Values in the Gathering

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Don Filcek; 1 Corinthians 14:1-25 Values in the Gathering

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsick preaches from his sermon series titled,
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First Corinthians, Sinful Church, Powerful Gospel. Let's listen in. Good morning and welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsick, 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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As a matter of fact, the charismatic movement boasts of some of the largest churches in America and globally.
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The movement has gained a lot of traction around the world, including in the continents of Africa and Asia and South America.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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God works and then looked in the pages of scripture to try to find support for our thoughts.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It is near zero, according to the Apostle Paul, the value of speaking in tongues together in a gathering.
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Near zero, it isn't at zero, but alone without interpretation, it is absolutely at zero benefit.
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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.
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Now, I'm gonna state that, that that's what I believe is happening here, and yet,
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I leave a lot of room for people to see this differently, and I recognize that there's a variety of opinions on this in 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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Let's think about it 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?
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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. So somebody gets up, and does it matter significantly to you in that gathering whether what they are speaking is
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Croatian or is it heavenly language? It doesn't matter, right?
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I'm saying that the significance of that is minuscule in light of what's just happened and what needs to happen next, right?
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So it's not, I mean, I'm gonna make a case that I think it is an unknown God -given language.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I'm gonna be honest. I stand on the front row while we're singing, and so I'm up here, and I can't see as many of you as I would like, but I've been trying my best to keep my eyes open.
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I think being cognizant that I'm not the only one in the room worshiping is valuable. I think that's good.
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I think there's something that's really, really important about gathering together, because I can sing in my car, right?
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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,
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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.
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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.
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They thought this marked the tongue speaker as higher spiritually, set them apart as probably closer to God, and able to speak
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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.
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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.
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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.
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So let's open our Bibles, or your scripture journals, or your devices to 1 Corinthians 14, verses one through 25.
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Again, 1 Corinthians 14, a little bit of a longer text, but recast no less
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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.
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So probably the most prophetic thing that we do in our gathering is what
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I'm about to do. We are going to hear capital T truth from the mouth of God, from what he desires to communicate.
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So let's pay attention to what God desires to say to us. 1 Corinthians 14, one through 25.
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Pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.
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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.
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On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.
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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.
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The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets so that the church may be built up.
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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?
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If even lifeless instruments such as the flute or the harp do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played?
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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?
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For you will be speaking into the air. There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning.
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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.
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So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. I thank
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God that I speak in tongues more than any of you or all of you. Nevertheless, in church, let me read that again.
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Nevertheless, in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10 ,000 words in a tongue.
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Brothers, do not be children in your thinking, be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.
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In the law, it is written, by people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will
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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.
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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?
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But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, and he is called to account by all.
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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.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word. It gives us instruction, it gives us direction, gives us clarity, gives us intelligibility, gives us content for the growing of our faith and the expanding of our understanding.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. I encourage you to get as comfortable as possible.
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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,
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I think it's going to be important for you to be able to follow the flow from the pages of scripture. Having the
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Bible open in front of you is going to be, I think, almost essential for you to follow the argumentation through this passage.
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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.
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That's the definition of prophecy and tongues and we read it for the sensational and that's what grabs our attention.
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But there's a pretty run -of -the -mill, routine application that comes to us and structure that comes to us through this text.
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So there are three values in the gathering of God's people that frame
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Paul's discussion of prophecy and tongues for the early church and for us in the way that we live and apply these things.
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The first is that we value concern for insiders. We're gonna call that edification, which means building up in verses one through five.
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Concern for understanding, I'm calling that intelligibility, verses six through 15.
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And then the third movement of the text is concern for outsiders, that is conviction, verses 16 through 25.
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So we'll see that those are values that we are to have together in the church that are flowing out of this text.
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I hope you see them just like I do. But we're gonna start with concern for insiders. And I believe that that's where God desires the church to focus.
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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
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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.
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The church is fundamentally a gathering of believers. Did you guys already know that? That is fundamentally what it is about.
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A gathered church should build up believers. The word often used in scripture is edification, and it simply means to build up.
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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.
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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.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? Some of you have experienced that, where it was kind of like everything seemed so focused on kind of a kiddie pool kind of teaching, and everything felt like it was the shallow end entry that we never seemed 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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Paul was thinking. Verse two reads as an explanation of what a person is doing when they speak in tongues.
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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.
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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.
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In verse two, he says the audience of tongues is who? Who does he say? Go ahead and look at an answer out loud.
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God. The audience of tongues is God. It is prayer uttered in a tongue.
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In verse three, the audience of prophecy is the people. It is the people, it is the congregation.
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In verse two, no one understands the one who speaks in tongues, but he utters, it says mysteries in the spirit or I believe
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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
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S Holy Spirit that ESV puts in there, but that's a judgment called by the interpreters.
