1 Corinthians 14:39-40, The Summary

 Three things, then, to sum this up: When you speak forth God’s truth, speak your heart out. Don’t tell people how they should or shouldn’t pray when they’re praying in tongues that you don’t understand. Be courteous and considerate in everything.

So, here we have it:

1.      God’s Word is intended to passionately transform our hearts
2.      God’s word is not a club to beat others into submission
3.      God’s Word is courteous and considerate…easy to receive

What does God’s Word look like in you?

Live boldly out there today…

1 Corinthians 14:20-38, Instruction for the Church

To be perfectly frank, I’m getting exasperated with your infantile thinking. How long before you grow up and use your head—your adult head? It’s all right to have a childlike unfamiliarity with evil; a simple no is all that’s needed there. But there’s far more to saying yes to something. Only mature and well-exercised intelligence can save you from falling into gullibility. It’s written in Scripture that God said,

In strange tongues and from the mouths of strangers I will preach to this people, but they’ll neither listen nor believe.

So where does it get you, all this speaking in tongues no one understands? It doesn’t help believers, and it only gives unbelievers something to gawk at. Plain truth-speaking, on the other hand, goes straight to the heart of believers and doesn’t get in the way of unbelievers. If you come together as a congregation and some unbelieving outsiders walk in on you as you’re all praying in tongues, unintelligible to each other and to them, won’t they assume you’ve taken leave of your senses and get out of there as fast as they can? But if some unbelieving outsiders walk in on a service where people are speaking out God’s truth, the plain words will bring them up against the truth and probe their hearts. Before you know it, they’re going to be on their faces before God, recognizing that God is among you.

So here’s what I want you to do. When you gather for worship, each one of you be prepared with something that will be useful for all: Sing a hymn, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight. If prayers are offered in tongues, two or three’s the limit, and then only if someone is present who can interpret what you’re saying. Otherwise, keep it between God and yourself. And no more than two or three speakers at a meeting, with the rest of you listening and taking it to heart. Take your turn, no one person taking over. Then each speaker gets a chance to say something special from God, and you all learn from each other. If you choose to speak, you’re also responsible for how and when you speak. When we worship the right way, God doesn’t stir us up into confusion; he brings us into harmony. This goes for all the churches—no exceptions.

Wives must not disrupt worship, talking when they should be listening, asking questions that could more appropriately be asked of their husbands at home. God’s Book of the law guides our manners and customs here. Wives have no license to use the time of worship for unwarranted speaking. Do you—both women and men—imagine that you’re a sacred oracle determining what’s right and wrong? Do you think everything revolves around you?

If any one of you thinks God has something for you to say or has inspired you to do something, pay close attention to what I have written. This is the way the Master wants it. If you won’t play by these rules, God can’t use you. Sorry.  – The Message -

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“If you are not in the process of becoming the person you want to be, you are automatically engaged in becoming the person you don't want to be.” ― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People,

Paul said the same thing… to be perfectly frank; I’m getting exasperated with your infantile thinking. How long before you grow up and use your head—your adult head? Only mature and well-exercised intelligence can save you from falling into gullibility.

We can count on humans to take a perfectly good gift from God and mess it up. Like, LEFSE…a Divine gift if there ever was one. When we were kids we loved lefse. My brother Marc loved it more than most. He thought “if one piece is good…2 pieces is better”. Then, in Breckenridge 1963… 54 pieces. Lefse was far less appealing to him when he was through.  Plus…I didn’t get any.

Or tongues…So where does it get you, all this speaking in tongues no one understands? It doesn’t help believers, and it only gives unbelievers something to gawk at. Plain truth-speaking, on the other hand, goes straight to the heart of believers and doesn’t get in the way of unbelievers. If you come together as a congregation and some unbelieving outsiders walk in on you as you’re all praying in tongues, unintelligible to each other and to them, won’t they assume you’ve taken leave of your senses and get out of there as fast as they can?

This is abuse. God’s gifts are not indiscriminate. They are focused, precise and intentional. If we don’t grow up and use them properlyly they become destructive.

 So Paul says here’s what I want you to do. When you gather for worship, each one of you be prepared with something that will be useful for all…do you think everything revolves around you? Corinthian believers were self-centered. It revealed itself in everybody believing they had something to say. Men interrupted the speaker. Women…who were positioned behind a partition…found themselves privileged to chat with each other during the service. I’m inclined to say “who could blame them?” They were probably bored but…it was disruptive.

I’ve met a few Corinthians in my ministry…and they weren’t all women.

Today this hubris exhibits itself with Starbucks lattes in worship…with cargo shorts and t-shirts. I know we want to think these things aren’t meaningful but they belie everything we claim to believe about God. My friends don’t show up to my house that way. They usually call ahead and ask if they can bring something. They dress “smart casual”. It’s respectful.

When John Lennon said “the Beatles are bigger than God” he was on to something. All he had to do was observe how people treated the Beatles…in contrast to how they treated God.

You may think I’ve lost my train of thought here. I don’t think so. This isn’t just about tongues and prophesy. It’s about how we serve God. Paul says God’s Book of the law guides our manners and customs here…not Eddie Bauer. We’ve become so disoriented as a church that we no longer think in terms of manners and customs. We think in terms of personal preferences. I, for one, want to be courteous and considerate in everything. If standing on manners and customs helps…I’m all for it.

Who are you becoming?

