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Father, thank you for this day. Lord, thank you for your goodness to us. Thank you for your blessings and thank you for the gospel which you have given us. Father, I pray as we are here tonight, that you will lead us with your spirit and conform us to the image of your son. Father, that we will learn how to behave the way you want us to behave and live as you would have us to live.
Father, I pray that you will be glorified in this. In Jesus name. Amen. Good evening, everyone. Welcome Back to Church of the Bible.
We have video the week. So I did as I told everyone I would. I tried to figure out what went wrong last week and we we believe it's just was outdated software. So I updated all all of our software for anyone who might know someone watching live other than Zoom, we're not broadcasting tonight because while I updated my software I lost the streaming info and I have to put reprogram that. So that's where we are.
But at least we have video tonight. It is being recorded so we'll be able to still put it on the website after the fact, but that's where we are as an update. With that said, we're going to continue our study today through the book of First Corinthians. We're going to be in chapter 14. Even though last week's service was title 12, we also managed to put the entirety of chapter 13 into last week.
So we're going to jump directly into 14 today as we continue. Just a reminder of kind of what we saw last week. Paul has started to talk about the gifts. He listed a lot of the gifts and he talked about the diversity of them in the body and why they are needed. Right?
We can't all be preachers, we can't all be prophets, we can't all be musicians. We have various different gifts for a reason. That was the major point of chapter 12. But then as we got into 13, what Paul wanted to reveal to us in chapter 13 is that no matter what gift you have, whether it's prophecy or teaching or comforting people or helping people, whatever it was, it meant absolutely nothing if you did not have love. So if we don't love one another, our gifts are pointless anyways.
So he ended with that last week. So we're going to jump in to 14 where we will continue this idea of gifts today. And the big thing that we're going to focus on today is speaking in tongues. Believe it or not, There's a whole 25 verses here that have an emphasis on tongue speaking.
If you remember, last week, Paul listed it last. And it's not that he said that the gift of tongues is useless. It has a use, right? But he didn't really have a whole lot of good to say about it. So this week he's going to focus a lot of time.
At the end of the week, we're going to move into order in the church how we should act within a church service itself before we finish the section of First Corinthians. And then next week we'll talk about the resurrection. And then the final week, two weeks from now, we'll end this book with his conclusion. So let's read verses one through five. Paul says, pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy.
For the person who speaks in a tongue is not speaking to people, but to God. Since no one understands him, he speaks mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, the person who prophesies speaks to people for the strength of encouragement and consolation. The person who speaks in a tongue builds himself up, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. I wish all of you spoke in tongues.
But even more that you prophesied, the person who prophesies is greater than the person who speaks in tongues unless he interprets so that the church may be built up. So the long and the short of these five verses is that prophecy is superior to the gift of tongues. And we'll get to tongues here in a minute. He first says, pursue love and desire spiritual gifts. There are actually two commands here, pursuing love and desiring gifts.
Two separate commands here, both that we should follow up, pursuing love. First and foremost. If you have no gift at all but the gift of love, then you are as gifted as you need to be right now. We do know that God gives each of us spiritual gifts, but love is something we have to pursue. Love is something God can fill us up with his love.
God can show us his love through his sacrifice for us, his forgiveness of sins, his grace, his mercy. But we have to pursue loving people. That's something we have to practice. That's something we have to be conscious of, Right? There aren't people who just love and people who just don't love.
It's something. It's an action. It's active on our part, and we need to pursue that gift. The second thing he says is desire spiritual gifts. We should.
Paul encourages Corinth. And that same encouragement is true to us that we should desire having gifts. It's not bad to say, hey, God, I really want you to give me a spiritual gift. I really want a gift I can use to build up the church, to strengthen people, to help people. As long as your reasoning for wanting a spiritual gift is, God, I really want this gift so I can go show off, but it's God, I want a gift so that I can build your kingdom.
Pursue it. And Paul gives one gift in mind here. He says especially that you may prophesy.
