Sermon Tone Analysis

1 Corinthians 14:20–25 (ESV)

Brothers, do not be children in your thinking.

Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.

In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.”

Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers.

If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds?

But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

Thesis: Failing to operate in the Spirit correctly destroys our relationship with unbelievers.

Intro: I am going to preach today on a difficult topic once again - last week was a hard sermon to prepare, this one was as well.

But I hope, and I believe, I have done as Paul told Timothy

I pray that I have, and will rightly handle the word of truth today.

I believe God has given me, as your pastor, a vision for the direction of this church.

We have some things coming this year that - I hope - you will join me in prayer concerning them, as well as get excited about bringing anyone and everyone you can do them...

But I want to be clear - that vision does not entail “stealing people from other churches”.

I am called to shepherd this flock, not rob someone else’s.

In small towns, pastors sometimes do that - and it belittles not only the people but it ruins the integrity of the pulpit, and I refuse to be “that guy”.

Now, if someone says, “I go to the church down yonder, but I haven’t been in a dozen years” that’s a little different.

If you don’t go to a church you don’t belong to that church, and I we’d love for such a person to try our church and maybe make it their church.

But the best way to grow a church is by converting and discipling unbelievers.

We do this by operating in the Spirit - having Spirit-led worship, Spirit-fueled sermons from the Scriptures that were inspired by the Spirit, and - as we have seen over the past few weeks, as we operated in the gifts of the Spirit.

When we do not operate in the gifts correctly, we damage and often destroy our relationship with unbelievers and we then see the growth of a church hindered.

In a short summary of how to avoid that, Paul tells us to be mature in the Spirit, to be missional in the Spirit, and then we will see miracles in the Spirit.

We Are to be Mature in the Spirit

In this section, Paul begins by drawing a contrast between the state of the Corinthian church as it currently was, and where they ought to be.

The idea of spiritual maturity is a case Paul has been building for some time.

He began back in chapter 2 by discussing how he came to them reaching Christ and him crucified, not with lofty speech or anything that may attract them to him.

The idea for Paul, as it should always be for us, is to point others to Christ.

He does not want their faith to rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Then he says,

And he will go on in chapter 3, again referring to their maturity

Again, Paul is building his case that they need to become mature.

Now we look at the Corinthian church, they were divided, they were allowing prohibited things, they were appeasing their own flesh… and Paul is telling them you shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing anymore.

In fact, in the previous chapter, he really tried to drive it home when he said,

1 Corinthians 13:11–12 (ESV)

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

And he is challenging them, the Corinthian Christians, to start to grow up.

Enough is enough.

It’s time they wake up, they grow up, and become the church they’ve been called to be.

Stop pursuing the fleshly things, stop with the fighting, stop with the division… if indeed they are to be a Spirit-led church.

Stop being children in your thinking, he says.

The Greek word is “fresin” (φρεσίν), which means understanding or intellect.

Look, I like those little books filled with fun illustrations of Bible stories, you know, where the pages are super thick and they’ve got fun pictures of Jonah and a whale, Joshua blowing a trumpet with walls falling down, Samson fighting people with a silly looking bone in his hand...

But at some point we have to leave VeggieTales and the kid stories behind.

Jonah was a prophet and not a good one.

Joshua was a warrior who killed his enemies up close and personal at the end of a short sword.

Samson was a womanizer who got his eyes poked out.

At some point, even as adults, we should stop craving the cotton candy sermons that make us feel good and start wanting the steak and potato sermons that nourish our souls.

You may want sermons that hype you up and make you feel good, but like the sugar rush, you’re gonna crash soon after.

You need meat and vegetables, you need depth, Scripture, theology.

Church, it’s time to grow up.

The Corinthians needed to be told this, sometimes we all need reminded of it.

Paul told them to be infants in evil - the Corinthians were experts at evil and wickedness.

They were one of the few cities whose immorality in their time might even make modern day Los Angeles go, “Whoa that’s a little too far, isn’t it?”

The word Paul uses for evil, here, is “kakia” (κακίᾳ), and it means wickedness, malice, depravity.

These are not the things of a spirit-filled life.

I’m borrowing from Romans 8, but Paul also said to the Roman Christians:

Romans 8:7–8 (ESV)

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

But at this point, the Corinthian church should have matured and had their minds set right

but in your thinking be mature.

Mature understanding is essential for proper comprehension and use of the gifts - especially if it’s tongues or prophecy - because they are so attractive to the flesh.

Paul is instructing the Corinthian Christians (and us!) to put aside emotion and experience with the flesh and with pride, and think carefully of the purpose of the gifts.

and he goes on

Now, when Paul uses the term “the Law” he does necessarily mean the Torah, the first 5 books of the Old Testament.

This could just refer to the Tanak, what we call the whole Old Testament.

We see Jesus do this in John 10:34

Jesus of course, is referencing Psalm 82, as He mocks the Pharisees who had set themselves up as judges over people, just like the Psalmist does to those who ruled over the people of Israel then.

Paul also does this in Romans 3:19

And here in 1 Corinthians, Paul is actually paraphrasing Isaiah 28:11-12 - and what should catch our attention is the way Paul does this - he’s not really quoting Scripture, and when he normally does, he quotes the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament.

Here, in his paraphrase, he is kind of mixing up the Hebrew text with the Greek text a little.

Kind of how some of us may have memorized verses in the Old King James, one way, the NIV another way, and when we quote the verse get a jumble of both translations.

Paul is doing that here - maybe not on purpose on his part, but definitely under the direction of the Holy Spirit for HIS part.

Because the paraphrase fits perfectly within the narrative Paul has created.

Isaiah 28 is key to Paul and his view of Christ - as it is for us.

Paul connects, for example, the idea of the cornerstone that Isaiah mentions in this chapter

Isaiah 28:16 (ESV)

therefore thus says the Lord God,

“Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion,

a stone, a tested stone,

a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation:

‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’

Paul connects that to Romans 9:33

Paul understands that cornerstone to be Jesus and when he writes “says the Lord” he likely believes it is referring to Christ as the person of the Trinity who spoke it.

(Peter, incidentally, will also draw a connection to Jesus being a cornerstone in 1 Peter 2:7 but he draws his connection to Psalm 118:22).

But let’s look closer for a moment at Isaiah 28, as we connect some dots Paul leaves for us.

In verses 1 through 3, Isaiah refers to the priests/prophets/leaders of Israel as “drunkards”, their drunken speech is incomprehensible.

In verses 7-10, they mock Isaiah’s prophecy as that of an infant’s words.

In verse 11, God will permit incomprehensible speech heard by them (whether the speech comes from the drunk leaders or a foreign nation’s language) because they do not listen.

In Isaiah, this is referencing Israel’s being captured by a foreign enemy, the Assyrians.

Now, we can’t miss this.

God calls Israel “my people” in verse 5, but “this people” in verse 11.

Meaning that God is disowning them (albeit temporarily), by bringing judgment upon them for refusing to listen to God’s words.

What is so magnificent about that, in how that it relates to the Corinthian church?

Well, what Paul is doing is taking the theme of judgment and “reconfiguring it” in a sense, to speak on the incomprehensible “tongues” which, without interpretation, as become gibberish no one can understand.

To Paul, “this people” would not be the unbelieving population of Israel, but all unbelievers.

Israel should have been able to take the foreign languages from the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 and connected that the way Peter did - but by them again rejecting Christ, they will fall under judgment once again.