According to the Scriptures

Guest (Male): Now baseball is just about underway. But imagine if there were no rules. You know, the pitcher could throw from 10 feet away. The batter could take as many strikes as he wanted, waiting for the perfect pitch. It would be utter chaos and certainly take away from the quality of the game, right?

Well, the church needs a certain amount of structure and order as well. And today on According to the Scriptures, that rises to the surface in our study of 1 Corinthians. Pastor Damian Kyle is here to finish up Chapter 14.

Damian Kyle: The second principle that he gives us is there in verse 40 of Chapter 14. He said, "Let all things be done decently and in order." So this tells us two very important things. It has something to say, really, to Christians at both ends of the extreme so often related to the expression of worship within a church.

To the more conservative of us, Paul writes, "Let all things be done." And he exhorts that end of the spectrum that that is what that group needs to be careful of, lest in our conservative personality, we then encumber God with that. And then we suffocate all life in the church because we will then remove every element of the supernatural from their worship services.

So Paul is not saying, "I have not written these three chapters to give you folks," affectionately, "you folks," not talking to you, but that group, "ammunition to not allow the supernatural of the Holy Spirit to mark the Christian life and the assembly of the saints."

And then to the more adventurous among Christians, he says to them, "Let all things be done decently and in order." And the word decently means fittingly, properly, becomingly, and becomingly of who? Becomingly of God, becomingly of Christianity. The word order means in an orderly manner.

So a worship service is to have structure. There are to be people in authority within a church service who are, before God, given the responsibility of assuring that the service is conducted decently and in order, and that that authority is then to be respected and to be submitted to.

And so a church service is not to be a chaotic free-for-all, and then ascribing it to the work of the Holy Spirit, which is the specific situation that Paul is addressing here. When the Holy Spirit is in control, the result will be all things will be done, but they'll be done in an environment that's decent and orderly and edifying.

Sometimes in trying to understand a Bible passage, it really helps, especially with the Apostle Paul, because I think it's Chapter 1 of the Book of Ephesians, he starts, and of course, this is all by the Holy Spirit. But the whole chapter is one sentence. And he's following a thought progression. And you're just, you're along for the ride and you go, "Whoa, where in the world, what, how does this fit?"

And you try and figure it out. And sometimes he's absolutely clear. And the best way to understand him is to begin at the beginning, read him through, and then come to his conclusion. Then it all crystallizes for us. We say, "Ah, there it is."

Sometimes, if that's not successful for you, and sometimes it's not successful for me, and the best thing to do is to go to the end of his thought, the final verse, see what it is that he's saying here, his point that he's wanting to make, and then back your way up through the passage to understand how he is getting there.

And these are the two great points that the Apostle Paul, as we see them toward the end of the chapter, that he's wanting to make in this section of Chapter 14. Now I want us to notice the church at Corinth's very specific violations of these two principles and Paul's instruction to them for how to bring their services back under what God wants them to be, to be in line with what God wants them to be.

In the church at Corinth, you have a church where all things were being done, but they were not being done decently and in order. And so he speaks to the chaos and the lack of order that marked their worship services in verse 26 through verse 33. You notice in verse 26, he says, "How then, brethren, whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification."

And so clearly from verse 26, we can tell that their services were a free-for-all. People were speaking over one another. They're interrupting one another. Everybody's trying to be seen, trying to be heard. And there's just a lack of order in the service and this was not of God.

There are some people who look at verse 26 and they misinterpret this verse to mean that all of these gifts and things are to be exercised, or Paul is saying that all of these things need to be represented in a church service or a church service isn't being done properly in a New Testament way.

But clearly, verse 26 is a rebuke on Paul's part. And his aim is to kind of instill order in their chaotic church service so that their service is edifying, even to the point, as we'll see, of limiting the number of those who are allowed to speak in tongues, and then only when accompanied by the gift of the interpretation of tongues.

You notice his correction concerning the gift of tongues in verses 27 and 28. He said two or at the most three people were to speak in their prayer language, but only if God gave the interpretation of the prayer language to someone, an interpreter, who is someone with the gift of interpretation of tongues.

And then you notice further in verse 28 that if there was or is no interpretation for the tongue, then the person who desires to speak in tongues in that public assembly, to speak in their prayer language, they were not to do so publicly.

But they were to then recognize that the fact that God was not providing an interpretation for it meant that the Holy Spirit doesn't want the prayer language spoken, and then to speak it privately between themselves and God. And all of this speaks to the fact that a Christian can and should exercise self-control in this area of the Christian life.

And concerning spiritual gifts overall, no Christian is to ever violate this instruction and then blame it on the Holy Spirit. "The Holy Spirit came on me so strongly that I just had to start shouting out in tongues." That can frighten people. That understanding of tongues can frighten people.

I don't know, when I was a younger person and you used to go to the supermarket and you'd go through the cash stands before all of the scanners and all of that, behind every cash register was just a mountain of cigarettes. That's where they were.