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But it is clear that what is spoken in tongues in the gathering is not discerned without interpretation by anybody.
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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.
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Nowhere in this passage does Paul mention an unbelieving foreign speaker entering the congregation and hearing somebody speaking in tongues and understanding it.
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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.
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It was speaking in French. Now I don't know why God would desire me to speak and pray to him in French.
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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.
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And this is one of them. He does not expect anyone to understand them except for the speaker and God.
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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
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French and all of a sudden you're giving a word to them in French and you stand up and start speaking French. No, rather the audience of these tongues is
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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.
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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
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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.
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It results in up -building. Again, our word edification. It results in edification, encouragement and consolation to the one who hears it.
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That's the result of prophecy, is strength in the person. Prophecy is comprehensible, it is intelligible.
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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 up -building and encouragement and comfort or consolation.
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These byproducts of prophecy within the gathering helps to shed light on the prophetic gift.
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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.
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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
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T truth in a church without a copy of the Bible. That's what we're looking at here.
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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
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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.
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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
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Corinthians. They had 1 Corinthians before they had 2 Corinthians. How many of you know there's some good things in 2
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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
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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
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Paul, what did they do the week before? Did they have a copy of Mark or Matthew's gospel?
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Maybe, but probably unlikely. I can tell you for sure they didn't have Revelation. Parts of the
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Bible that they didn't have access to, what were they doing in those gatherings? What were they explaining?
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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.
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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
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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 in 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,
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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
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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
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God was in this place with deep conviction over their sin because they've heard prophecy. Not, oh,
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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?
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Somebody here, somebody here, I'm thinking, thinking a name, there's a name coming, Lucille?
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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
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Heather, or Karen, or Jennifer for my generation at least, right? I'd be more likely to hit on one.
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No, it's something much more potent than that, that we're gonna see by the end of the text.
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It's an extremely powerful thing that was useful in that Old Testament context where the word of God was not readily available.
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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.
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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.
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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
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I say 2023? Why don't I say 2024? Oh, why don't I get the year right? Whatever year we are, holy cow.
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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.
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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,
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Word of knowledge is a subset of prophecy. Word of wisdom, a subset of prophecy. Teaching, a subset of prophecy.
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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
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I hope is happening right now, which I can at least confidently say we do at least once in our gathering when
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I step out and I hold this sacred text in my hand and I declare it to you and read it to you.
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Do that, and I can say you are at least prophesied to once asserts 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.
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I am fallible in my sermon, but when you hear God speaking to you through his word, that is powerful.
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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?
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It's prophetic. I'm not making a statement here about prophecy ceasing.
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As a matter of fact, the book of Revelation says there's gonna be two prophets in the end, but we know that there's gonna be prophets that are yet to come, primarily,
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Some of you maybe are into journaling. It's something I don't share with everybody, but I certainly journal. It's personally edifying.
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Personal prayer, I hope you're all doing it. Who's gaining from that? Who is edified when you pray on your own?
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You, there's nothing wrong with that. No, we can't think that just by the statement edifying themselves that it's a negative.
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How many of you 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.
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Spend time in prayer or tithing is an example of that. Giving, giving joyfully, giving gladly.
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These are all spiritual activities with the goal of personal upbuilding 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.
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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.
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It's not a bad thing to build oneself up in the Lord, and the value undergirding Paul's criticism of tongues in these first five verses is primarily about the edification, the building up of the church.
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Those who are in relationship with Jesus already will be built up and strengthened by their faith in capital
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T, truth, not by unintelligible, ecstatic personal prayers being offered in the gathering by everyone.
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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.
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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.
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And I'm not gonna lie. As I studied this passage this week, coming from a certain angle of my upbringing, where I came from a very conservative, non -charismatic context that was cessationist at its core.
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These things are not even real anymore. I am confessing to you as your pastor that I want
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Paul to kill it. I want that. I read this and I'm looking for the opportunity for him to say, don't do it anymore, because it would be easier.
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Do you guys get what I'm, raise your hand if you understand what I'm saying by that. It would be easier if he just said right here, and I want him to.
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And honestly, when I look at the flow of the text, I kind of expect him to. But he has just basically said, it's not very helpful.
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Nobody's understanding what you're saying when you do it. The value in the church is building each other up.
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So what I expect him to say next in verse five is stop it, cut it out.
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And what does he do to us? What does he do to us?
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What's verse five start with? Now I want you all to speak in tongues.
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What? You just got done spending the first four verses telling us the limited, unreasonably limited, like super minuscule value of this thing in the gathering of God's people.
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Rather than put a bullet in it, he says, I wish you all did it. I want everybody.
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I wish that all of you could speak in tongues. What? Anybody else like mystified by the opening of verse five and you're kind of like,
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I want him to say something different. He doesn't. And that's because he's speaking something contrary to me. And so I'm going to listen to him.
