1 Corinthians 14:1-25 Values in the Gathering

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filcik preaches from his sermon series titled, First Corinthians, Sinful Church, Powerful Gospel. Let's listen in.

Good morning and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filcik, I'm the lead pastor here. And I'm really glad to be together in the gathering of God's people. I am glad that we have the opportunity to do together this morning.

It's interesting that we find ourselves in the gathering of God's people while the central text that we're gonna be looking at this morning from God's word in First Corinthians is about the gathering of God's people.

So we're kinda talking, we're kinda hearing God talk about what we're doing here this morning in the passage that we're gonna be looking at. Our text this morning has been a hot topic for several decades.

Decades that involve a fairly strong resurgence of the charismatic movement of Pentecostal churches, charismatic churches. As a matter of fact, the charismatic movement boasts of some of the largest churches in America and globally.

The movement has gained a lot of traction around the world, including in the continents of Africa and Asia and South America. But it's really good, and I just wanna point out to this gathering that it's good for us that God has revealed to us a more clear vision of what all of that is about through the pages of scripture.

It is honestly way too easy to hold views and thoughts about gifts and tongues and prophecy without referring to the word of God at all, without even looking at it. That's quite possible. And further, I would suggest that it's quite common for those who decide to look into the word to already have preconceived notions about what they're looking for there and then to seek a defense for their already established positions.

I think many of us know what that looks like. How often have we, maybe not even about this subject, but about something else, we've had our own opinion or thought about the way God works and then looked in the pages of scripture to try to find support for our thoughts.

Have you ever done that? You ever done that? Like you think you know how things roll and then you're searching, searching, searching. It's gotta be in here somewhere, because it's what I think. And we've gotta be careful of that to make sure that what we're seeing and what we're believing and what we're trusting, my hope and prayer is that we will be biblical on this subject, that we'll look at what the scriptures have to say about it and let that happen.

What I'm trying to get at in this is that what you bring to this text, your opinions and thoughts that you already have formed in your mind, what you bring to the text will dramatically impact what you want to see in it.

So I tried to read this text with only the immediate context in mind, then broadening out to the rest of scripture and trying to understand this. And I landed in a place more confident than ever that the value of speaking in tongues in the corporate gathering, in a gathering of a church, the value of tongue speaking in a gathering like this is near zero.

It is near zero, according to the apostle Paul, the value of speaking in tongues together in a gathering. Near zero, it isn't at zero, but alone without interpretation, it is absolutely at zero benefit.

And yet I equally come to the conclusion that speaking in tongues is a real gift that according to this verse, rather according to this passage and these verses, involves private prayer to God in an unknown tongue.

Now I'm gonna state that, that that's what I believe is happening here. And yet I leave a lot of room for people to see this differently. And I recognize that there's a variety of opinions on this and that some are gonna see tongues primarily as a given language, the ability to speak a language that is a foreign language like French or Arabic, but I'm gonna give you my side of it.

I'm gonna give you what I see from the text. I've studied it, I've dived into it. And so I've come to a different conclusion than my upbringing. My upbringing was to see tongues only ever as an evangelistic tool for the purpose of reaching people who don't speak the same language as you.

How many of you heard that used of tongues before? That's the primary thing, but I'm gonna show you in this text, at least at times where I see that different, but I think it matters little. And what I mean by that is I don't think that the, I think it's a very secondary or third degree level issue about what these tongues actually are because let's put it down into brass tacks.

Let's think about it like in a practical way for just a second. Somebody stands up in this gathering and starts babbling the best that we can understand is gibberish, right? And some of you have had that experience.

Some of you have been in a church where that's happened or been in a gathering of God's people where that's happened and so somebody gets up and does it matter significantly to you in that gathering whether what they are speaking is Croatian or is it heavenly language?

It doesn't matter, right? Like that, I'm saying that the significance of that is minuscule in light of what's just happened and what needs to happen next, right? So it's not, I mean, I'm gonna make a case that I think it is an unknown God-given language.