Paul is not, and I'm saying this for the benefit of us, Paul is not instructing that everybody should Prophesy. Paul does not seem to think that everyone should be a prophet. We can't all be a prophet, or there would be no teachers and there would be no comforters and there would be no people doing these other things. However, in the church of Corinth, right? Why does Paul not talk about tongues like this in any other book that he's written?
He's written many books, many letters, and he never talks about tongues in depth anywhere. So why here? And the reason you have to remember, Corinth is a gentile region, right? It's. It's a region of heathen.
Almost all believers in Corinth are Gentiles who were formerly pagans and worshiped in pagan temples where the gift of tongues, right? And remember, there is no spiritual gifts outside of Christianity. Any apparent gifts are a show or you know what I mean, in pagan religion. However, babbling nonsense in those heathen religions was highly sought after. So when Paul says pursue gifts, especially that you may prophesy.
We need to contextualize that to who he's talking to, right? To the Church of Corinth, speaking in tongues was the gift to desire. It was the gift to long after. It's what they all wanted. And Paul says, look, if you can only desire one gift, then desire prophecy over tongues, right?
And you can see that's what he's saying. He's saying, desire this over this, not over all the others. Because if you look at verse two, it tells us what he's comparing prophecy to. The person speaking in a tongue is not speaking to people of God or to people, but to God. The whole idea.
If I started speaking Hebrew right here and now, how many of you would understand me if I started speaking German, who here would know what I'm saying? How about Spanish, French? And this is what Paul is getting at. I could stand here behind my pulpit tonight and I can speak to you guys in another language, but am I really speaking to you? Everyone here speaks English.
So if I start speaking German, am I really doing anything that benefits you? No, I might be speaking to God. I can speak to God in another language if I so desired, but I am not speaking to you. I'm doing nothing to benefit you. So he says, the person speaking in a tongue does not speak to people because no one understands him, right?
Now, remember, we defined this last week. Paul does not believe that speaking in tongues is yiber yabesh, these one or two syllable words that Pentecostals and Foursquare and a lot of other churches like to make it be Remember, we pointed this out and those churches they viewed speaking in tongues like Corinth did. In those type of churches, they tell you if you don't speak in tongues, you have not been filled with the Holy Ghost, which is not true. There's no gift other than the gift of grace, the gift of eternal life that is universal across all believers. But that's what they want you to think, but no one understands you, he says about the person who prophesies.
And today I'm not saying that gift of prophecy doesn't exist anymore. The gift of prophecy, the office of prophet, is closed, right? That closed with John the Baptist. The gift of prophecy, in terms of giving a scripture and revelation that we saw in the New Testament, that's gone. Those days are gone because we have the written word of God.
I won't say that gift of prophecy is 100% gone, though, because Christ tells us and Paul tells us us and John tells us that in the days leading up to the Rapture and even during the Tribulation, there will be sons and daughters. Prophesying. However, a lot more relevant than prophecy today is teaching, right? A role of, like a pastor or a Sunday school teacher rather than prophesying. The role of teacher, it speaks to the people.
If I'm uttering something helpful to you, that's better than uttering something you can't understand. And prophesying or teaching does three things. It strengthens. We can strengthen one another through teaching, through interpreting the Word of God, through sitting down and saying, hey, I know that right now you feel this way, but look what the Word of God says here. We can strengthen each other.
We can encourage each other. Don't be afraid. God's got this. And we know that God's got this because His Word says so. I know right now this situation hurts, but we must remember that God says he works out everything for the better of those who love him and are called according to his purposes.
Right? We can encourage each other and console each other. Those are the three things it does. He says, the person who speaks in a tongue builds himself up.
He speaks to himself, he benefits himself. And not even in that he knows what he is saying. You'll notice if you go back to chapter 12 and look at it. He gives us two gifts there at the end. Speaking in tongues is one gift, and the ability to interpret tongues is a second gift.