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Amen? I'm going to listen to the Bible. When he says he wishes, when Paul says, I wish that all of you spoke in tongues,
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I just take him at his word. I think he's being serious. I think he wishes that we all did it.
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And further at the end of verse five, Paul says that prophecy is better than tongues in the gathering. He's just said,
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I wish you all did it, but prophecy is better unless someone can interpret so that the church can be built up.
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Now I want to emphasize that Paul allows tongues with interpretation while he clearly prefers straightforward prophecy.
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And I believe he actually values straightforward prophecy in part because it is a word to the congregation where prayer is a, it's like listening in.
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Have any of you ever been in a prayer meeting and you get a chance to hear somebody else praying? It can be edifying to a degree, right?
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It can build you up to a degree, but it's not a word for you, right?
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Do you know what I'm talking about? It's you in agreement with that individual bringing their prayers to God. So when a tongue is interpreted, it is a prayer given to God that the interpretation, if it's accurate, then the interpretation ought to say something about God, to God.
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That's what is going on in this. So any interpretation that is primarily about prophecy for the congregation is a little bit sketch because when you're interpreting a prayer to God, it should look like a prayer to God.
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Prophecy is the direct speech. And he says, better that you do that, you'll have limited upbuilding, limited, but you will be built up if you can understand what somebody else is praying in a tongue.
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But the church gathering is not the time for expressing your private piety publicly.
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Let me say that again. The church gathering, this gathering on Sunday morning is not the time for expressing your private piety publicly.
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This church gathering is not me time. It's us time.
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It's together time. And so it makes sense when we gather together that we don't happen to sing all of your favorite songs every week.
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Or that when we gather together, we don't always talk about your favorite verses or your favorite passages or your pet issues or your political leanings or whatever it might be.
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You know, the church of Jesus Christ is to value that edification of us together. We are a thinking people.
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Paul is discouraging the church from falling away into a corporate Eastern mystical practice in our gathering.
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It is not all feeling. It is not all emotionalism. It is content, belief, faith, strengthening and correcting that he brings us together for.
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And that leads into our concern, the second movement of the text, point two. Concern for understanding.
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That is intelligibility. Understanding is needed in order to accomplish the first value of edification.
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We won't be built up by that which we don't understand. But intelligibility here is defended strongly by Paul in verses six through 15.
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In verse six, Paul contends that if he came to them speaking in tongues, there would be no benefit.
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Paul says, if I show up, if I show up in Corinth, if I show up at recast and I speak in tongues to you, there will be no benefit.
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And carefully, he doesn't say there will be minimal benefit or benefit to those who speak the same foreign language
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I happen to be speaking. No, he's not at all implying that this tongue he's referring to is a known foreign language that maybe some of them would happen to speak and God might be evangelizing through him getting up and speaking in French when not everybody speaks
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English. No, he's contrasting some unintelligible prayer to God with revelation and knowledge and prophecy and teaching.
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And at the end of verse six, that list, the common thread in that list is intelligibility.
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They are all forms of imparting information in a way that can be known, it can be believed and trusted and applied.
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There's a lot of overlap between that list, revelation, knowledge, prophecy, teaching, a lot of overlap, leading many scholars to believe that these are relatively fluid means within the church of proclaiming truth.
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There's a whole host of ways that God can proclaim truth, capital T truth in his church. Prophecy is lumped together right next to teaching and that gives me confidence that the teaching and the preaching of God's word, which is the prevalent mode that he utilizes here in our church is one of the ways at least that God uses to benefit his church by proclaiming truth.
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In Corinth, they could teach the Old Testament because they had access to it. But now we are able to teach both the
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Old and New Testament because we have access to both. They couldn't teach what they didn't have in Corinth and the prophetic revelations were what
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God used to fill in those gaps for their edification. Content that they hadn't received yet, God was giving to them in miraculous means.
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Are you understanding prophecy better? You're getting it? Still capital T truth, still words from God that are guiding and directing people into truth.
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But Paul gives three illustrations of intelligibility in verses seven through 11. He uses musical instruments, something
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I know very little about, a bugle sounding in battle, something I know almost nothing about, and human languages, something that I know just barely about.
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So he uses three things to illustrate speaking in tongues. First, he says that unless a musical instrument plays notes, nobody can discern the melody.
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Nobody can name the song. Name that tune in three notes and it's like there are no notes.
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Uh -oh, I've picked up Linda's saxophone from time to time. So we move it from place to place to place.
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I still don't know why. Keep telling her to sell it. Um, and maybe
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Dave, I don't know. Now you know that she can play it. So it seems like it's always when we're cleaning up the storage room, you know what
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I'm saying, or we're moving, that I encounter her saxophone, pull it together, and I can make,
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I'm really proud to say I can make a noise with a saxophone. Like I can actually blow through it and make sound, okay?