I'm gonna give you evidences that I see from the text. You can do what you want with that, but the practice of this, this passage is gonna give us some ways to think about it. Tongues and prophecy will take up most of our time this morning, but don't miss that underneath the surface is a deeper application for all of us.

It's God's deep concern to convey to us values that are to be lifted up in our gathering, that are to even define and describe the way that we gather and the things that we do while we're gathered. We are being called to value these three things and I think quite clearly in the text, three things that our church ought to value and it will impact the way that we view tongues and prophecy.

Edification, this is a value of the church given in 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Edification, that is the building up of believers, the building up of one another, that ought to describe and define our gathering.

Intelligibility, understanding, the ability to understand what is said is more valuable than esoterical, kind of ethereal experiences of the spirit or something like that. Intelligibility matters, understanding what God's word says matters and then conviction is the last thing.

That we are to value,.

Even to the point of when a visitor comes in, that they might be able to hear, understand and believe and be convicted in their core of their own sins.

When we gather together,.

We are not meant to be having a couple of hundred private worship gatherings where each one of us is independently in the room doing our own thing. That's where I actually, I kind of find myself at times because of my upbringing, closing my eyes during worship and just having my own little time with God and I try to war against that.

And I'm gonna be honest, as your pastor, I stand on the front row while we're singing and so I'm up here, I can't see as many of you as I would like, but I've been trying my best to keep my eyes open.

I think being cognizant that I'm not the only one in the room worshiping.

Is valuable.

I think that's good. I think there's something that's really, really important.

About gathering together.

Because I can sing in my car, right? I can sing when I'm out for a walk or I can sing all kinds of places,.

But singing together,.

I really can only do, I can really only sing with the church here together. So that's valuable. We are brought together for mutual edification, for the reception of intelligible content to grow us in our faith and we are called to proclaim truth in a way that has the power to convict.

And my prayer is that we as a church continue to lean into that and that this passage gives us some fuel for that. These are underlying values of the text, the things that Corinth valued were different than that.

That what they valued most in their gatherings were these ecstatic manifestations of mysterious tongues, unknown languages. They thought this marked the tongue speaker as higher spiritually, set them apart as probably closer to God and able to speak God's language or able to speak languages they didn't study or however you conceive of that.

They thought they were showing themselves to be closer to God. So this entire passage reads as a corrective and a rebuke to them, to the Corinthians. He never once denigrates, and I'm gonna confess and I'll talk about it in the midst of the text, but he never once denigrates the activity of speaking in tongues, even saying he did it more than all of them.

But what he does do is strongly correct the context in which they were speaking in tongues, strongly correcting where they were doing it. This activity is not for the corporate gathering and he will make a strong case for that by walking us through the values of a church gathering.

So let's open our Bibles or your scripture journals or your devices to 1 Corinthians 14, verses one through 25. Again, 1 Corinthians 14, a little bit of a longer text, but recast no less God's word, just because it's controversial doesn't mean it's not God's word.

This is a potent word that God desires to communicate to us in this gathering from this text. So probably the most prophetic thing that we do in our gathering is what I'm about to do. We are going to hear capital T truth from the mouth of God, from what he desires to communicate.

So let's pay attention to what God desires to say to us. 1 Corinthians 14, one through 25, pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men, but to God, for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the spirit.

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

Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets so that the church may be built up. Now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching?

If even lifeless instruments such as the flute or the harp do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played? And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said?

For you will be speaking into the air. There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning. But if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me.

So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.

What am I to do?

I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also. I will sing with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say amen to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying?

For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. I thank God that I speak in tongues more than any of you or all of you. Nevertheless, in church, let me read that again.

Nevertheless, in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10 ,000 words in a tongue. Brothers, do not be children in your thinking, be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.

In the law, it is written, by people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners, will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord. Thus tongues are assigned not for believers,.

But for unbelievers,.

While prophecy is assigned not for unbelievers, but for believers. If therefore the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and an outsider or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds?

