873 1 Cor.14.26-40 Order and Silence in the Church
1 Corinthians • Sermon • Submitted
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· 9 viewsGod is a God of love and order and both of those virtues are to be evident in the churches. In this passage, under certain conditions, women, tongue-speakers and those who give prophecy are told to be silent. In a day when people are worried about being disobeient to some supposed "spirit-prompting" Paul charts a course based on God's order, not on some proported "movement" of the Spirit.
Notes
Transcript
- A number of you may have heard this little gem before, but I’m going to recite it again… and it starts with a question
Why are fire engines red?
“They have four wheels and eight men;
four plus eight is twelve;
twelve inches makes a ruler;
a ruler is Queen Elizabeth;
Queen Elizabeth sails the seven seas;
The seven seas have fish;
The fish have fins;
The Finns hate the Russians;
The Russians are red;
Fire engines are always rushin’;
So they’re red.
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- You may laugh at how such a justification like that can be reasoned out
- The reasoning to the answer is more like something a child would make up – full of word associations
- But when it comes to trying to avoid difficult passages of Scripture or dismiss the plain meaning of passages like this one today, many Christians are falling for the flawed reasonings akin to justifying why fire engines are red
- Or, in this case, how to get around or dismiss the apostle who tells tongue-speakers, prophets and women to be silent in the churches
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- All sorts of explanations & the bending of Scripture are used to get around words that seem rather obvious
- Some commentators on the silencing of women say that someone other than the apostle Paul wrote in those verses some time after the apostles’ generation
- Paul the egalitarian just wouldn't have written those words, they say – so they just leave them out
- Yet, these verses appear in every manuscript we have
- In other words, that reasoning doesn’t hold water
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- Tongue-speakers are limited to 2 or 3 max & told to be quiet if there is no interpreter
- Prophets are limited to the same – either 2 or 3
- But if someone receives a revelation through the meeting, then the one who is part way through his, must immediately stop speaking & allow the new revelation to be told
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- 3 times in this passage, Paul tells people to be silent
- Well there is a real issue here isn’t there
- The Corinthians who question whether Paul has the Holy Spirit are not willing to listen to these instructions
- So Paul lists 4 authorities to seal the deal
1. It is the universal practice of all the other churches
2. It is the Lord’s commandment, not his
3. The Law also makes the case
4. It is based on the character of God – He is not a God of confusion, but of peace & order
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- There are some important points we need to realise here in this passage today
- God is a God of order – He has been ordering the world a certain way right from creation
- When God first created the world it was unformed & chaotic
- God then went through the process of bringing order into His creation
- Through the successive days, God was adding order - & in increasing uniqueness
- The Sun, moon, stars, the plants, trees; animals & the fish of the sea
- Then the crown of His orderly world – Man – made in His own image
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- He created Adam first (the earth-man - made from the ground), then Eve & Adam was not designated a be Eve’s helper, but Eve a helper for Adam
- Under the Hebrew mindset the power to name is “the prerogative of a superior“ (Motyer)
- God gave to Adam the authority & duty of naming all the animals
- To Adam alone, God gave the command to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil
16 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
- After Adam & Eve sinned, God does not approach Eve first for an explanation, but to Adam to whom He gave the commandment
- Adam had ultimate responsibility to obey that command
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- God created Eve out of Adam’s side & allows Adam to name her
- Again, an authoritative act – a ruling & headship feature
- Eve was in unity with her husband being made OUT OF HIM, FROM HIM & she was given his name
- In Heb. Adam’s other name is ISH (man) & he names her ISHSHAH
- He is man, she is woman – the man’s counterpart
- She is from him, part of him & together God names them lit. in Heb. ADAM (earth man) which is translated into English as Man