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And have you ever tried to play, to make sound with a musical instrument you don't play? Okay, it's not pretty, but you can make a noise with it.
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And even to that, like, from what I understand, like my ability to make a sound with a flute, I've picked up a flute before and made a sound.
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Apparently that's a big deal to just even be able to get it to make a sound, I don't know. I think I can make easier sounds with cymbals and things like that.
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But it isn't gonna produce any music in my hands. I'm not gonna be the next
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Kenny G, okay? Reference a statement from a previous message. But it's not gonna produce any music in my hands.
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And Paul's point is that just like indiscriminate noises and music are very different, kind of related things, but still different.
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Related in that they are both noises, different in that there's an intelligibility problem with me holding the saxophone.
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It's like that with speaking in tongues. Like language, but unintelligible.
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That's what he's getting at, that's his point. A bugle would be used to communicate on a battlefield, either advance or retreat.
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Really important for the bugler to get it right. Really important in the Revolutionary War, like you see them, or in the
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Civil War, like them marching with drums and stuff like that, getting everybody together in the same beat and moving in the same, and then blow the trumpet, time to advance, or blow the trumpet, time to retreat.
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And it would be important to get those two right. Whatever you know, you wanna get that right. You don't wanna be advancing when it's time to retreat.
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Indistinct sounds cannot communicate, he's saying, just like tongues without interpretation cannot communicate.
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Verse nine recaps these first two illustrations. He says, just like you Corinthians, when you gather together and launch out into unintelligible speech, nobody knows what is said.
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You're speaking into the air. Again, I emphasize for the clarity on why I think that this is not a human language.
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It's that Paul holds out no hope in this passage that some native speaker of the tongue being spoken will wander in and hear the gospel in their own language and be saved.
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He doesn't say anything about it at all in chapter 14. As a matter of fact, by the end, we're gonna see it's a net negative to speak in tongues to an unbeliever.
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He says, that's bad, they're gonna think you're crazy. They're gonna think you're nuts. You might be speaking their language and they might be saved, not at all.
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This is unintelligible speech addressed to God and not to people. And a miraculous interpretation is required for any hope of understanding it.
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The third illustration is in verse 10 and he uses, uses, uses foreign language as an illustration of tongues.
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Now you don't go like, you know how when you're speaking a foreign language and you don't understand it? That's like when you're speaking a foreign language and you don't understand it.
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You don't illustrate it with the thing itself. So if it's a foreign language, then he's got a little bit of a logic problem here in his argument.
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But instead, he's gonna launch out into illustrating it with foreign languages. And I find it very helpful and interesting that Paul utilizes a different word completely when he wants to address human, known human languages in this passage and they are here.
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They're here as an illustration. Here he uses the word phonay language instead of glossa, tongue.
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He says, there are doubtless many languages, phonay, in the world, known languages that people, humans speak and understand and they all contain meaning to the native speaker, of course.
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But if you don't know the language, you become to them a foreigner and they become a foreigner to you, literally the word barbarian.
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Barbarian is an onomatopoeia word. It's the sound that the Roman ear heard when they heard pagan
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Germanic tribes coming down from the north and they heard bar, bar, bar, bar, barbarian. That's what they were just kind of mocking the language.
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And he says, you become barbarians to each other when you don't understand. Paul, in essence, says here, just like human phonay language is indecipherable if we don't know the meaning, so, and you haven't duolingoed enough, you don't have it, you can't understand it, it's indecipherable to you, so it is with yourself when you speak in glossa, tongues, in the gathering with nobody understanding.
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Paul couldn't talk this way if he was speaking about the ability to speak a foreign language in the gathering. I don't think he would, it would be illogical.
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He would not be using foreign languages to illustrate the lack of understanding of human foreign languages. He's comparing what he clearly thinks are two different things that have the relative likeness of language but have a uncommon thread of intelligibility.
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One is unintelligible, the other is intelligible. He's comparing human language with a spiritual God -given tongue and highlighting the lack of value of uttering unintelligible things in the gathering.
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It doesn't help anybody. It turns you into foreigners. You're supposed to be brothers and sisters in Christ and it turns you like barbarians against one another, an inability to understand each other.
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That's silly, he's saying. And so in verse 12, we see the linchpin in this corrective. Mark it down, if you're a note taker, highlight verse 12, it's really the central verse because here,
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Paul gives us direct insight into the heart of the Corinthians when he says, so with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the
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Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. They are eager for visible manifestations of the
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Spirit. They are miracle hungry. Maybe even some could say miracle crazed and they long so much for obvious by sight and by ear manifestations of the
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Holy Spirit that they need to be reminded by Paul to strive to build each other up because they're not, they're doing their own thing.