But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, and he is called to account by all. The secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for your word. It gives us instruction, gives us direction, gives us clarity, gives us intelligibility, gives us content for the growing of our faith and the expanding of our understanding.

Father, I pray that that would be the reality of this gathering week in and week out, especially today when we cover a text that has so many different interpretations, so many different understandings.

Father, I pray that you would allow with clarity what I say to be drawn from the text and be clearly an explanation of this text. Father, I thank you that you have built this church.

On your word,.

Not built this church on some kind of ecstatic utterance, some emotionalism, some feeling that we get when we arrive here, but rather on what is the knowledge of you, the capital T truth revealed to us through your word, a truth that encapsulates and encourages and promotes and brings forth the gospel that is our hope, that Jesus Christ loves us, was sent here by you to die for us, and rose again three days later victorious over sin and death, vindicated by you.

Father, I pray that the truth, the intelligible, understandable truth would be the centerpiece of this church as long as the doors are open, and that you would continue the work that you have begun in us in these first 15 years with many years to come of truth.

And more truth and more truth. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

I encourage you to get as comfortable as possible. Keep your Bibles open to 1 Corinthians 14, one through 25. I think maybe more than ever on a passage that can be this confusing and wandering and have so much bias attached to it, I think it's going to be important for you to be able to follow the flow from the pages of scripture.

Having the Bible open in front of you is going to be, I think, almost essential for you to follow the argumentation through this passage. But to help cut through some of the mystery of this passage, it has a purpose, it has an intention that goes beyond what grabs our attention.

First, that's the definition of prophecy and tongues, and we read it for the sensational, and that's what grabs our attention. But there's a pretty run-of-the-mill, routine application that comes to us and structure that comes to us through this text.

So there are three values in the gathering of God's people that frame Paul's discussion of prophecy and tongues for the early church and for us in the way that we live and apply these things. The first is that we value concern for insiders.

We're going to call that edification, which means building up, in verses one through five. Concern for understanding, I'm calling that intelligibility, verses six through 15. And then the third movement of the text is concern for outsiders, that is conviction, verses 16 through 25.

So we'll see that those are values that we are to have together in the church that are flowing out of this text. I hope you see them just like I do. But we're going to start with concern for insiders.

And I believe that that's where God desires the church to focus. That's the first focus that he brings into our attention about the gathering of God's people. When we think in general about the reasons for a church to get together, why does Jesus have us getting together?

Why does he desire his people to gather? And I'm confident most of us would acknowledge that we gather in the most part, in the major part, to grow as Christians. The church is fundamentally a gathering of believers.

Did you guys already know that? That is fundamentally what it is about. A gathered church should build up believers. The word often used in scripture is edification, and it simply means to build up. Now over the years, the church growth movement has edited that to some degree, have they not?

So back in the 80s, moving up towards the early 2000s, churches made their primary focus the visitor. And that changed the way that we do church a lot. So churches that kind of had a seeker-sensitive model, if you attended a church, and some of you in this room maybe attended a church like that in the past, you could begin to feel like second rate because you're a believer.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Some of you have experienced that, where it was kind of like everything seems so focused on kind of a kiddie pool kind of teaching, and everything felt like it was the shallow end entry that we never seem to swim deep because we don't want to go over the heads of the visitor or the unbeliever that resulted in a lack of edification for a couple of decades in many churches.

And so we acknowledge and we'll see that Paul's gonna bring that back in the end, that we don't throw that out and we don't do crazy stuff just to kind of put off the visitors, but we also make our main focus and our primary focus the insiders of the church to grow in our faith, to be built up and strengthened in the knowledge of God's word.

And in verse one, Paul reminds the divisive, arrogant, and selfish Corinthians that they are to pursue love in the gathering for other believers and for each other while pursuing the spiritual gifts, to do both.

It would be easy for the Corinthians to assume after chapter 13, we've studied it together in the past couple of weeks, chapter 13 highlights love as the primary thing that we apply and we utilize the spiritual gifts through love or we are nothing and they are worthless.

