preach or exercise authority over a man in the church.

Here he appeals to the same thing, but just not as specifically. I believe that's exactly what he has in mind. Paul, when he started thinking about women in the church, he thought about the order of the fall and the order of creation, and therefore a woman is not to exercise authority or to teach a man in the church.

And I want to be careful to not blame too much of Paul's correction here on merely cultural issues, though there are absolutely cultural issues that come into play.

What was going on in Corinth? I'm confident that some of the following factors played into the specifics in Corinth of why

Paul was even bringing it up in the first place. The pagan practice of prophecy was more like fortune -telling, where they would go to an oracle.

And so where Paul tells the women in verse 35 to stop asking questions and instead go home and ask your husband, it's quite possible that they were actually applying pagan notions to prophecy.

So when you went to see an oracle, when you went to the oracle Delphi, and to be quite honest, it's very well documented in ancient history that the women loved the oracles.

They would go to the oracles to find out all kinds of things. To be just very direct, a lot of the men were out working all the time.

The women had a little bit more discretionary time. But they would go to the oracles to find out, is this baby going to be a boy or a girl?

They would go to the oracles to say, which market should I take my wool to to get the best price? There would be all kinds of questions.

And the way that an oracle worked is you went with a question. You didn't stand before the oracle and say, tell me what

I'm supposed to know. No, you went with a question. And so where we see in verse 35, if there is anything else that they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home, for it's shameful for a woman to speak in church.

He's saying, I think he's really saying, they are speaking shamefully. They are speaking shamefully in church.

And they're speaking shamefully of things that they ought to be talking with their husbands about. And instead they're hearing about this prophetic gift in the church, and they're misunderstanding it to the point where they're asking the prophet's questions about their own personal life.

And so it's quite possible that some of those questions demonstrated a misunderstanding of the role of prophet in the

New Testament. Some of the questions may well have been, is this baby going to be a boy or a girl, or where should I take my wool, that kind of question.

But beyond misunderstanding prophecy, these types of questions would be another example of disgracing their husbands in the gathering by asking another man in the church to weigh in on their family matters.

They have a husband to work through the answers to these questions with. They ought to talk with him, right? Would you guys agree with that?

Probably a good idea to talk with him. And they were likely adding to the chaotic nature of the gatherings by this type of questioning.

And also, you can imagine that by asking, is my baby going to be a boy or a girl, you're kind of getting in the way of what

God is trying to do through his prophecy, right? He's trying to communicate truth about himself through the prophet, and instead the questions are just rolling and rolling and rolling.

But what does this text add to our understanding then of the role of women in ministry at Recast? And I would refer you again back to my sermon on 1

Timothy 2, 8 -15. You can find that on the teaching tab that's available on our website, teaching tab.

Go down to, I think it's sermon, sermon content, and then you can click on that. What does that look like?

You can check click on the live stream, but there's also sermon audio there, so you don't have to stream the video. Our live stream is not super great quality anyway.

But yeah, the audio is there too. I just can't re -preach that passage here, but that's going to be the most concise understanding about where our church stands in regard to women in ministry.

We are a church that will not have female preachers, female pastors, or female elders, and we do love women.

We believe that the image of God is reflected through male and female. Both are equal in value.

Both are different in function. Both are equal in salvation at the foot of the cross. And this passage agrees with 1

Timothy 2, 12 -15, if I'm understanding it correctly. This is not a prohibition on all speech acts of women within the church, but rather quite specifically any speech acts that will authoritatively teach or exercise authority over a man, and that is what's being prohibited.

And weighing prophecies must entail authoritative theological teaching. When they are weighing the prophecy, when a prophet gets up and says,

God has told me, here is a message for all of you, for somebody to get up and say, false, you're a false teacher, and that is wrong doctrine, is that authoritative?

That's a pretty authoritative statement. He's prohibiting that. The last instruction, to hold the tongue, the fourth one, doesn't come with a specific word, silence, in the text, but does amount to silencing of certain people.

Silence those who deny Paul's teaching, verses 36 -40. In verse 36, Paul asks two rhetorical questions meant to get them thinking about the way that the word of God was first made known to them.

How did the word of God come to you? Speaking to the Corinthians overall in verse 36, where he says, or was it from you that the word of God came?

Or are you the only ones it has reached? He's not talking to the women there, he's talking to the church in general.

How did the word come to you? They are not the author of scripture, he says.

And they are not the only church that has received the truth. And in verse 37, he declares the authority in one of his most open declarations here in this text, ever.

The most open declaration of Paul himself about his authority to speak God's words.

All true prophets and people truly born in the Spirit will acknowledge the writings of Paul to the

Corinthians as a command from the Lord. Anyone who doesn't acknowledge

Paul's inspired by the Spirit contributions to the New Testament should not be acknowledged as having the truth, says

Paul. Despite the absence of the word silence here, he gives them a criteria for testing a prophet.

If they disagree with Paul's inspired letters, don't listen to them. If you ever,

God calls you to move away for a job and you encounter a church, and there are some who call into question

Paul's writings, who call into question the things that Paul has to say, just skip out and go find a different church.

This is an ironic place, by the way, to put this in light of the very uncomfortable subject matter of verses 34 through 35.