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They appear to have been satisfied to get together and do their own things and have their own little private worship service in their own foreign language or their own private personal language or whatever it was.
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In Corinth, the church was at risk of sliding off into mindless mystical trance -like gatherings and that's what they're doing.
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He's got a correct Corinth on this. It doesn't seem to appear that the church in Thessalonica went this direction, the church in Ephesus went this way, the churches in Asia didn't seem to go this way, but in Corinth, they were moving towards this fast.
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So the entire force of this passage is that engagement of our minds matter. The Corinthians were disconnecting.
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Time to connect your brains. Get back to intelligibility. Do not check your mind at the door. Come to have a mind filled with ideas about God rather than a mind emptied to experience ecstatic utterances and what can only be experienced as in the gathering fruitless babble.
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And consider the reasons that we gather. He says, to be with each other. Strive to excel in building up the church with your gifts.
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Strong words. Strive equals hard work. Excel, keep improving.
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Work hard to keep improving in your service and love for one another, in your gifts to one another, in the up -building of one another.
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Don't forget, church, that in the midst of all of this talk about tongues and prophecy and all of that, that God wants us to put this passage into practice.
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And we can. Not by speaking in tongues, not by prophesying, but instead by using whatever spiritual gift
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God has given to us in love for the edification of one another in this church. That we might know him intelligibly and make him known to one another intelligibly.
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That's what he desires. Remember that a church gathering is not meant to be an avenue for a few hundred personal praise services just happen to be in proximity to one another, happen to be in the same room while we're alone worshiping
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God. Not at all, it's meant to be corporate. It is us together on purpose. For this reason, the one who speaks in tongues in the gathering should pray that they may interpret.
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Paul will put a strong hedge around tongues speaking in the gathering so as to almost prohibit it as we get into next week's message.
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Speaking in the gathering in tongues is almost of zero benefit.
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I say this acknowledging that Paul here leaves some wiggle room for God to do what he desires to do and yet he will limit tongues in the gathering to two, maybe three people in an entire service and only then if it's absolutely clear that there's an interpreter present.
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Again, with the emphasis on intelligibility. Paul identifies that the person who speaks in tongues in prayer is in some way edified in their relationship with God in their spirit while their mind remains unfruitful.
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And I'm gonna tell you honestly, I have no clue what a mindless edification looks like.
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But he says it's real. He says there is a way in which a person can be built up and strengthened in their private relationship with God through tongues where their mind is not fruitful but their relationship with God is strengthened.
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And because I've never spoken in tongues, I can't speak to that very clearly. I can't explain to you what the mechanism would be in which
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I would be encouraged that God gave me this ability, this experience in prayer.
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Now the closest I've ever come, I think, to speaking in tongues is times when I've groaned out to God in prayer. Have any of you ever had that experience?
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It's like, I don't know what to say. I'm just sitting here with my face on the carpet just kind of weeping and sad. Any of you ever had those experiences, those times where you can't even talk to God except through the snot bubble, right?
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So you're just broken and you're in a heap. If you haven't had that experience, you should. Get more acquainted with your sin and then you will.
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So I mean, there are times and seasons where you might be broken over these things. But I've actually, I'll tell you as your pastor,
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I have prayed for this. I watched a video with John Piper this week. He talks about in that interview praying for tongues, never has received it.
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And he said I have at times getting ready to walk into the church on Sunday morning, said, God, if you desire to give this to me,
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I'm sitting in my car. If you desire for me to speak in tongues, I would love that. If that's a part of the relationship and edification in my relationship with you that you desire for me to have, grant it.
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And he said he never has. I agree with that wholeheartedly. Same experience here. And I like what
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John Piper says at that point in the interview. He says, no one's gonna convince me that my next step is to say banana backwards seven times until I get the pump primed.
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God's spirit does not require you to crank start the engine, okay? If he wants to give this to you, you'll have it.
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You know what I'm saying? You don't have to make it happen. You don't have to get around a campfire with a coach that's gonna teach you to just utter syllables until eventually you're gonna just kind of, and then it's gonna roll off of you.
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You're gonna have to prime that pump. No, not at all. Pray for it if you desire it, and then leave the results up to God, and he will do what he desires to do.
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But again, emphasis there, private, private. And God would not,
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I would not have a high estimation of a biblical understanding of any individual that would come to me and boast about speaking in tongues.
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This passage would just not leave any, would leave absolutely zero room for that. As a matter of fact, I'd say, what?
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Let's talk about this. A lot of things weren't in my notes there, and I'm gonna take just a second to get back to where I was.
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Paul allows wiggle room there again. Oh yeah, he's emphasizing intelligibility, and yeah, there's an edification that happens, an edification that happens that I don't relate to, and I don't understand, but he says that it's possible.