Most people who speak tongues cannot also interpret. So the one speaking in a tongue benefits himself, but only in the sense that that they can confirm they have the gift because they're speaking in a language they don't know. And to some degrees, to some people might even boast about it and benefit themselves in that way. Look what I can do. But that's not helpful to the people.
But the one who prophesies or in our context, teaches, builds up the church.
Now, Paul does say this. I wish all of you spoke in tongues. I don't think that's a bad wish. However, again, speaking in tongues has a very specific purpose. Right?
We saw, we've seen in the Bible. Speaking in tongues is so that you can proclaim the gospel to people who don't know your language. Right? Very specific purpose. And I think it would be great if we could all speak in tongues.
There's 200 people in the town I live in I cannot share the gospel to at all because they only speak Spanish. If I had the gift of tongues, that would not be a barrier. Although without the gift of interpretation, I couldn't understand them even if they could understand me. But it wouldn't be a barrier that the gospel could be proclaimed claimed. However, even more so than that all of us could speak in tongues.
He says even more than that, that you prophesy. Right, the gift of prophecy is greater than the gift of tongues. Okay, Paul is going to explain why this is the case in verses 6 through 12. We're going to read it, I will briefly comment on on it, and we're going to move forward because I think it speaks for itself here. So verse six.
So now, brothers and sisters, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I speak to you with a revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching even lifeless instruments that produce sounds, whether flute or harp, if they don't make a distinction in the notes, how what is played on the flute or harp be recognized. And if the bugle makes an unclear sound, who will prepare for battle? In the same way, unless you use your tongue for intelligible speech, how will what is spoken be known? For you will be speaking into the air. There are doubtless many different kinds of languages in the world, but none is without meaning.
Therefore, if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. So also you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, seek to excel in building up the church. Okay, so he gives a few examples here, but he gets really to the root of the issue. Speaking in tongues is useless in the church of God, because if the people you're speaking to don't understand the language. Language, what good are you doing?
You're just making noise. A bag of wind is what you are. And he uses some examples here. Instruments, he says flute or harp, but even guitar or trumpet or piano. If there are no distinction in the notes, if they're not done in a melody, how will you know what song is being played?
How will you know what it is? He also uses the bugle, or really a trumpet. The idea was in ancient times when you had an army, or not even an army, but sometimes even just in a city with guardsmen, the trumpet would sound as an alarm to let the army or guardsmen know to come for battle. However, different armies in different cities had different sounds, right? They all may have used a bugle, but different pitches or different notes to inform their specific troops.
And he says right here, if the bugle makes a sound that's not known to you, how would you know to go to battle? So he gives these, these examples here. And then he uses your tongue, right? How will what is spoken be known? You're just speaking into the air.
And then the final example he gives us, language. Every language in the world has meaning, right? Now, that doesn't mean I know the meaning. If somebody starts speaking Japanese to me, I'll have no idea what they're saying, right? But another Japanese person next to them will know what they're saying.
It has meaning, but to communicate, we need to know that meaning.
I don't know how much this really applies to our church, right? In particular, other than if we're talking to people who believe in the gift of tongues as yibber yabber. However, the last verse does apply to us. Seek to excel in building up the church. Seek.
Here is the command to seek to build up the church as a command. And it's active, right? You cannot passively seek for something. I can't say I'm going to look for something and hope for it to appear. If I'm going to look for something, seek something out, it's active.
I need to actively be engaged in searching for whatever it is I'm looking for. Same thing in building up the church. It's active, right? You don't build up the church passively. There's no, alright, I'm just going to do me.
And if what I do somehow builds up the church, great. And if not, well, I'm just doing me, right? It's active. Seek is to go out and intentionally do things that would build up the church, whether that's sharing the gospel or praying for people, or exhibiting acts of Love and kindness toward people, people teaching people, giving comfort to people. All of these things, they're intentional, you actively do them.
And all of these things build up the church.