The majority of other interpretations of these verses are attempts at dismissing them, including one commentary that I read this week that seeks to cast doubt, otherwise great commentary, but that particular author this week sought to cast significant doubt on whether or not

Paul even wrote verses 34 and 35. Probably not even his, probably not even authentic, so we could probably just skip that passage, right?

But it isn't by chance that instruction to trust in Paul's words comes immediately on the heels of one of the hardest teachings that he gives.

If a man won't acknowledge these difficult passages of Paul, don't acknowledge that man, says Paul. But he concludes in the final two verses with an endorsement of prophecy, earnestly desire it.

I could rephrase this to earnestly desire to hear from God, earnestly desire to read it, earnestly desire to study it, earnestly desire to feast upon it, saturate your thoughts with the

Word of God, earnestly desire to hear from God. How do you hear from God? How do you know that you're hearing from God?

The Word. Seek desperately to know

God better. And do not forbid speaking in tongues. It's almost as though Paul knew that we'd want to. But don't forbid it.

So he says here, don't forbid it. While having significantly limited all expressions of it in the corporate gathering.

He prefers for tongues to be expressed outside of the church, and he has made that very clear. But he is not, throughout this passage, killing the practice altogether.

So I hope that you have found Recast to be a place that practices verse 40. But all things should be done decently and in order.

Does that reflect us? I hope so. All things done within the boundaries of cultural acceptability, that's the meaning of the word decently here.

Another way of saying that is nothing untoward or disgraceful done in the gathering. And all things done in an organized fashion with the goal of understanding that leads to the up -building, the edification, and encouragement and conviction of all of us.

So how are we doing, Recast? Are we okay? Tough passage, but are we okay? One of us is?

Alright. Speaking in tongues and telling women to hold their tongue all in one week? What a text.

But feel free to reach out to me with questions or concerns this week. If you've learned something new about the church, you're like,

I don't know. I don't know how to process this. Let me know. And seriously, this church I think has been amazing.

I rarely find anyone who desires to argue with God's word. You may disagree with my interpretation or my understanding from time to time, but I found that when the majority of the people that I meet with, when we talk through God's word, they are not rejecting.

They're not quick to reject this. And that's amazing that we have a church like that. We won't always see eye to eye on everything, but kindness has been the rule in the interactions that I've had, while argumentativeness has been the exception here over the last 15 years.

And I believe that we're a church that is centered. Our gathering on the prophetic word is revealed to the prophets and apostles.

His word and that has made all the difference in our growing up in love, growing in faith, growing in community, growing in service together.

My hope and prayer, and I mean this sincerely, that a woman who has been in this church for years would by this point have experienced my pastoral care and my pastoral conviction to preach all of God's word, even the difficult and direct passages that challenge us.

We come to communion this morning to land this passage at the foot of the cross. There our

Lord and Savior died for us, men and women equally loved. This truth is the reason why we need clarity over chaos in our gatherings.

That we might be strengthened, encouraged, and built up by the gospel. He died for us.

His body was broken for our sins. So we come to the tables to take the cracker, to remember his body.

And we take the cup of juice to remember his blood was shed for us. We come in conviction of our sins.

We come in repentance, turning from our sins. We come to be encouraged by his love.

We come to be reminded of hope for a future of perfection, a place of complete decency.

A place of complete order. A place of complete peace. For our God is not a

God of confusion. But the God that we serve, we cast as a God of peace. Let's pray.

Father, I do thank you for the orderliness that I've experienced here. I have just not seen a lot of chaos, a lot of freaking out.

A lot of wild demands for the spotlight to fall on any of us.

I rejoice in that and I ask for that for years to come. Just don't take for granted that that's going to be the case in a room full of sinners.

Father, I ask that even as this passage settles heavy on all of us. I think it settles on the men pretty heavy.

It settles on the women pretty heavy. It's a passage as we talk about gender.

Our culture is so utterly jacked. It has been since the fall. We don't harbor any, and God forgive us if we harbor any notions that, oh, that generation got it right.

Back in the 50s or back in the whatever. We've been broken over this for our entire history.

Since the fall when it was said that the woman's desire would be to have authority over her husband.

Men have been abusers from the beginning. Father, I pray that you would reconcile us.

I just know that there are marriages here that are torn by the fabric of our culture, by the fabric of our hearts, by the fabric of sin, by the very things that Satan has planted in us through that original fall that now is working its way out in practicality and men as tyrants over their household, ruling like petty tyrants over a little kingdom.

Abuse is real. And women who just desire that authority for themselves and stemming the tide of our culture, really kind of moving like somebody's got to be in charge.

Somebody's got to be over the other, so let's now make it women. Father, I pray that you would guide and direct us as your church by your word into truth to the hope of the gospel that elevates the dignity of men and women alike and recognizes how much we need each other.

We don't just need each other just in some evolutionary procreation kind of way.

We need each other because we are together in your image, together reflecting.

I pray that you would produce that more and more and increase in us as we are coming to these tables, male and female together, coming to these tables to recognize our need for you.

Be continuing to restore us, continuing to correct us, continuing to bring us out from underneath whatever sin that we've adopted, whatever has blinded our eyes and bring us to the truth here this morning even as we come to these tables.