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And then look at verses 14 and 15. Paul prefers to pray with his mind and spirit engaged. I believe that's at different times.
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I don't think he can do both simultaneously, but he prefers to sing with spirit and mind as well, having seasons where he does one privately and then the other publicly.
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Note again in verse 14 that speaking in tongues is equated with praying in an unintelligible language.
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Again, it's about prayer to God, not mentioned as evangelizing in a tongue, not speaking the gospel to a foreigner in their phonay, but Paul has been consistent all throughout this passage that he's speaking of praying to God in utterances unknown to others, according to verse 14, not even known to the speaker, unless according to verse 13, there's an interpretation given.
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So the call to pray for an interpretation implies that interpreting will be something that needs to come from God.
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We're talking to God about an interpretation, not sending someone who took French or knows duolingual Croatian so that they can translate for us.
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Talking to God and asking him for an interpretation, the expectation in the text is that God knows what is spoken and he will provide an interpretation if it's from him.
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Intelligible speech is to be the standard of communication within the church. Over the years, I've had various criticisms of recast centered on how much time is spent in our gatherings focused on the proclamation of the word of God, and yet I truly believe that this is a biblical value and I hold to it as a biblical value.
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We are to have a concern for understanding and intelligibility is a prerequisite to understanding.
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The ability to speak and to utter God's word and to make it known is vital to our gathering.
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As a matter of fact, I would even suggest to you that it's what's built our church. I said this in the first service, but my hunch is that the majority of you are here because you value
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God's word, you value hearing truth from him and you desire to know him better. I think that's why you're here.
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I think otherwise you wouldn't put up with my preaching week in and week out. It's that you're coming to hear God's word.
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I hope that that's the truth. And lastly, we see in verse 16, the introduction of our last value in the gathering.
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It can be called concern for outsiders, conviction, verses 16 through 25. Outsiders are introduced suddenly in verse 16 without much explanation, but they're introduced in a way that might surprise us.
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Interestingly, Paul expects outsiders to come to the gathering. He expects church members to invite friends and neighbors and family to come and observe and to hear and to learn and to be convicted and to be saved.
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He expects that of us. And he starts out with a subtle concern for them. How can anyone offer the amen of agreement at the end of a prayer in tongues when they don't even know what was said?
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Well, you might be confused. Like would an unbeliever in our midst, would a visitor in our midst utter amen at the end of our prayer time?
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Maybe not, maybe they wouldn't necessarily understand to do that in its focus, but what does the amen mean?
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The amen is agreement. When you utter that at the end of a prayer, you're agreeing with it.
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Why would you bring a visitor here? I hope it has something to do with agreement. I hope you would be desiring to bring them into agreement with God's word, desire to bring them into agreement with what
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Christ has done for them, into agreement that God loves them and sent his son to die for them.
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Are you getting that? So how can they even agree with anything that's said if it's all spoken in a tongue that they don't understand?
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How can anyone offer an amen to unintelligible words? The one speaking might be giving thanks and he says as much.
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He says, I take for granted that when somebody gets up in the congregation and speaks in tongues, that they are giving thanks to some degree, they are praising
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God, they are talking to him, but nobody else can grow as a result of that prayer. He says, it's not beneficial to those around you.
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Again, I've been waiting all throughout this passage for Paul to put it down and I'm like, okay, we're getting there again. We're getting to another opportunity.
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We're getting to another point where he's been building up the intelligibility of prophecy and pushing down the unintelligibility of tongues to the point where I'm like, okay, so he's ready to kill it.
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It's not of benefit or value to the unbeliever. It's not of benefit or value to the gathered believers. So why are we gonna do this thing?
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Expect it to be killed right here. So this isn't helping anyone, you know. It seems like Paul is saying so.
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Why doesn't he just add here in the text, quit it, cut it out? And instead, again, look what he does to us in verse 18.
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Paul, instead of putting a bullet in it, I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. What?
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I thought you were talking this down. I thought you were pushing this thing down. And now Paul lets us in on this little private secret between him and God.
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He spoke in tongues more than anyone. While it seems like this passage has been back and forth casting doubt as to the usefulness of tongues, he also keeps reviving it as legitimate.
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But it isn't until verse 19 that we finally see him focusing his attention. His concern is for speaking in tongues within the corporate gathering.
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And he has no room for prayers in an unknown tongue in the gathering. Look at verse 19, nevertheless in church, nevertheless in church
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I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10 ,000 words in a tongue.
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When was Paul, Paul wasn't, he says I speak in tongues more than any of you, but in the gathering
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I choose not to. When was he doing it? When was he doing it?
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Outside of the church, in private prayer to God on his own.
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He does it more than anyone, which puts him in a great place to say verse 19, because he kind of boosts it.
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He says, I understand it, I get it, I've experienced it, I know what it is, and I've been given the gift to do this all the time.