Picking up in verse 13:19. Therefore, the person who speaks in a tongue should pray that he can interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruit. What then? Will I pray with the Spirit and will I also pray with my understanding?
I will pray with my Spirit and with my understanding, I will sing praise at the Spirit and also sing praise with understanding. Otherwise, if you praise at the Spirit, how will the outsider say amen at the giving of your things since he does not know what you are saying? You may very well be given things, but the other person is not built up. I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. Yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding in order to teach others also than 10,000 words in a tongue to make this short and sweet.
Because it's self explanatory. If you speak in a tongue, it has to be interpreted, has to be interpreted, interpreted, however, to make this relevant to us. Because I believe everything in the Bible is relevant to us. The Bible is not an outdated book, but it's living. It has meaning even today.
Here's what I want to say. His whole point with the gift of tongues, which is contextualized to Corinth because they value it so much, is that what they are doing is useful to the church. And I want to say the same thing is true today. Even though I don't know anyone who personally can speak in tongues, or I personally don't know anyone who speaks in tongues. We all have various gifts.
But do we use these various gifts in a way that is beneficial to the church, beneficial to the kingdom of God? And if we don't, then we are abusing and misusing our gifts. Someone who speaks in tongues. It is well for them if they're in a foreign place to use their gift, but within their local church, it is an abuse to use it because it doesn't do anything. But same thing with us.
If we have gifts and we use them outside of their scope, without control, we abuse them. But if we use them within their scope with what God intended when he gave us that gift, then we build up the kingdom of God. Look how Paul summarizes this. He says speaking five words that you can understand to build you up is better than If I speak 10,000 words you cannot understand.
10,000 words that you cannot understand is really zero, because you understood none of it. And anything times zero is zero. So five beats zero, right? Five words you can understand beats none that you can understand. So Paul says, look, in whatever context you are in, use your spiritual gift to benefit those who are around you to benefit the church.
Verse 20 through 25. Brothers and sisters, don't be childish in your thinking, but be infants in regard to evil and adult in your thinking. It is written in the law, I will speak to this people by people of other tongues and by the lips of foreigners, and even they will not listen to me, says the Lord. Speaking in tongues, then, is intended as a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers, while prophecy is not for unbelievers, but believers. If therefore, the whole church assembles together and all are speaking in tongues and people who are outside or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your minds?
But if all are prophesying and some unbeliever or outsider comes in, he is convicted by all and is called to account by all. The secrets of his heart will be revealed, and as a result, he will fall face down and worship God, proclaiming God is really among you.
I promise. For those who are tired of hearing about tongues, we're almost done, right? So Paul outlines the real use of tongues. Now, right? In verse 21, he outlines it right.
There will be four. There will be foreign people who speak to foreign people to proclaim the gospel. Right? Now it says, you know, speaking specifically when he says to this people, Jews here, and they will not listen. But the idea of the gift of tongues is outlined, that foreigners will speak to foreigners and be understood.
So he says here, speaking in tongues. And this is why there's nothing in Scripture. If you look at every single occurrence of the gift of tongues being used in scripture, not one occurrence of it is gibberish. It might sound gibberish to people who can't interpret it and don't understand it, but it's not gibberish, because every occurrence also comes with this, that people were hearing the people speaking in tongues in their native language. So every single example, and yet there are millions today who believe it's Yiber yabbish.
And I don't know how many of you have gone to a Pentecostal service us.
It feels weird. It feels weird because you go in there and you have. You get 10, 15 people who start speaking one or two syllable words, and it rattles off their tongue faster than you can keep up with it. And they run around the room while doing so in a lot of these churches and they believe that's the gift of tongues and they're speaking some angelic language when what's really happening is something poss them to just. And probably because their peers and their leadership told them they didn't have the spirit.
Right? But why is it that it always occurs in a church setting, in their local church with their local people? If the Bible specifically says right here that speaking in tongues. Right here's what it says in verse 22 is not for believers, but unbelievers. So if that's the use of the gift, why do we see churches who are speaking in tongues in their church service?
