WWUTT 1601 Earnestly Desire Spiritual Gifts (1 Corinthians 14:1)

The Apostle Paul says to the church in Corinth, pursue love, and we should all do that. We should all be about being filled with the love of God.

Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When We Understand the Text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the

Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty. Here's your teacher,

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. Well, as promised, we continue our study of 1

Corinthians today and we're up to chapter 14. Now, this is 40 verses here.

And since we're just getting into chapter 14, I'm going to go ahead and read through the whole thing out of the

Legacy Standard Bible. The Apostle Paul still writing to the church in Corinth. Pursue love, yet earnestly desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.

For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. For no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries.

But one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and encouragement.

One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but one who prophesies edifies the church.

But I wish that you all spoke in tongues, but even more that you would prophesy. And greater is one who prophesies than one who speaks in tongues unless he translates so that the church may receive edification.

But now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will I profit you unless I speak to you either by way of revelation or of knowledge or of prophecy or of teaching?

Yet even lifeless things, either flute or harp, in producing a sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tones, how will it be known what is played on the flute or on the harp?

For if the trumpet produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle?

So also you, unless you utter by the tongue a word that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken?

For you will be speaking into the air. There are, perhaps, a great many kinds of sounds in the world, and none is without meaning.

If then I do not know the meaning of the sound, I will be to the one who speaks a barbarian, and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me.

So also you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church.

Therefore let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may translate.

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What is the outcome then?

I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the mind also. I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the mind also.

Otherwise, if you bless in the spirit only, how will the one who fills the place of the uninformed say the

Amen at your giving of thanks, since he does not know what you are saying? For you are giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not edified.

I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. However, in the church

I desire to speak five words with my mind, so that I may instruct others also, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue.

Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Rather in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature.

In the law it is written, By men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers

I will speak to this people, and even so they will not listen to me, says the Lord.

So then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe, but to unbelievers.

But prophecy is for a sign not to unbelievers, but to those who believe. Therefore, if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and uninformed men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your mind?

But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninformed man enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so he will fall on his face and worship

God, declaring that surely God is among you. What is the outcome then, brothers?

When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has a translation.

Let all things be done for edification. If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must translate.

But if there is no translator, he must keep silent in the church, and let him speak to himself and to God.

And let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment. But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, the first one must keep silent.

For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn, and all may be exhorted.

And the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets, for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.

The women are to keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but are subject themselves, just as the law also says.

But if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church.

Was it from you that the word of God first went forth, or has it arrived to you only?

If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which

I write to you are the Lord's commandment. But if anyone remains ignorant about this, he is ignored by God.

Therefore, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in tongues.

But all things must be done properly, and in an orderly manner. Tell me, and I speak rhetorically, because you can't really tell me, but tell me, does reading it all like that, we just read straight through chapter 14, did that not clarify some questions that you had about chapter 14 before we came into it?

Like you're aware of what 1 Corinthians 14 is about before we came to this. You know that this is kind of the speaking in tongues chapter.

Anybody who ever makes a defense of speaking in tongues, they're going to be referencing 1

Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 most of the time, especially from chapter 14. But as we read this all together in context, did that not clarify some things?

I really love the way that the legacy standard translates chapter 14.

I think there's some things in the ESV that are translated a little bit different that causes a little more confusion.

I think that the LSB and the meticulousness that these translators have put to rendering this text the way that we have it,

I think that they clarify some things a little bit better. We're going to look at a few of those comparisons as we go through chapter 14, which is going to take us a couple of weeks since this is quite long.

But I'll point out some differences between what we just read in the legacy and the way it reads in the

ESV. So at the start of chapter 14 here, Paul says pursue love. That's the way he concluded chapter 12.

That's what chapter 13 was about. So then we get to Paul picking up on spiritual gifts, and he opens by saying pursue love.

So remember, again, the way that chapter 12 concluded. Paul says, but you earnestly desire the greater gifts, and I will show you a more excellent way, right?

And what is the more excellent way? The most excellent way is the way of love. So all of the spiritual gifts that you could possibly have, if you don't have love, then they're meaningless.

They don't accomplish the thing that the spirit gives the gift for, which is the edification and building up of the church.

It's that we may mature one another in love. Paul talks about this also with the Ephesians. In Ephesians chapter four, that we are building one another up into the head who is

Christ. This is the church working together and for each other for our sanctification.

We're growing in holiness, in righteousness, in Christ -likeness, building one another up, which can only happen in love.