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But I would rather still speak five intelligible words that others understand and that I understand than 10 ,000 words in a tongue in the gathering of God's people.
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But he has all of this in mind in the end of the text for the unbelievers in their midst. He wants them to grow up and be mature in their thinking.
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He says if you gotta be naive, be naive to evil things. Be naive to evil things.
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We were talking about naivety, the evil things in one of our community groups, one of our community group gatherings with our young marriage group, and we were just identifying how naive we are to a particular evil.
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We were joking about how none of us would have a clue how to order drugs. I'm just saying that. Like, it was a funny conversation, and it was like,
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I would like two drugs, please. Like, how would you go to a drug dealer and order? I would not have a clue. Like, do you say,
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I would like one heroin. And fortunately, nobody spoke up and said, oh, here's how you do it, right?
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And the community group would be like, uh -oh, we need some prayer time. Fortunately, nobody, we were all fairly naive to evil things.
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And if you need to be made fun of because you don't understand things, be made fun of that you don't understand the wickedness of the world, that you are fairly ignorant to evil things in the world.
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There are some things that you shouldn't know how it works. You know what I'm saying? Paul says there are some things that you ought not to even talk about.
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They shouldn't even be mentioned among believers. Like, it's sickening to think that there are some words in the English language.
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Somebody's come up with a word to describe that activity. Are you kidding me? Do you guys know what
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I'm talking about? So it's, be naive to evil things.
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But in your thinking, be mature, he says. And mature in your thinking here in context pertains to the values you have in your gathering.
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Values like mutual edification. Be mature to these things. Mutual edification. Values like increased understanding and intelligibility.
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And values like the conviction of outsiders to the truth. Mature thinking is thinking of more than yourself, church.
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When I finally began to understand verses 21 through 25, I grew tenfold in my confidence about my view of this passage. Again, confident that it is not a known tongue for evangelism, that that's not at all what he has in mind here.
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Paul will make a case that speaking in tongues in the gathering is an absolute net negative to the unbeliever who wanders into a church who does these things corporately.
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Not hopeful that they might understand the gospel in their foreign pagan tongue. But no, absolutely going, they're gonna think you're nuts if you do this.
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Far from saying speaking in tongues, if foreign pagans show up, that you ought to do that if they're here.
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We've had a guy for a couple of years. He's moved back home, but he was a student at Western. He came here regularly.
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First language was Arabic. He was from Saudi Arabia. Amazing that he came here for the season that he was here.
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I had a chance to share the gospel very clearly with this young man in English. But if there was ever a time for us to speak in tongues, it was like somebody to get up and share some
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Arabic with him. But it says, it doesn't say, hey, if you happen to have an Arabic guy, pray that somebody can speak
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Arabic with him. It says, they're gonna think you're nuts. They're gonna think you're crazy if you do this thing that Paul is talking about in chapter 14.
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And he uses a passage from Isaiah to demonstrate the negative effects of God's message brought in an unknown language.
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In the original context of that passage that's quoted in verse 21, the strange tongues of that verse from Isaiah are the languages of a foreign invading army, particularly a
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Syrian. It is a sign for judgment. These foreign languages are a sign for judgment.
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Israel has refused to listen to the words of the prophets. And so God says, the next voice you will hear bringing a sign from me, you wouldn't listen to prophecy.
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Notice the prophecy tongues distinction in this passage of the Old Testament. You wouldn't listen to prophecy.
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You wouldn't listen to my clear revelation. So now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna send you a message in obscured foreign language that you're not gonna understand and it's gonna be a sign for your judgment.
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You still won't even listen as the Assyrian army comes through with their babbling language that sounds barbaric to your ears.
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This seems like a strange passage to use to highlight tongues as any benefit and he's not. As he goes on in verse 22, he says that tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers.
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And I've never quite heard anybody quote verse 22 with an explanation of verse 21 attached to it, which the understanding of 22 has to come on the heels of understanding why he's quoting
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Isaiah. What is most common is to completely ignore verse 21 in this text at all.
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As some difficult to understand Old Testament quote, but the type of sign that tongues represents to unbelievers is not a good sign but a negative sign, a sign for judgment.
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Like the foreign languages of an invading army signaling impending judgment, the language in the quotation is a negative sign and so this sign must also be interpreted in verse 22 as a negative sign.
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The unbeliever hearing the gospel or hearing any message in tongues in a church will prove unhelpful for them and will, as verse 23 illustrates, confirm them in their unbelief or really confirm them in their belief that Christians are a bunch of whack jobs.
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We're just a bunch of crazies and weirdos. And that's the way, is that the way the world thinks of us? Raise your hand if you think that's the way the world thinks of us.
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They think we're a bit crazy and they would feel confirmed in it if they come into a congregation where everybody is speaking in tongues.