And so it would be easy for the Corinthians to assume after what Paul said in chapter 13, that spiritual gifts are being pushed out by Paul in order to be replaced with love. And so here in verse one, he's saying, no, no, no, we're not replacing spiritual gifts with love, we are to apply our spiritual gifts with love, pursuing both of them.

And so he's reminding them that they need to pursue both and so should we. But he adds at the end of verse one that they should especially desire to prophesy or desire the gift of prophecy. And if we don't stop here, because right now we could just wanna drive to definition, what is prophecy?

If we don't stop here, but we keep reading, we will see pretty quickly that Paul's goal is to contrast prophecy with speaking in tongues in a way that helps us to define them naturally according to what Paul was thinking.

Verse two reads as an explanation of what a person is doing when they speak in tongues. So that's what you're seeing in verse two. When a person is speaking in tongues in the gathering and he's saying the Corinthians are doing this thing, it's an explanation while verse three reads like an explanation or description of what can expect, what a person can expect when they encounter prophecy in the gathering.

And these are informative to our definitions, understanding it in context, what's he getting at? Says tongues and prophecy differ in their audience and tongues and prophecy differ in their effect in what they produce.

In verse two, he says the audience of tongues is who?

Who does he say?

Go ahead and look at an answer out loud. God, the audience of tongues is God. It is prayer uttered in a tongue. In verse three, the audience of prophecy is the people. It is the people, it is the congregation.

In verse two, no one understands the one who speaks in tongues, but he utters, it says mysteries in the spirit, or I believe I would make a case for a lowercase s spirit that he's just saying you're uttering mysteries in your spirit that nobody else is understanding, not necessarily in the capital S Holy Spirit that ESV puts in there, but that's a judgment call by the interpreters.

But it is clear that what is spoken in tongues in the gathering is not discerned without interpretation by anybody. There is no expectation that anybody in the gathering is going to grasp this, is going to understand this in light of what is said in verse two.

Nowhere in this passage does Paul mention an unbelieving foreign speaker entering the congregation and hearing somebody speaking in tongues and understanding it. It never occurs in chapter 14. The reason I'm talking about that is that's the way I was raised.

I was raised to believe that speaking in tongues was only ever a known language. It was speaking in French. Now, I don't know why God would desire me to speak and pray to him in French. Now, he could do that, and I said, it doesn't matter a ton, but I'm gonna give you my evidences why I think that this is not a known language.

And this is one of them. He does not expect anyone to understand them except for the speaker and God, and if God desires, an interpreter. And further, the audience of these tongues is not said to be the foreigner in their midst who happens to speak French, and all of a sudden you're given a word to them in French, and you stand up and start speaking French.

Rather, the audience of these tongues is God. This means that Paul certainly sees the gift of tongues he is speaking about here to be unintelligible to the congregation, prayers to God. Do you see that in the text?

I hope that we're all seeing the same thing here in this text, and we can talk about it later if you don't, but that's absolutely what I see happening, and again, it's gonna back up with the rest of the passage.

But back to the contrast, while nobody understands the tongue speaker, he says, in verse three, the prophecy spoken to the people results in knowledge and in understanding. It results in upbuilding, again, our word edification.

It results in edification, encouragement, and consolation to the one who hears it. That's the result of prophecy, is strength in the person. Prophecy is comprehensible, it is intelligible. The one who brings a prophecy gives the knowledge of God and opens up mysteries, is what he said back in chapter 12.

And that message that is given to the congregation through prophecy brings upbuilding and encouragement and comfort or consolation. These byproducts of prophecy within the gathering helps to shed light on the prophetic gift.

A person could leave the church gathering where prophecy was applied, where it happened, where it occurred, where there was prophecy given, they would leave built up in their faith, built up together in their faith, with more courage, with encouragement as a result that prophecy was given, with consolation or comfort because the prophecy was given.

The prophecy is a mechanism, and I hope it becomes increasingly clear to you throughout this passage, but the prophecy was the mechanism of capital T, truth, in a church without a copy of the Bible. That's what we're looking at here.

