Sermon Tone Analysis

The Edifying Quality of Right Understanding

COULD POINT TWO BE THE EDIFYING QUALITY OF RIGHT UNITY??? verse 24-25

PAUL is still dealing with this question of speaking with tongues.

He begins with an appeal to the Corinthians not to be childish.

Barclay, W. (2002).

The Letters to the Corinthians (3rd ed., p. 154).

Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press.

Paul used the word brethren (adelphos = brother in the Gk) which was a term of endearment that in this case basically softened the body blow he was about to deliver.

To put it in the simplest terms possible, Paul was telling them to GROW UP!!! Based on what Paul just said in verse 19 about preferring 5 words people could understand to 10k words in a tongue, AND the overemphasis by some in the Corinthian church on the gift of tongues, it seems that Paul is saying...

Barclay, W. (2002).

The Letters to the Corinthians (3rd ed., p. 154).

Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press.Paul used the word brethren (adelphos = brother in the Gk) which was a term of endearment that in this case basically softened the body blow he was about to deliver.

To put it in the simplest terms possible, Paul was telling them to GROW UP!!!

1. Embrace right thinking - In your understanding of things that edify, be skilled.

As it pertained to spiritual gifts, Paul wanted them to be s

2. Exclude wrong thinking - In your understanding of things that are evil (don’t edify), be unskilled

In your understanding of things that are evil (don’t edify), be unskilled

Paul then finds an argument in the Old Testament.

We have seen over and over again how Rabbinic interpretation—and Paul was a trained Rabbi—can find in the Old Testament hidden meanings which were certainly not originally there.

He goes back to Isaiah 28:9–12.

God, through his prophet, is threatening the people.

Isaiah has preached to them in their own Hebrew language and they have not listened.

Because of their disobedience, the Assyrians will come and conquer them and occupy their cities, and then they will have to listen to language which they cannot understand.

They will have to listen to the foreign tongues of their conquerors speaking unintelligible things; and not even that terrible experience will make an unbelieving people turn to God.

So, Paul uses the argument that tongues were meant for a hard-hearted and unbelieving people and were, in the end, ineffective to them.

Then he uses a very practical argument.

If any stranger, or any uninitiated person, came into a Christian assembly where everyone was pouring out a flood of unintelligible sounds, that person would think that the place was a mad house.

But if the truth of God was being soberly and intelligibly proclaimed, the result would be very different.

Newcomers would be brought face to face with themselves and with God.

PAUL is still dealing with this question of speaking with tongues.

He begins with an appeal to the Corinthians not to be childish.

This passion for and over-evaluation of speaking with tongues is really a kind of childish ostentation.

Paul then finds an argument in the Old Testament.

We have seen over and over again how Rabbinic interpretation—and Paul was a trained Rabbi—can find in the Old Testament hidden meanings which were certainly not originally there.

He goes back to Isaiah 28:9–12.

God, through his prophet, is threatening the people.

Isaiah has preached to them in their own Hebrew language and they have not listened.

Because of their disobedience, the Assyrians will come and conquer them and occupy their cities, and then they will have to listen to language which they cannot understand.

They will have to listen to the foreign tongues of their conquerors speaking unintelligible things; and not even that terrible experience will make an unbelieving people turn to God.

So, Paul uses the argument that tongues were meant for a hard-hearted and unbelieving people and were, in the end, ineffective to them.

Then he uses a very practical argument.

If any stranger, or any uninitiated person, came into a Christian assembly where everyone was pouring out a flood of unintelligible sounds, that person would think that the place was a mad house.

But if the truth of God was being soberly and intelligibly proclaimed, the result would be very different.

Newcomers would be brought face to face with themselves and with God.

One thing that prophecy and tongues have in common is the use of our mouth.

Paul has already expressed that edification of the body should be a focus in the church, so I like what he says in that further sheds light on what he thinks about the beneficial use of our mouth when he says...

Our mouth should edify.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:This past year, if someone had paid you ten dollars for every kind word you ever spoke about other people, and also collected five dollars for every unkind word, would you be rich or poor?”1393 Michael P. Green.

(2000).

1500 illustrations for biblical preaching (p.

378).

Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

PAUL is still dealing with this question of speaking with tongues.

He begins with an appeal to the Corinthians not to be childish.