And then inevitably they would have a little bowl there where they would have combs and beef jerky, and that's still represented in, and I don't know why you need to buy a comb just before you're leaving, but they know what they're doing, how to sell stuff.

But when any gift of the Holy Spirit or the gift of tongues is represented as something that when something comes upon me, I lose control, I ascribe it to the Holy Spirit and now I just have to speak in tongues, that frightens people.

They might be at the cash register and the cashier says, "Is there anything else, sir?" And I say, "Yes, I'd like to have a comb and a pack of, no, a comb and some beef jerky here." And then all of a sudden you're going to head into the gift of tongues. No, we have control of it. There's no fear of anything like that at all.

And so we see here that there is never to be any speaking in tongues in a church service without an interpretation of the tongue, let alone the whole church speaking in tongues at once. And again, Paul gave the reason for this in verse 23, as we saw last week, because the non-Christians in the room will think that you are out of your mind.

Now, I've had discussions with Pentecostals before. They're friendly discussions, doctrinal discussions, and they know how I view what Paul is teaching here. And I think I view it as pretty clear on the pages of Scripture. And so here Paul is clearly condemning corporate or congregational singing or speaking in tongues as a part of the service.

So you might ask yourself then, how in the world, in some Pentecostal churches then, do they justify everybody speaking in tongues all at the same time and ignore this instruction? And I've had some of them declare to me that there are two different tongues that are represented in the New Testament.

And that Paul is forbidding one kind of tongue or prayer language in the public service, but another kind of tongue is allowed to be spoken corporately or by the congregation in the service. And so an attempt to kind of explain a church practice that despite Paul's clear prohibition here.

Well, it is true that there are two Greek words used in the Bible to describe the gift of tongues. The first one is glossia, which is here and used in verse 23, elsewhere in the chapter. And then there's the word dialectos, which is used a number of times in the book of Acts Chapter 2 on the Day of Pentecost.

But in Acts Chapter 2 on the Day of Pentecost, the word glossia is the Greek word that is used in that setting of the Day of Pentecost to describe the gift of tongues being used by the disciples on the Day of Pentecost.

And then dialectos is the word that the Holy Spirit uses to describe the reaction of the multitude to the same supernatural event. It was the same exact expression of tongues. And one, that same exact expression of tongues, was glossia to the speakers, they did not recognize the language they were speaking, and dialectos to the hearers who recognized the various dialects that were being spoken.

So there aren't two different kinds of tongues, just two different Greek words to describe the expression of that same gift. Now, the order Paul tells us of a service is never to be interrupted by someone shouting out in tongues.

And so this happens frequently in some churches where the teaching is interrupted or worship is interrupted by someone speaking in tongues. But when the pastor is teaching, we trust, at least the pastor does, we trust that he is operating in the gift of teaching at that moment in time.

And that the Holy Spirit, being one who operates decently and in order, is not going to interrupt himself in the teaching that's going forth by having someone speak in tongues or to speak a prophecy and disrupt the service. Now, this is a public assembly gathering where everyone is, where there's those gatherings where everyone's a believer.

And this restriction then is not there. And so here you've got a public assembly, but if you were to attend a prayer group, or you were to attend something like that where there's something to be formal by the church or it would be something that you do privately with a group that you pray with, and each of you as Christians are comfortable with the gift of tongues and it's not going to stumble or trouble anybody like that.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with praying and then people are praying in their understanding, for that, that would be English. And then for others that are in the meeting to just quietly under their breath be praying in their prayer language. There are no unbelievers there. There's nobody that's going to be stumbled by it or anything like that. But here he's talking about the public assembly. But it's not an absolute prohibition related to all gatherings and certainly the gatherings of Christians, especially when they're all comfortable with the gift of tongues.

Now, in verses 29 to 32, he addresses the gift of prophecy. He says it's to be limited to two or three prophecies per meeting. And verse 29, he says in verse 29, all of the prophecies are to be judged by the word of God, of course.

And then the prophecies are to be judged by those who have the spiritual gift of discerning of spirits, because sometimes somebody can say something that passes the standard of Scripture, but it isn't coming from God. And so discerning of spirits is another kind of line of defense related to all of that.

And it's to be done in turn, verses 30 to 31, and without interrupting one another. And so when he says in verse 29, notice, "Let two or three prophets speak," and he puts that limit on the prophets within a local church.

But then he goes down in verse 31 and he says, "For you may all prophesy one by one." You say, "Wait a second, how can he put a limit on this here and then he's saying everybody can one by one?" I think what he's got, what's going on here, is there's a distinction between those who have the office of a prophet within the body of Christ.

They have a special gift from God to speak forth truth from God, and God says in terms of those with that calling on their life, that office within the church, that they are to limit themselves to two, at the most, three. In other words, that area or the expression of that gift is not to take up all of the time in the service and then you're not able to get worship, prayer, fellowship, the teaching of the word, the apostles' doctrine, and so forth.