Now, hear my reasoning, and agree with it or not, remember that when the church received this very letter that we are able to dissect, pick apart, and draw understanding from the Spirit to our hearts, when there was a first day when 1 Corinthians was read to a church, think about that.

That's a little mind-bending. So there was a day when the church was gathered and a courier came with a letter in hand and said, we got another letter from Paul, let's read it. And the very first time that these truths that we take for granted because we can read them over and over again, this is probably not the first time that many of you have read chapter 14, but for them, the very first time the church even knew these things, let alone 2 Corinthians.

They had 1 Corinthians before they had 2 Corinthians. How many of you know there's some good things in 2 Corinthians that is good for the church to know and kind of important for us to understand? How many of you know that there's good things in 1 Corinthians that's important for us to understand?

So that first Sunday when 1 Corinthians was read as God's holy word revealed to the apostle Paul, what did they do the week before? Did they have a copy of Mark or Matthew's gospel? Maybe, but probably unlikely.

I can tell you for sure they didn't have Revelation. Parts of the Bible that they didn't have access to, what were they doing in those gatherings? What were they explaining? Just going over the Old Testament stories.

Again and again and again with no grace,.

With no understanding? No. God was raising up in their midst prophets who could speak and fill in those blanks and cover for the lack that was yet to be fulfilled. No, the early church looked very, very different from our church, current church context.

They were dependent upon God to speak through prophets for capital T, truth. Misunderstanding the difference between their position without all of the words of God yet revealed. Understanding and misunderstanding the difference between their position and where they lived and their context and ours will lead us to a misunderstanding of how to apply prophecy.

To where we want to trivialize,.

And I mean this like kind of in a genuinely, not hostile way, but in an honest way, we trivialize it to like, I'd just like a prophet to come in and tell me where to go to college or who to marry or what my next week is supposed to be or should I move or should I do this job?

And how many of you know that that's a little bit of a lower standard of thinking about this glorious thing that by the end of the text is gonna say when people come in, they are going to bow on their face before God and say, surely God was in this place with deep conviction over their sin because they've heard prophecy.

Not, oh, I'm gonna have a little bit better sense of where I should go to college. Or how many of you know that prophecy in our current context has often been cheapened to the point where it's like a parlor trick.

Somebody here, somebody here, I'm thinking, thinking a name, there's a name coming. Lucille, I'll just throw out a funny name because I don't think there's, probably not very many of us know Lucille, right?

It'd probably be better if I chose the name Heather or Karen or Jennifer for my generation at least, right? I'd be more likely to hit on one. No, it's something much more potent than that that we're gonna see by the end of the text.

It's an extremely powerful thing that was useful in that Old Testament context where the word of God was not readily available. Are you getting what I'm saying in that? You guys understanding prophecy?

New church context where this was not revealed and they needed something to fill in those gaps. So many New Testament scholars agree with my understanding of the greater prophetic need in Corinth than we have now after the completion of God's word.

I'm confident in saying that we, that the need for prophetic revelations from God are much less here in Matawan, Michigan in 2023 than they were, did I say 2023?

Why don't I say 2024?

Oh, why don't I get the year right?

Whatever year we are, holy cow. And it's much less necessary here, whatever year we're in. Obviously that wasn't a prophetic word, but much more necessary in their context where God's word wasn't readily available.

And Richard B. Hayes, a New Testament scholar who has a lot more time, a whole lot more time to focus and a lot more attention, I don't think any of us probably have the attention span of Richard B. Hayes when it comes to studying a word.

Like this guy poured his life into understanding the word prophecy. And as it's used in the New Testament, as it's used in scripture, as it's used in that ancient language, and he concludes that it is used in Pauline writing as an ad hoc stand-in word, ad hoc stand-in word for all intelligible speech gifts that edify the church.

So what he does is rather than a very specific word that I was raised to think of prophecy as a very narrow type of like almost trance-like revelation that is just mystical and magical, are you guys getting what I'm saying?