This passion for and over-evaluation of speaking with tongues is really a kind of childish ostentation.

Paul then finds an argument in the Old Testament.

We have seen over and over again how Rabbinic interpretation—and Paul was a trained Rabbi—can find in the Old Testament hidden meanings which were certainly not originally there.

He goes back to Isaiah 28:9–12.

God, through his prophet, is threatening the people.

Isaiah has preached to them in their own Hebrew language and they have not listened.

Because of their disobedience, the Assyrians will come and conquer them and occupy their cities, and then they will have to listen to language which they cannot understand.

They will have to listen to the foreign tongues of their conquerors speaking unintelligible things; and not even that terrible experience will make an unbelieving people turn to God.

So, Paul uses the argument that tongues were meant for a hard-hearted and unbelieving people and were, in the end, ineffective to them.

Then he uses a very practical argument.

If any stranger, or any uninitiated person, came into a Christian assembly where everyone was pouring out a flood of unintelligible sounds, that person would think that the place was a mad house.

But if the truth of God was being soberly and intelligibly proclaimed, the result would be very different.

Newcomers would be brought face to face with themselves and with God.

Verses 24–5 give us a vivid summary of what happens when the truth of God is intelligibly proclaimed.

(1) It convicts men and women of their sin.

They see what they are, and are appalled.

Alcibiades, the spoilt darling of Athens, was a friend of Socrates, and sometimes he used to say to him: ‘Socrates, I hate you, for every time I meet you, you make me see what I am.’ ‘Come’, said the woman of Samaria in shamed amazement, ‘and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!’ (John 4:29).

The first thing the message of God does is to make people realize that they are sinners.

(2) It brings men and women under judgment.

They see that they must answer for what they have done.

So far, they may have lived life with no thought of its end.

They may have followed the impulses of the day and seized its pleasures.

But now they see that the day has an ending, and there stands God.

(3) It shows men and women the secrets of their own hearts.

The last thing we face is our own hearts.

As the proverb has it, ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see.’

The Christian message compels us to have that searing, humiliating honesty which will face our true selves.

(4) It brings men and women to their knees before God.

All Christianity begins as we approach God’s presence on our knees.

The gateway to that presence is so low that we can enter it only upon our knees.

When we have faced God and faced ourselves, all that is left for us to do is to kneel and to pray: ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner.’

The test of any act of worship is: ‘Does it make us feel the presence of God?’ The American Congregationalist Joseph Twitchell tells how he went to visit his fellow minister Horace Bushnell when Bushnell was an old man.

At night, Bushnell took him out for a walk on the hillside.

As they walked in the dark, suddenly Bushnell said: ‘Let us kneel and pray,’ and they did.

Twitchell, telling of it afterwards, said: ‘I was afraid to stretch out my hand in the darkness in case I should touch God.’

When we feel as near to God as that, we have really and truly shared in an act of worship.

The Corinthians are exhorted to have a mature evaluation of the gifts by keeping in view a passage from Isaiah (the term Law is used by Paul, as it was among the rabbis, to refer to any part of the Old Testament).

In context (Isa.

28:11–12) these words come in response to the mocking of the form of speech used by the prophet to convey God’s message.

In turn Isaiah promises that since Israel will not listen to the Lord’s word in their own language, they will hear the message that his judgment has come upon them spoken by men of strange tongues, and even then they will not listen readily.

In this sense “tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers” (v.

22), as a display of God’s power sent with the intention that when they are at last understood they may also convict.

Prophecy’s true purpose, however, is to instruct and speedily convict those who believe in its words.

The application of this interpretative insight to the exercise of tongues and prophecy in the Corinthian worship service is made.

If the church gathers and “everyone speaks in tongues,” when others come in (whether they enter simply seeking an understanding of the faith or the confirmation of their disbelief) they will not readily listen to sounds they do not understand, but attribute them instead to a temporary insanity (v.

23; see also Acts 2:13–15).

But if, in the same circumstances, prophecy is being exercised, then the message of conviction will be immediately understood and repentance, worship, and confession will surely follow.

As it pertains here to the Corinthian church, their tongue speaking was unwholesome because there was no interpretation along with it to edify anyone, but to prophesy (REITERATE THE DEFINITION OF PROPHECY) was appropriate for the need of the moment because it provided edification to the Body of Christ.