2 He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created.
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- Adam sat by while Eve disobeyed the commandment God had given to him
- He was more culpable since he abdicated the responsibility that had been given him by God
- He should have led his wife to safety, but instead he let her take the lead which caused them both to fall away from the pristine relationship that they had with God
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- The order of creation that God had established had been turned on its head & now chaos had come back in the form of sin, judgement & curse
- His & her relationship with the earth from whence they came will be marred & they will struggle with their role in life
- Furthermore, their relationship will be tarnished
- She will try to wrestle control from him, but he will rule over her as Gen. 3:16 says
- But do remember, that this is the consequences of sin – this is not the ideal
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- We can alleviate the harshness of earning his bread with technology; we can alleviate the pain in childbirth with medications & anesthetics
- In Christ, we husbands can love our wives; Wives can submit to their husbands without entering into & maintaining this power struggle of Gen. 3:16
- But we still need to work the ground (earn a living) & women will still have pain in having children & husbands & wives will still have to relate to each other in marriage
- Those creation ordinances are not over-ridden because of advances in technology or because of Christ transforming the hearts of men & women
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- It is through obedience to God that chaos is suppressed & God’s creative order made to reign
I don’t know how many of you are familiar with good ole Maxwell Smart (Get Smart TV show of the 1960’s). Its not without coincidence that the two spy agencies are named Kaos & Control – Kaos being the bad guys (former Soviet Union) & Control as the good guys (USA)
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- God cares about His order – not your order or whatever order that someone else wants to make up & apply
- God designed His world in a certain way & there are truths that cannot be altered until Christ comes & establishes His kingdom reign on earth
- When He does come there will be changes – resurrected bodies for one thing
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- It seems that those in Corinth had wrongly believed that the resurrection had already come – next chp 15
- That their resurrection occurred at their baptism & no bodily resurrection was needed
- Here again is this dismissal of God’s order in creation
- Loving all things spiritual & detesting all things material was their problem
- In their minds, they had been spiritually raised – which meant to them that there is no Jew, Greek, slave, free, male or female distinctions existing - for you are all one in Christ Jesus
- Thinking that this teaching covered every part of life, they decided to act like they were like the angels of heaven & that marriage doesn’t really exist as such – that the kingdom is totally fulfilled
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- Therefore, they can abstain from sexual intercourse in marriage (chp.7) – they’re spiritually raised, they don’t need marriage
- Since the body is material & of no consequence, they can visit prostitutes
- But the reality is – they got it wrong
- We are still in a corruptible body; we still suffer death; we still are part of the age of sin
- So too, God’s order in the existing world must be upheld & to this we now turn
1. When Tongue-Speakers Are To Be Silent
1. When Tongue-Speakers Are To Be Silent
- Paul says that God is not a God of disorder, confusion or chaos
- But a God of peace – that is, wellness, wholeness – you’re together, in tact, experiencing life as God intended it to be
- This word “disorder” is also found in Jas
16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.
- This has got to be the antithesis of God’s creative plan – of how He designed & ordered the universe
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- Tongue-speaking was obviously happening in large numbers in their services & it must have sounded like seagulls fighting over chips
- Paul insists on order in the church service to reflect the character of God
- Messages in tongues were to be understood by all – the tongue-speakers & the hearers
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- He places a limit on them of 2 or the most 3 in any one service & each in turn
- He does this to stop them from showing off & monopolising the Service
- He also says that if they have no interpreter, they must remain silent
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- The Corinthians who think they have a personal hot-line to God, no doubt, would have arced up claiming their own authority to ignore Paul
- Who are you to snuff out the Spirit when He is moving
- You can’t quell the Spirit – even I can’t quell the Spirit when He is moving, they would say
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- Paul knows of these statements & answers them
- Firstly, he says that the spirits of the prophets are subject to the control of the prophets – they are subject to the individual!
- In actual fact, we also know that a fruit of the Spirit is self-control
- Love is what he has just laid out as the foundation for the operation of the church in worship
- It is to rule everywhere and it does so in the Service too & no amount of excuses of an overwhelming spiritual urge can reduce the force of love practised in the church
- The purpose of a worship service is to worship God, but to edify or to build up the worshippers
2. When Prophets Are To Be Silent
2. When Prophets Are To Be Silent
- Likewise, this same appeal is made to prophets
- 2 or 3 speak & then others to pass judgement
- The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets
- The second point is that if a revelation comes to one while another is speaking, he is to be silent & the next one to go ahead
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- Wow, that’s a downer to those who so proudly present themselves as mouth pieces for God
- Paul says that if another has a revelation, the first must cork it!
- This says an awful lot to us about the modern church
- The whole notion of Spirit-led this or that can be so out of place
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- The church is to be edified – the mind is to be engaged
- Yes! We should call some behaviours for what it is – nonsense, just selfish, ego-centred nonsense
- Puffed up Christians under their own belief, that they have a hot-line to God
- Hey, remember what Jeremiah said…
16 Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility; They speak a vision of their own imagination, Not from the mouth of the Lord.
2 “Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy from their own inspiration, ‘Listen to the word of the Lord! 3 ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Woe to the foolish prophets who are following their own spirit and have seen nothing.
- Don't think it doesn't happen – it does, so don’t uncritically swallow whatever twaddle some people want to serve you up
- I don’t say this without warrant for this is what Paul says
29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment.
- Wow, fancy facing that! What difficulty that would create if one was prophesying falsely
1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
- The use of spiritual gifts is not an unrestricted license to do what one pleases
- The contemporary church is now going back to the pagan past with her emphasis on mindless worship more akin to the ancient pagan worship practises
- We have the Corinthian error being repeated all over again
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- Now I’m going to be straight with you here
- Many of you know that I believe the likes of personal revelation & tongues ceased in the early church – with the end of the apostle’s generation
- I do not dismiss the illumination of the Spirit which I see as different from revelation
- Jesus will open to us understanding & give us recall on His word
- I see revelation. Prophecy & tongues differently to this
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- Let me briefly give you my reasons for thinking this way
1. When Paul wrote this letter witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus were still alive
6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;
- Remember Peter & John outside the temple gate called “Beautiful”
6 But Peter said, “I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—walk!” 7 And seizing him by the right hand, he raised him up; and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened.
15 but put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses. 16 “And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.