Rather than that, he sees it applied by Paul as a stand-in word for any activity involving intelligible speech, understandable speech, that builds up, making it a broader category, including things like word of knowledge.

Word of knowledge is a subset of prophecy. Word of wisdom, a subset of prophecy. Teaching, a subset of prophecy. Preaching, a subset of prophecy. Are you getting what I'm saying in that? Prophecy is the general term for when you come in contact with God's clearly revealed truth, which I hope is happening right now, which I can at least confidently say we do at least once in our gathering when I step out and I hold this sacred text in my hand and I declare it to you and read it to you.

Do that.

And I can say you are at least prophesied to once a service that I do, you've gotta check up on me. You've gotta make sure that my preaching is in line with this. You've gotta test this and make sure that I'm taking into account other passages and that I'm not just speaking my own thoughts in my own heart.

I am fallible in my sermon, but when you hear God speaking to you through his word, that is powerful. Have you ever been impacted by it? You ever had a powerful response in your heart and your life changed because you've encountered him in the pages of his revealed truth?

It's prophetic.

I'm not making a statement here about prophecy ceasing. As a matter of fact, the book of Revelation says there's gonna be two prophets in the end. We know that there's gonna be prophets that are yet to come.

Primarily, I think, because the church is gone.

There's no more declaration.

There's no more proclamation. There's no more church gathering during that season and that time. Maybe those left behind,.

I know some of you are into the Left Behind series and all that stuff,.

But by and large, there's just not gonna be a ton of, there's not gonna be a ton of proclamation of truth and there's gonna be a need to send prophets in the future. So I'm not saying that it's over, but I'm saying that I see much less need for prophecy when we can hear from God each time we gather with confidence they could not do this like we can today in Corinth.

What we are seeing here forming in this contrast between personal intelligible, or rather personal unintelligible utterance of tongues and corporate intelligible utterances of prophecy is a value being placed on building each other up.

With truth.

That is the value we're looking at. Why is Paul elevating prophecy over tongues all throughout this passage? Look at verse four. The one who speaks in a tongue builds himself up, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.

And some people and some commentaries and some people coming from a specific angle want to say that building yourself up is a net negative. But when Paul says that the one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, I believe that he's saying that speaking in tongues is like many activities that we do privately in edification of ourselves.

Like I keep a journal. Some of you maybe are into journaling. It's something I don't share with everybody, but I certainly journal. It's personally edifying. Personal prayer. I hope you're all doing it.

Who's gaining from that? Who is edified when you pray on your own?

You.

There's nothing wrong with that.

No, we can't think that just by the statement edifying themselves that it's a negative. I don't even have a quiet time. You spend time in the word. Don't raise your hand because that's kind of like boasting, but I encourage you to have a quiet time.

To spend time with God at the start of your day or at the end of your day. Spend time in prayer. Or tithing is an example of that. Giving, giving joyfully, giving gladly. These are all spiritual activities with a goal of personal up-building through connection with God.

They are not undertaken in a group, and they are not something wise to spend a lot of time telling each other about. How much time do you spend in prayer? I spend this much time in prayer. I give this much.

How much do you give? We don't talk about these things, nor should we be spending time talking about tongues. Nor should we be spending time talking about our personal, private experiences with that. It's not a bad thing to build oneself up in the Lord.

The value undergirding Paul's criticism of tongues in these first five verses is primarily about the edification, the building up of the church. Those who are in relationship with Jesus already will be built up and strengthened by their faith in capital T, truth.

Not by unintelligible, ecstatic, personal prayers being offered in the gathering by everyone. If he meant, by the way, that building oneself up was negative in verse four, then this is where we would expect to find a rebuke.

Then I expect a rebuke to come next. If he sees it as just completely and utterly self-centered, kind of like egotistical, the only reason that you would ever speak in tongues is to center the focus on yourself and be a selfish individual in the gathering of God's people, then this is where I would expect him to put a bullet in it.