And he goes down and he talks about those, "You can all prophesy one by one." Here he's talking about, I think, the distinction is about a Christian who has the gift of prophecy, that God speaks prophecy through their life, but they do not have the mantle or the office of a prophet as well.

And in either regard, he puts restrictions on the one and then on both of them, restrictions in number related to the prophets, and then the order one by one related to those who feel like they have a prophecy to share then with the church.

And he says the prophets, again, "spirit of the prophets are subject to the prophets." In other words, they can, we can exercise self-control in the exercise of this gift. Now, someone might wonder, and I broached the subject last week, why we don't exercise the gift of tongues or the gift of prophecy during our Sunday morning and Sunday evening public worship services.

And the reason that we don't is for things to be done decently and in order, but one of the reasons, they're not the full amount of reasons, but one of the reasons is is that if somebody stands up, and I've had this happen through the years, not often, but it happens, where somebody stands up, and if they say something incorrect or something that needs to be corrected, something that's wrong, it would be potentially humiliating for them to do that in an environment where there's so many people present.

And if somebody got up and they declared a prophecy or they spoke in tongues and then endeavored to interpret the tongue, but the direction of the interpretation was not toward God and is incorrect, then now you've got confusion. And what it, the problem it creates for the pastor is is that he has to now correct it.

And he has to correct it from the pulpit and it's a humiliation for the person. I never want anybody to be in that kind of a place where then they will never exercise gifts ever again. Their confidence has been lost and not everybody's well taught on these things.

And so we don't do it on the Sunday mornings or evening in those, and those are one of the reasons. We have afterglows in the church, and you don't have to wait for one of our afterglows to have an afterglow. You can have one at your house and invite people and enjoy that just on a personal level for the exercise of spiritual gifts. It's not a public worship service and we're not bound by these kind of restrictions as a result.

I think that the best place to grow in a church that's a little bit larger in becoming familiar with these spiritual gifts and operating in these spiritual gifts, seeing them in operation, is somewhere in a smaller group within the church.

And a group that's small enough say like a home fellowship where the home fellowship leader would have as a part of an evening, at least every so often, a time where you go into prayer and then people pray what it is that we want to pray to the Lord and then just let it go quiet.

And nobody feel the silence. Don't be uncomfortable with the silence. And then see what God might do. See what verse he might put on somebody's heart to say, some kind of a prophecy or something. "I believe that someone is here that you're worried about this and God is telling you this," whatever, and that kind of thing.

And that environment is a great one because you've got all of the time, they don't have the time constraints that we have. Don't be afraid to go to a home fellowship and think it's going to be three hours. But they have a lot of flexibility in terms of what they make the focus of the home fellowship on that night.

And they can look and say, "I think the Lord wants us tonight to spend a little more time in prayer and just waiting on Him this evening and still be able to dismiss on time." It's also a wonderful place, and an environment kind of like a womb, to make mistakes and nobody will care, nobody will be troubled by it, and it can get corrected privately afterwards, and it's not the big deal that it would have to be in the sanctuary.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Pastor Damian Kyle on According to the Scriptures. He's got a bit more he'd like to share with us before we close out this 14th chapter of 1 Corinthians. Stick around.

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You know, it never grows old hearing from you, our listeners, and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord for what he's doing on the radio. You can email us at atts@ccmodesto.com and include your prayer requests as well. That's atts@ccmodesto.com. Well, let's return to Damian for the rest of his message, shall we?

Damian Kyle: You notice in verses 34 and 35, Paul instructs concerning the problem with the conduct of some of the women in the church at Corinth during the worship services. Some people will, and this is just a problem everywhere, take my word for it. It's just, I'm kidding, just seriously, don't lose your sense of humor.

The sexes are always going to pick at one another. We're always going to make fun of one another. There's nothing wrong with it. This idiotic phase we're in in this country, it will pass. Women talk about men and men talk about women. And I won't say which one talks the more on things, but that goes on.

So it is interesting though that Paul, when he speaks here in verse 34, he says, "Let your women." So some will look and say, well, he's talking about a specific situation there in the city of Corinth, how the women in that church service were conducting themselves.

And others will say, well, you know, in my translation the "your" is left out and so really it's "Let women keep silent." But clearly Paul is addressing, in all of this, a problem that is going on in the church and now he addresses a problem that is specific to the women in the church, and so he corrects it.

And so we know what Paul isn't saying in verse 34. He isn't addressing the role of women in the church generally. He can't be saying that, saying that women can never speak in a church service because in Chapter 11, verse 5, he spoke favorably of women praying and even prophesying within the church.

And so he cannot be saying that women are never to speak in a church service.

Guest (Male): Next time on According to the Scriptures, we'll get into 1 Corinthians 15 where the focus is the resurrection and the gospel. So join us next week when Damian Kyle continues our series in 1 Corinthians. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Modesto.