And it's not just one or two people, but it seems to be half the congregation or more. What are they doing? It's not for believers. The gift is for unbelievers so that you can proclaim the gospel to them. What's really funny, I wonder if some of the far out Christians who believe in tongues, I wonder if they've ripped this page out of their Bibles because it says if you go to a service and everyone's speaking in tongues, will not the outsiders say you are crazy?
That's what I want to tell them. You're crazy. You're out of your mind. I find it funny that the Bible predicted that and there's an entire denomination in the American church who somehow has missed that and does just that without realizing that they're crazy.
But then it says this again, comparing the gift. But if everyone's prophesying or teaching and someone comes in, they are convicted. Did If I start speaking in tongues right now during this church service, and one of my neighbors came to church today and heard that, and especially not only me, but also say Richard and Shawnee as well, my neighbor's going to run out my doors and never come back because they would think I'm crazy. Crazy. Especially since my neighbor doesn't speak any other language except for English.
So they will think I'm crazy. But if they come in and we are teaching and encouraging one another, right? And interpreting the Bible, they can be convicted by it and know that God is really here. Okay, you're going to see tongues come up a little bit more. But we're not going the focus in the last half of this chapter or a third of this chapter, it shifts away from tongues a lot more to how we function within the church.
Verses 26 through 33 and a half or half at the 33. What then, brothers and sisters, whenever you come together each One has a hymn, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything is to be done for building up. If anyone speaks in a tongue, there are to be only two, at the most three, each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no interpreter, that person is to keep silent in the church and speak to himself.
And to go God, two or three prophets should speak and the other should evaluate. But if something has been revealed to another person sitting there, the first prophet should be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one so that everyone may learn and everyone be encouraged. And the prophets spirits are subject to the prophets. Since God is not a God of disorder, but of peace.
Okay, we're gonna stop right there and look at this. Several different components are being taught here, but the whole idea is that there is to be order in the church. Church meetings should not be chaotic. They should not be disorganized. They should not be.
They shouldn't be what we see in a lot of dreams, different places, for the reasons that Paul has addressed tonight. So first and foremost, he says no matter what gift you have, right? Moving away from tongues a little bit, but he mentions it, whether it's teaching or revelation or speaking in tongues or music, whatever the gift you have, it is to be used for this. Everything is done for building up. So no matter what it is, you do what your role is in church, you should do it to encourage, to build the kingdom of God, to comfort.
It should be done for fortifying the kingdom of God, not to tear it down. Now he's going to talk briefly about tongues. He says if anyone speaks in a tongue, tongue, right? There's two things. There were three things, he says only one or two people.
He says if a third must, at the most three people can speak in turn. So let's break that down. Especially if you find yourself in one of these churches that believe in tongues differently than the Bible teaches it. First thing, if you have 15, 20 people all speaking in tongues at once, that's chaos, right? God says, let them do it, but one at a time.
And here is why. Notice Paul does not prohibit speaking in tongues even in church. There's a reason for it, and it can look one of two ways. You might have. We might have a big gathering where we might have different foreigners there who can't necessarily hear us.
Allowing someone with that gift to speak is a good thing. Thing. But allowing three of them to speak at once is confusion, right? But allowing them in turn to speak could proclaim the gospel to someone else. If there's someone to hear it.
And if not, he says, let it be interpreted. If for some reason I have the gift of tongues and must speak to my English speaking congregation in that tongue in something other than English, then he says, let someone who can interpret it be there. Which leads to the final point. He says, and if there is no interpreter, keep silent. Well, who's an interpreter?
There can be two, two ways. Again, someone who is able to hear that tongue and then interpret for everyone else who can't, or a foreigner who understands that language, I would call an interpreter. If we have a gathering with Spanish speaking people and someone's able to stand up and start speaking Spanish, those Spanish people can interpret. But Paul says if there's no one who can interpret what you're saying present, then keep silent, right? Because that gift is meant to build up.
