Sermon Tone Analysis

1 Cor 14

Coming from what was said in chapter 13 Paul is continuing his point about love touching the matter of spiritual gifts again to kind of finalize his instructions about those contentious issues.

Issues that because divisive in corinthian church.

People became arrogant thinking that having certain gifts were making them spiritually superior over some others, whos gifts were not so expressive.

Verse one Persue love because that is the most important and greatest one.

Yet desire gifts, the real gifts especially prophecy.

why prophecy?

explanation comes right after it.

first thing that I want us not to do here is not to lose the track of the word Tongues or the definition of speaking in tongues.

Some people falling into their extatic ways and never wanting to truly come to biblical understanding of this all try to present us if praying in tongues and speakng in tongues are different.

lets debunk this for later benefit.

verse 2, 4, 13 connected to 14, 15. it is clear that according Paul and therefore the word of God Speaking in tongues and praying in tongues are the same thing.

Second myth that I would like us to debunk is the connection or abuse of Romans 8:26-27 “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

Doing simple text cmparison shows us that in all translations the general imlication is that this thing whatever the Sprit does can not be uttered and what is most important that it can not be uttered by us and our prayers.

It is clear that Holy Spirits intercession is not our prayers and whoever says this also says that the Spirit Prays to the Father God which is to foreign even to theologically immature ear let alone being tested by historical orthodox position about Trinity and interconnections among It.

conclusion is that this verses have nothing to do with prayers in Tongues.

and it is being abused only because this is the only text in the bible to justify their frenzy.

And when I say frenzy I don’t mean the biblical usage of this gifts but the crazy spectacles that are being often performed by many .

To be fair to the subject I will have to say that this is not making any position either it cessationism or continuationism.

According to all the study I have done till this moment I can say that I am not in favour of any position but what mostly concerns me is the usage of the gifts even if those are still active.

I believe what makes the issue so controversial is the error Christians fell in just like they did in Corinth.

Another very important detail that I believe we should touch is their claim about baptism of the Spirit, connecting it directly and necessarily to the speaking in tongues.

Again to be fair we need to mention that not all do this in Pentecostal movement but actually minority.

This probably will be the hardest one because the verses and passages used for this are scattered and not few and to understand the general direction of those passages we need to understand the purpose ond the the way of application of the New Covenant, namely the salvation of the Gentiles which was a huge problem for many jews to uderstand and accept and they needed miracles and signs from God to put up with it.

SO we observe those passages in Acts 2:38, Acts 8:9-24, Acts 10, Acts 11:17-18 ““Therefore if God gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”

When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.””

Acts 19:1-4 “It happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus, and found some disciples.

He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

And they said to him, “No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”

And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?”

And they said, “Into John’s baptism.”

Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.””

So last time we remembered all occasions in acts to come to a summarizing conclusion that all the occasions had99 a purpose to show Jews about Gods non partiality.

He extends His grace among all the nations and not just jews.

Jews had problems with samaritans and gentiles, and we see in acts 8 samaritans speaking in tongues, acts 10 gentiles and act 19 another gentiles in Ephesus.

From Acts 19:1-6

it is clear that to receive the gift of the Spirit it is necessary to believe and be baptised in the Name of the Jesus.

As also in Acts 2:38 “Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

On the other hand “During this period of church history it was evidently possible for people who had believed in Jesus Christ to be ignorant of Pentecost and not to have been baptized in the Spirit.”

William H. Baker, “Acts,” in Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, vol.

3, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1995), 913.

From m y21th century perspective it was hard to imagine that someone like Apollos is not mentioned as receving the gifts of the Spirit but guess what, many Believers in Christ went to heaven, did great works without having this external gifts.

John 4:48 “So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.””

and in John 20:29 “Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed?

Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.””

What did it mean to see Jesus, well it is not had to answer, first of all, all the miracles that he did this is also what he meant when he said you saw me.

MAIN POINT.

To show the purpose of it, which is God non partiality

To show that praying in Tongue is same with speaking in tangue as a gift.

To show that Romans 8:26-27 have nothing to do with it.

proof, it is the Spirit inteceding and not us praying, Cor 14 says it is my spirit praying, and it also says that no Tongue is without meaning.

So praying with tongue and somehow equating this with the intercession of the Spirit for us and especially in those churches where this is pushed means generating this muscle and learning how to make The Holy Spirit to interced for us more and with better efficacy, so how in the end we don’t know how to pray but He intercedec with graoaning to deep to utter and if it can not be uttered how can it be prayed by us?

so what is the conclusion?

Paul is urging us to pray for the gift of the interpretation, Well the commandment is clear, Love your God with all your heart with all your mind with all your soul.

He does not want our minds to be unfruitful because it will be incomplete in terms of Gods ministry.

Paul makes it really clear.

If we have a gift of praying or speaking in tongues means every time we pray in a clear language which can be interpreted or translated and if after long period of time we don’t see such a result means we are doing something else and it can not be a gift of tongue.