You help to grow another person in holiness when you love that other person.

The love of God has been poured into your heart. Your love and affection for others is by that same love.

So Paul confronts the church in Corinth in chapter 13 regarding love because they are not loving the way that God says to love.

They don't have love. They have these agape feasts. We've talked about that back in chapter 11, these big love feasts, but there's not love there.

You can see the factions. You can see the divisions that exist in the church, even at the tables that they gather at.

There's the rich people over there. There's the poor people over there. There are the people who love Cephas over there.

There's the people who love Apollos over there. We've seen these factions that have developed among the church in Corinth, and Paul has been confronting that from the very beginning of the book.

Even some of the things that he says in chapter one get repeated in chapter 13, the way that he confronts them about not being loving.

So you could have the gift to speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but if you do not have love, you're just a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

That was the way that he opened chapter 13. These spiritual gifts have been given to us in the love of God that we, in God's love, would love each other and build one another up.

So now as Paul is going to be instructing the church here in chapter 14 about the usage of these gifts, these gifts need to be used in love.

He kind of lays out the gifts. He talks about them in chapter 12. We get kind of a doctrine of spiritual gifts there.

He talks about love in chapter 13, and now we're putting those two things together, the spiritual gifts in love for the purpose of building up and edifying the church.

So Paul starts chapter 14 by saying, pursue love of anything else that you could have in Christ.

Start with that, love. You know, when Peter goes through our growth in 2

Peter chapter 1, he tells the church to confirm your calling and election.

And how do you do that? So if you've been elected by God, if you've been chosen for salvation, you will in your life affirm that you are one who has been chosen.

And how do you do that? James talks about that even when he says that faith without works is a dead faith.

So you say that you have faith, but if you don't have works that are evidence of that faith, then do you really have faith?

Peter says this another way in 2 Peter chapter 1. He says, applying all diligence in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge.

And in your knowledge, self -control. And in your self -control, perseverance. And in your perseverance, godliness.

And in your godliness, brotherly kindness. And in your brotherly kindness, love.

This is 2 Peter 1 .8. For if these things are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the full knowledge of our

Lord Jesus Christ. So the evidence that you are in Christ, that you are chosen, that you are elect, and that you're even growing in your faith is going to be love.

You grow in love for God and you grow in love for one another.

As we are growing in this most holy faith, we should be growing in love.

And by the way, one of those things that you can only do when you're with other believers. You cannot grow in love for one another unless you are with one another.

That means we've got to be attending church. And you've got to be attending church in person.

This is one of those things I just, I did not think was going to be the big issue that it is today.

Even back in 2020, when governors of certain states in the

United States were telling churches that they needed to shut down because of the impending threat of this pandemic.

And this was back in March of 2020 when those governors started saying that churches needed to shut down.

I was hearing this and I was going, there ain't no way that people are going to go along with this. And yet the vast majority of churches did.

Even to the point that we have many churches in the US and Canada that are still not meeting and pastors that have shut their doors, either because they're afraid of the virus or they're afraid of their own governing officials that are telling them that they cannot gather for church.

But in doing this, you fear a virus or you fear man. You do not fear

God. If you're shutting down your church and you're not meeting, the church should be open and each person should decide whether or not they should go.

Like if they feel sick, stay home. Don't try to go to church ill. If you are feeble and infirmed, well, these are ways that the church now needs to serve you.

If it's become difficult for you to be able to come and be part of the body, how can the church serve you in those moments that you can no longer serve or take care of yourself?

This doesn't mean that once a person is incapable, they're physically incapable of getting to church, well, now they're in sin.

No, we're talking about abled -bodied persons here who can go to church, but they're just not.

And this is obviously rampant now because of the stuff that has been going on as affected by COVID.

So in order to pursue love, in order to do this thing here that is being said at the start of chapter 14, you have to meet together in obedience to God, in obedience to the command that we are to be the church, which means an assembly.

We're a gathered group of believers that are worshiping God together. We have to obey

God rather than men. So pursuing love really means that in love, you go to church.

And when you are together as the church, you're loving one another, as Paul is instructing the church in Corinth to be doing here.

So pursue love, yet, Paul says, earnestly desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.

So once again, he's taking the doctrine on spiritual gifts that we have in chapter 12 with the instruction on love in chapter 13.

He's putting these two together. He says, pursue love, yet earnestly desire spiritual gifts.

You need to be filled with love. That is our first desire as brethren, right?

As brothers and sisters in the Lord, that we be filled with the love of God that we have toward one another.