So if there is no one to build up, you are misusing the gift. You're abusing it to use it in that context. But then he jumps over to prophets. Now you have to remember in the first century church, the gift of prophecy was a lot more common than the gift of teaching. Prophecy was really, really needed in the first century church because the scriptures had not yet been written.
So you needed more people who were able to be influenced right here, right now by the Holy Spirit of God to speak. And as tradition became written in, as these teachings of the apostles became more well known and more available, the gift of teaching took up. Because teaching doesn't rely on spontaneous revelation but on explaining and interpreting what is there. So keep that in mind. Back then he says this about the prophets or when I say prophets in the first century, I'm not referring to office, but the gift, right?
The ability to spontaneously be influenced that way is that they one by one should be able to speak. And it says, you know, up to three again. And there is a reason for up to three is so that there is not chaos in church, so that there is order. But I also want you to see what else he said. He said and the other should weigh it.
This is important because we have people today who, especially in the charismatic group, who believe that if a self proclaimed prophet speaks, it's the word of God and that's that. You see that with charismatics, right? Oh, this person says he's a prophet and this is what he said, it has to be true. You even see that in the LDS church, a self proclaimed prophet right now, Russell M. Nelson, whatever he says, everyone else immediately accepts it, right?
And they're not very charismatic. However, whatever that guy says He's a self proclaimed prophet. Whatever he says, everyone takes it. But look what Paul says. He says weigh it out, evaluate it it.
In other words, any prophet, whether self proclaimed or not, their words are not instantly regarded as true. But it's evaluated. And what's it evaluated for? Well, it's evaluated for consistency with God, right? Especially today we have the written word of God.
So if any proclaimed prophet, whether self or by someone else, is to utter something that should be evaluated against the word of God, this way we are not led astray. It should not instantly be regarded as truth and God's word just because that person's a prophet or a prophet. Right? Air quotes.
A famous example of why we evaluate. Wait. In the 1870s. Wow, I'm way too far. In the 1840s, 50s, a guy named Joseph Smith came out with polygamy, right?
A self proclaimed prophet who says God has told me that we need to have more than one wife. And he called it a new covenant, a new and everlasting covenant. And if you don't have more than one wife, you can't go to heaven, right? And as a self proclaimed prophet who just said, hey, I'm a prophet, people believed him and followed him and a practice was started. Evaluation against the Bible though would reveal the word of God, reveal a very different thing.
Hey, it's not God's spirit that we have more than one wife. It's not God's spirit that we do this thing, but he is said that you should have one husband and one wife and they should cling to each other and be one flesh. He even talks in the New Testament. We see it about being a husband to one wife. You can find that in Timothy, first Timothy three.
So it's really critical that teachings or prophetic utterances are evaluated and weighted against what we already know to be proclaimed by God. Now I'm in a break from prophets who are not as relevant today. And look at teachers, right? Look myself here. It's really important that the things I tell you are evaluated and not regarded as truth.
Just because I am a proclaimed pastor, right? Whether of myself or recognized by others as irrelevant. Just the fact that I say something should not be regarded as true truth, but it should be evaluated. There are a lot of pastors out there who don't claim a gift of prophecy, but they still mislead people. And it's for that reason two things should be done.
First, you should read your Bible because you cannot compare what I tell you with the Bible. If you don't read it if you don't know it. But second, everything I tell you, you yourself should tell. Take and compare to what you know. Does this line up?
Is this a sound and solid teaching? Is this counter to biblical principle? This way not even I could lead you through it. This principle applies to teachers as much as it does to prophets.
And then he ends this passage right there in the first part of verse 33. He says, God is not a God of disorder, but of peace.
God as a God of order, does not want disorder in his church. Disorder leads to confusion. Disorder, tears down, and disorder will actually turn away the lost from what we're doing. If a lost person comes to church, that's chaotic, the chances of them receiving the gospel are low.