- If Jesus was still dead, that man could not have walked again
- They all understood that – in His name – means that Jesus did the healing & if He’s still dead & not risen, then that man would still be lame
- Put 2 & 2 together – they witnessed His resurrection & Jesus confirmed their witness by healing the man – Jesus must be alive!
- So the people listened to the Gospel message & turned to Christ
- We no longer have witnesses of the resurrected Jesus & hence no signs that can accompany that witness
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- There are 2 more significant reasons why I believe God has discontinued tongues & prophecy
1. The ginormous rise of false prophecy
- The early church was overrun with it – it became a significant challenge
- The Gnostic heresy almost destroyed the church
- To combat this, the acknowledged writings of the apostles were used to formulate creeds by which false prophets & teachers were to be screened out
- You had the apostles creed, the Nicene creed, the Athanasius creed & many others
2. There was the need for the canon
- The canon of the NT writings
- Canon means, in short, a measuring rod or ruler (a set of rules to determine which books were written under the inspiration of God)
- The church accepting that prophecy was no longer given sought to close the canon of Scripture
- Just as the Jews recognised that no prophecy was given after Malachi, the church recognised that no prophecy had been given after the apostles
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- So the church used a set of rules to govern which writings were to be included or excluded from the NT
- I won’t go into that determination, but essentially the books had to be sourced from an apostle who has been commissioned by the Lord or a close associate of one commissioned by the Lord
- All this happened because the church recognised that prophecy & revelation had ceased
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- Now if prophecy & revelation was still happening, then it has a right to be immortalised in the canon of Scripture, but nothing more than apostolic truth has been accepted
3. When Women Are To Be Silent
3. When Women Are To Be Silent
- In our modern patriarchal culture (of not so long ago) ladies were introduced first – even with the announcement it was "ladies and gentlemen", not "gentlemen & ladies"
- Doors were opened for women; in the sinking of the Titanic, women & children went into the lifeboats first
- But many churches are choosing to ignore this teaching on the role of women because they have been convinced that the NT is a product of a patriarchal culture & system
- In other words, Paul & Peter were culturally conditioned by their times
- I understand that we all get conditioned by our culture, but we have to examine what the apostles say & why they say it
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Susan T Foh makes a pertinent point:
The question arises whether biblical feminists have been prejudiced by the thoughts and values of their own culture – a culture which is increasingly secularistic in spirit, which is called a post-Christian age by some historians. Are not biblical feminists themselves guilty of culturally determined interpretation? -- Susan T. Foh
- She raises a very good point. For 1960 yrs, predominantly, it was the plain reading/teaching of Scripture that dominated
- Enter Postmodernism – 1960’s-70’s started the sexual revolution & it changed so much & is still changing so much
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- I wonder what biblical feminists make now of a person changing their genders every year which they can do in Victoria
- I don’t think in their wildest dreams they saw this one coming
- But if you lose your moorings from Genesis (as the Law also says) & rather give heed to the secularist spirit, then truth is what you want to make it to be & our secular culture is making it very scary indeed
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- Now as we look at this section on women remaining silent, I don’t think it is an absolute
- Tongue-speakers & prophets were told to be silent but it was not a prohibition that was absolute for the whole service - & of course, they can sing psalms & hymns
- Also, women were allowed to pray & prophecy in the church as we saw Paul speak about in chp. 11
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- What this seems to amount to here is the discussion or the judging of the revelations/prophecies
- To set themselves up as judges in the church, they are usurping the roles that God created in Genesis
- This is similar to the command Paul gave in 1 Tim. 2 about him not allowing a woman to speak or have authority over a man
12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. 14 And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.
- That template remains & the woman honours God by keeping to the right sphere of her involvement
- To judge, discuss & dismiss a man’s (or her husbands) revelation or prophecy reverses the order of God’s creation account
- In v.34 it says that she should be in submission – it could be better rendered, “she should keep to her ordered place”
- Even in chp. 15 we are told that the Son will assume His ordered place
28 When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.
- God is an orderly God
- Now I know that many will not like my take on this, but I’m trying to be as faithful to what the word of God is saying to us
4. Not My Word, But the Lord’s Commandment
4. Not My Word, But the Lord’s Commandment
- Finally, if these “spiritual” Corinthians are truly of the Spirit then they should recognise that what Paul gives is the Lord’s commandment
- They are lone rangers & paying no attention to the accepted truths that is with all the churches
- They think that they are the sole source of the word of God & can dismiss Paul’s words at will
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- If they or we want recognition, then that recognition will only come with accepting the truths of Paul’s teaching – the apostolic teaching
- He says here that if that person does not recognise this as God’s commandment, then he is not recognised
- His appeal to them goes something like this – “if you don’t acknowledge this, then you won’t be acknowledged” - Powerful statement!
- The point in this passage is that God is a God of order
Question to discuss:
1. How do the 3 commands here to be silent impact this modern idea of the individual right to act on the Spirit’s “prompting”?
2. Discuss how, in general, the sexual/egalitarian revolution has impacted churches and families