That should be our first desire, that we love each other, and we're serving one another, considering the needs of others ahead of our own.

Yet, Paul says, earnestly desire spiritual gifts, that we may be filled with the respective gifts that the

Holy Spirit is going to distribute to us to use those things in what way, though? In love.

In the pursuit of building up the church. So if you have love first, then whatever spiritual gift that you have is going to be used in the right way because you're doing it in the loving way.

We're going to have gifts that differ. Remember, that was a point that Paul made in chapter 12. Each person has different gifts.

It doesn't mean that they're any less a part of the body. That means they're part of the body, because the body is one body, but made up of many parts.

So we're going to have different gifts. We're even going to have different levels of spiritual maturity, and even that becomes a service to the church.

Those who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak. So everybody has different gifts, but we all have the same love.

We all have the same ambition, the same pursuit, that we're growing one another in love.

So therefore, Paul says, pursue love, yet earnestly desire spiritual gifts. Earnestly desire the spiritual is really the more literal way that that's translated.

The word gifts is not in there. That's inserted by translators, but it's so that we may understand what's being inferred.

Paul says, pursue love, yet earnestly desire spiritualness, meaning that we desire those specific gifts that the

Spirit has rendered to each person for the purpose of building up the church, serving God, serving one another.

And then Paul says, but especially that you may prophesy.

Now, why is that? We'll talk about this some more as we go through chapter 14 here, but Paul's reference to prophecy does not mean, hey, ask

God that he's going to give you some extra biblical, well, yeah, the Bible, the

New Testament is not fully completed yet, as we're reading here in 1 Corinthians 14, but you understand the meaning, right?

So ask, anyway, Paul is not telling the church, let me repeat myself again,

Paul is not telling the church that you're asking God for some sort of extra biblical revelation, but rather that you have the knowledge of God that you may prophesy.

You know the mind of God according to what's been said to his prophets and apostles, that you may speak it to the church, and they will be edified by this, because we can only grow in sanctification according to God's word when it is proclaimed to us.

Jesus said, praying with his disciples to the Father in the upper room in John 17, he said,

Father, sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth.

Romans 10, 17 says, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

So how do we come to faith? By hearing God's word. How do we grow in our faith? By hearing God's word. Hence why

Paul says, desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.

You know how to proclaim the promises of God as given in his word to your fellow brothers and sisters in the

Lord, because this is really gonna be the thing that's gonna grow them in holiness. Even if you have a brother or sister in Christ that is mourning, they're going through a difficult time, how do you help them to trust in God in the midst of a difficult circumstance?

Give them God's word. There's no situation or circumstance where we should just kind of sit with a person and just weep with them and not ever encourage them with God's word.

There are some people that say that, right? Like, for example, they'll say

Job's friends. That was when they did real good, was when they just sat with Job and wept with him. No, that's when they did better.

They did better with Job when they just sat with him and wept with him. When they started talking, that was when they kind of revealed themselves to be fools.

As it says in the book of Proverbs, even a silent fool can appear wise. Well, that was

Job's friends. It doesn't mean that you just need to sit with a person and just cry.

At some point, weep with those who weep. Yes, rejoice with those who rejoice. But at some point, they're going to need to be encouraged by God's word.

Just sitting there and empathizing, right? Just sharing the same emotion that they're experiencing is not enough.

That's not going to be encouraging. And then you're just both miserable wrecks. How do you encourage somebody who's struggling?

You encourage them with the word of God. How can we be pulled up when we feel like we've fallen into a pit?

God's word, where God has said through the prophet Isaiah, with my right hand, I will lift you up.

So we find that encouragement. We understand God's promises. We understand what he has in store for us when we hear it according to his word.

Hence why Paul says to the church, pursue love, earnestly desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy because it's in proclaiming

God's word that the church is really going to be built up and matured in Christ Jesus.

Let's stop there. We'll pick up in verse 2 tomorrow. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what you've been teaching us in 1

Corinthians. And may we desire love. We desire to love one another. It's not going to church.

It's all about me. What can the church do for me? But I am here because I know that I have been called out of darkness into light.

I've been called where previously I had no people. Now I've become part of a people.

I have a family. I'm part of the family of God. And how as a brother or sister in the

Lord can I serve my other brothers and sisters in the faith? What a blessing to have been rescued from death and given life.

So now in this new life, how do we serve each other? Teach us these things as we desire to be part of your church, growing the body in love as we look to Christ, the author and the perfecter of our faith.

It's in Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .tt

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