But God is the God of peace, right? Order.
Okay, let's look at this next passage. Picking up still in verse 33, the second half, we'll go through 36. He says, as in all the churches of the saints, the woman should be silent in the church, for they are not permitted to speak, but to submit themselves. As the law also says, if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home, since it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church. Or did the word of God originate from you, or did it come to you only?
This is a heavily debated passage by scholars, by pastors at different denominations, and even by people within the same denomination. What does it mean? Why is it here? What's the purpose of it? So I'm going to break from here and remind people what Paul tells us in his other epistles, right?
Particularly, he lines it out in his epistles to Timothy and even to Thessalonica that women are not to hold authority over the men in the church, right? In the church, you got God, man, woman, in the authority, and in the home, you have God, husband, wife, right in that authority. And God does not permit women to hold authoritative positions over men. However, with that in mind, this passage has nothing to do with that.
We need to contextualize this as we contextualize it. If you pick up commentary and read commentary, or listen to a lot of pastors, I've heard of some pastors, they'll tell you that the reason Paul suggests this is because in Corinth, and this part is true, not why it's suggested, but the history in Corinth, the men and women sat on different sides of the room. And often what would happen is a wife would either not hear something or have a question about it, and so shout across the room to her husband and say, hey, what did they say? Or what did that mean? And disrupt service?
And that's why Paul wrote this. But that's also not true. While it's true that in the synagogues they sat, most of these meetings were less formal and took place in homes where husband and wives often sat together. So the idea that this was written for that reason, to avoid disturbances, is also not true. We also know it's not true because Paul does not say, this is specific to Corinth.
But he says in verse 33, this is the same in all of the churches.
So why then did he write it? And to understand why he wrote it, we must first understand what he meant meant. So the first thing he means here when he says woman, let me ask this. Is he talking about all women in general? I'd say no, he's not.
Because if you read the rest of this passage, it does not seem to pertain to all women, because he then talks about asking their husband, right? If you want to learn, that's fine. Ask your husband. Also, if you look at the beginning of this passage, this verse, it takes place, it's grouped with verse 33, right? There's not 41 verses in this chapter 40, because 33 is two parts.
God is not God of disorder, but of peace. And in all the churches, this is the way with woman. And if we contextualize it with the entire passage as a whole, particularly where Paul shifts his focus. He just talked about order in the church, and everyone can talk. He says, if there are people with the gift of tongue, let them talk and turn.
If there are people with prophecy, let them prophesy or teach, teach, and then let the rest of the people weigh it out. And then also in chapter 11, and I believe it's verse 5, but don't quote me on that, but it is. In chapter 11, Paul permits woman, married or unmarried, right? But in particular, married woman whose heads are covered. Remember we talked about this two weeks ago, Woman with covered heads.
He permits them to prophesy and trust, right? He says, let a woman prophesy with her head covered. So if he permits women to prophesy in church, then here the silence he speaks of cannot be complete and utter denial of speech. But it has to be something more. And as you contextualize it, here's what we learn.
Paul's issue is related to order for one and for two, to authority and for three, compared with the entire passage as a whole, to weighing out what is said. So, looking specifically at wives, there are two things that can be applied. Problem. First, Thing. If a husband prophesies in church and then the wife, while weighing out what he teaches with everyone else, contradicts or publicly shames her husband, that gives an image of disorder.
It's not wrong for a wife to want to marry, but it is wrong. And I'm going to say this true about husbands, I'll expand on that a minute. But it is wrong for the wife to publicly disagree with the husband, especially in church. So the whole idea is, instead of disagreeing publicly, instead of weighing out what you heard here in front of everyone else, where you can't subvert the authority of the husband over the wife. And this was big in the first century.
We talked about this two weeks ago as well. Big in the first century. Do it at home, where you can submit to your husband's authority and you can ask him questions without publicly disgracing him. That was the big issue at hand here. Now, like I said, I would say this is true in reverse.