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While prophecy is the primary mode of edification of insiders, we see by the end that the proclaiming of the knowledge of God and the unveiling of the mysteries of God is of benefit to both the insider and the outsider.
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So according to verse 23, we find that the overall effect of speaking in tongues on the unbeliever is negative and yet most cessationists insist that tongues is merely an evangelistic tool.
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Where here Paul says it couldn't be further from the truth. Here Paul says unbelievers will think you're crazy if you do it in front of them.
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Not they'll bow to God and say, amazing, what a glorious sign you've given to me, I will believe.
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But rather they won't understand at all and they will reject you and reject the message. And I've had plenty of conversations with unbelievers who their first encounter with Christianity was at a charismatic church where everybody was speaking in tongues and they did indeed testify to me.
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They thought everybody was crazy. It was their experience. I don't know if you've ever talked with somebody who that was their first experience but some people have had to recover from it.
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But if an unbeliever enters a church where the knowledge of God is disclosed through his revelations, where the deep mysteries of God and his love for us are unveiled to all eyes through teaching of his word or through prophetic utterances as was common back in the times of Corinth, the results will be radical according to the passage.
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It will result in edification to the believer, yes, but also conviction to the unbeliever as well.
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There will be a conviction of sin and a calling to account to the words that are spoken, a sense of exposure of the secrets of each heart.
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And the unbeliever under the conviction of the revelation of God through the proclamation of his words will fall on their face and worship
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God and acknowledge God's presence among his people, amen? Note that the radical results of prophecy are the very things that exposure to the truth grant us.
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Conviction, a sense of being exposed, sometimes I've left the sermon of another preacher feeling like the preacher knew something about me that I couldn't really, there's no way he could have known that.
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There's no way he knew I needed that this morning. And I've had people testify to that to me. No, I didn't know your situation, but people have come up to me afterwards and said,
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I felt like you were speaking directly to me. No, that's God. When knowledge and the mysteries of God are revealed, I feel known in sometimes an uncomfortable way.
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In the church gathering, we are to value edification, we are to value understanding, and we are to value conviction.
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In practice, I believe that tongues are occasionally given to individuals for their personal or private prayer.
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They have little to no room and little to no value within the gathered congregation. But instead, we are to focus our time and attention on the proclamation of God's word, which has the power to build up believers and to convict and draw in visitors and unbelievers.
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I recognize that this passage and this message may very well produce a variety of questions from all sides. And please know that I fully understand that there are a variety of interpretations to this passage.
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So I suggest to you and I believe firmly that this is a tertiary issue, a third degree issue over which those who trust the gospel may disagree, especially when it comes to whether these are foreign languages or this is a heavenly language.
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I don't think that matters a ton. One need not believe exactly what I understand from this passage to be a member at Recast Church.
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And further, let me say that I anticipate that nothing will change at this church in light of this message moving forward.
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And what I mean by that is I think things ought to change in our hearts to value the things that Paul says to value, the understanding of God's word, to value that, to value the conviction, to value the building up of one another.
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I hope that that changes. But in practice, I don't expect and don't anticipate, especially after next week's message, that we're gonna be a church that's suddenly gonna start speaking in tongues in the gathering and it's gonna get crazy because actually what
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Paul is saying here is to minimize that. And further, I think that this church has grown on the basis of the truth being conveyed, on the basis of prophecy, the very words of God.
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And so we're gonna come to communion and as far as the edification of believers, I think this is one of the most valuable things that we have established in our weekly rhythm of corporate worship together in our gathering.
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Here, all who are believers in Jesus Christ will come to the table to take a cup to remember his blood, take a cracker to remember his body broken for us, that Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins.
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And then we ought to be reminded more than ever that we are not alone in our brokenness. We are not alone in our weakness. But also, we are not the only project that God is working on.
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We are not being saved and rescued alone, but we get an opportunity to get up and stand in these lines and see there are others.
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In this gathering, may all who trust in Jesus Christ come to the tables built up together, understanding his sacrifice together.
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And may we go out from here with a message on our tongues, an intelligible message on our tongues, that he came to earth for us, he died for us, and the tomb is empty.
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He's alive, and he's coming back for us. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for truth.
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I thank you for hope. I thank you for togetherness. I thank you for the great unity that you have given to this church over these past 15 years.
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And I pray that you would continue forward, building your church on the intelligible, prophetic words revealed to us in the pages of scripture, the hope that we have there, the great and glorious gospel that we celebrate as we come to these tables, the very cement that holds the church together is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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I thank you for gifting us in many ways to serve and to edify one another, and I pray that edification would be the result of this message, that we would be building one another up by applying the gifts that you've given us, the abilities, the talents, to the furtherance of your kingdom here, that others would be edified as a result of hearing this message.