I don't believe that even publicly husbands should disagree with their wives. I don't believe that husbands should shame their wives in public. I believe if there's an issue in public, you display unity and you take care of it at home. In private, whether you're male or female, husband or wife, I believe that in public you should be united, and in private you should take care of your issues. So I don't believe, while Paul here specifically has in mind the authority of the husband over the wife, I believe that public respect goes both ways and should go both ways.
So that's the first issue. Is the wife given a public appearance of not submitting to the husband's authority, Paul has in mind. But the second issue, even if it's not his own utterance, the husband's own utterance, that the wife questions in public, in the church, it's also the issue, and it's still an issue of authority, but it's an issue of Paul is showing that the husband is the spiritual leader of the household. Right? So in church, it is disorder if a wife does not understand something that's being said or to taught to interrupt the service and ask the speaker.
And rather, the biblical idea is that the wife comes under the authority of the husband and allows him as the spiritual authority over the household, to lead her. Now, unmarried woman, this here is very different for unmarried women. They can't go home and ask their husband questions. So it's not forbidden, even in a public gathering, for an unmarried woman to speak up and say, hey, I don't understand that. But for the unmarried woman, the church is her authority.
So to summarize this passage here, Paul is not referring to all speech in general when he says, be silent because chapter 11, verse 5 gives women permission to speak, to prophesy in a gathering and in public. Second, this passage does not have to do with woman having or not having authority in the church. That's a separate issue where Paul prohibits women having authority in the church over men. And third, the issue in two different ways, in part stems to to the authority in the home where the wife submits to the husband.
If anyone has questions about that, I invite you after service text or call me and we can hash over that more. We're running late, so we're going to finish the last four verses, which are really quick. Here he says this, if any, verse 37 if anyone thinks he is a prophet or spirit spiritual, he should recognize that what I write to you is the Lord's command. In other words, real quick, whether you are a prophet or a teacher, if you really are reading this, you won't reject it or ignore it. You will understand it to be God's command, right?
And people who ignore it, he says, will be ignored. People who. That's verse 38. If anyone ignores this, he will be ignored. If you ignore this and don't think this is God's command, you are not a prophet or teacher and you won't be listened to by the Church of God.
So then, verse 39. My brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues, right? While Paul, through this whole chapter, gives the impression that speaking in tongues is not useful to the Church, and it's not, and it's not a gift to be desired above other gifts. He also does not forbid it because there are occasions where you could have someone there who doesn't speak your language and the gift of tongue would be beneficial. So he doesn't forbid it, but he does encourage it's used properly, which is verse 40.
But everything is to be done decently or properly and in order, right? So it be order, orderly. Don't talk over each other. Don't have 40 people speaking in tongues at once or 40 prophets that are in prophecies at once. But be orderly, use your gifts properly, and strengthen and build the kingdom and Church of God.
Again, if anyone has questions afterwards, you can feel free to let me know and we can discuss it. We'll have communion immediately following service for those who would like to partake of the Lord's Supper, and then on Wednesday at 6:30. We will continue our study through the book of Luke. We're still in chapter five. We only got about halfway through it last week.
So we will pick up where we left off in chapter five as we continue that study. And I'll see everyone then. Let's pray. Father, I admit that I am a sinner. And Lord, I admit that I can't save myself and that my ways are wrong.
And I believe, Lord Jesus, that you are God in the flesh and ask you into my heart. I believe that you died on the cross and rose again the third day. And I confess you as my Lord and my God and my Savior. Father, I pray that whatever gifts we have, you know, in our church, tongues isn't one of them at least yet. But whatever gift, Father, I pray that you will work it in us to build and strengthen our church and you know, our local church and even the church as a whole.
And that everything we do is to build up, not to terrify down, right, not to edify ourselves. And I pray that everything that we do through your grace and your leading will be to your glory, that you would be glorified. I pray for these things. In Jesus name, amen.