Live boldly out there today…

1 Corinthians 14:1-19, Where's the Love?,

Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does. Give yourselves to the gifts God gives you. Most of all, try to proclaim his truth. If you praise him in the private language of tongues, God understands you but no one else does, for you are sharing intimacies just between you and him. But when you proclaim his truth in everyday speech, you’re letting others in on the truth so that they can grow and be strong and experience his presence with you.

The one who prays using a private “prayer language” certainly gets a lot out of it, but proclaiming God’s truth to the church in its common language brings the whole church into growth and strength. I want all of you to develop intimacies with God in prayer, but please don’t stop with that. Go on and proclaim his clear truth to others. It’s more important that everyone have access to the knowledge and love of God in language everyone understands than that you go off and cultivate God’s presence in a mysterious prayer language—unless, of course, there is someone who can interpret what you are saying for the benefit of all.

Think, friends: If I come to you and all I do is pray privately to God in a way only he can understand, what are you going to get out of that? If I don’t address you plainly with some insight or truth or proclamation or teaching, what help am I to you? If musical instruments—flutes, say, or harps—aren’t played so that each note is distinct and in tune, how will anyone be able to catch the melody and enjoy the music? If the trumpet call can’t be distinguished, will anyone show up for the battle?

So if you speak in a way no one can understand, what’s the point of opening your mouth? There are many languages in the world and they all mean something to someone. But if I don’t understand the language, it’s not going to do me much good. It’s no different with you. Since you’re so eager to participate in what God is doing, why don’t you concentrate on doing what helps everyone in the church?

So, when you pray in your private prayer language, don’t hoard the experience for yourself. Pray for the insight and ability to bring others into that intimacy. If I pray in tongues, my spirit prays but my mind lies fallow, and all that intelligence is wasted. So what’s the solution? The answer is simple enough. Do both. I should be spiritually free and expressive as I pray, but I should also be thoughtful and mindful as I pray. I should sing with my spirit, and sing with my mind. If you give a blessing using your private prayer language, which no one else understands, how can some outsider who has just shown up and has no idea what’s going on know when to say “Amen”? Your blessing might be beautiful, but you have very effectively cut that person out of it.

I’m grateful to God for the gift of praying in tongues that he gives us for praising him, which leads to wonderful intimacies we enjoy with him. I enter into this as much or more than any of you. But when I’m in a church assembled for worship, I’d rather say five words that everyone can understand and learn from than say ten thousand that sound to others like gibberish. – The Message –

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προφητεύω…to prophesy. To declare a thing “which can only be known by divine revelation”.

Agape surrenders to the Divine gifts. It’s that simple. Love doesn’t debate whether prophesy or tongues have gone the way of the dinosaur. Agape surrenders to whatever God intends.

Agape might look a lot like prophesy…that could be a very good thing. It might be refreshing to hear a pronouncement from somebody “which can only be known by divine revelation”. If it was that obvious I’d probably be more compelled to agree with it.

Which, of course, is why the church has done away with prophesy. We want nice flowery challenges but not anything that could cut to the very fiber of our beings and change us forever.

And we ushered tongues out of the church for the same reason. We don’t want anything powerfully transformative. Letting God that close is just too…weird! We want things “decent and in order”. Messy God stuff doesn’t meet this standard…even though Paul says The one who prays using a private “prayer language” certainly gets a lot out of it… I want all of you to develop intimacies with God in prayer.

God forbid we have a prayer life that brings intimacy with God…
But, it’s only so we can prophesy… proclaim God’s truth to the church in its common language…It’s more important that everyone have access to the knowledge and love of God in language everyone understands.  

These are two sides of a valuable coin God has gifted to His church. They provide immeasurable benefit…and we attempt to eliminate both.

I know you understand I’m not advocating we must all exercise these two gifts. I am curious, however, that the two most potentially powerful gifts are basically absent from our congregations. And, we wonder why nothing changes.

I’ll step out on a limb and suggest the degree to which we turn away God’s gifts will reflect the degree to which we fail to become like Christ.

And all the while we’ll ask…”where’s the love?”

Live boldly out there today…

1 Corinthians 13:1-13, A Better Way

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

 If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. – The Message –

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But now I want to lay out a far better way for you. (1 Cor 12:31)

This is what Paul has taught so far:

1.      Encourage one another
2.      God sustains us
3.      Cultivate a “Life in Common”
4.      Faith is “being” more than “doing”
5.      “Excellence” is the best evangelist
6.      Don’t complicate the Gospel
7.      “Sola Scriptura”
8.      Live in God’s community
9.      Make your life a “comfortable place for God to dwell”
10.  Submit to spiritual authority
11.  Don’t ignore sin
12.  Don’t let the world arbitrate between believers
13.  “Legal” is not the same as “moral”
14.  Pay attention to your spouse’s needs
15.  Don’t make commitments to unbelievers
16.  Be thankful
17.  Don’t create God in your own image
18.  Grace is not a permit for sloppy living
19.  Serve God without thought of reward
20.  Stay away from temptation
21.  Stay close to God
22.  Become an “expert” on living a Godly life
23.  Honor others
24.  Honor God
25.  Use the gifts God has given
26.  Live thankfully within the Body of Christ

It’s a long list…a lot to remember. And now, he says I want to lay out a far better way for you. Maybe he could have started here.

But, chapter 13 is not “instead” of chapters 1-12.  Chapter 13 is “key” to everything that comes before. Look at the list again. It’s important. Yet, we’d become neurotic if we woke up every morning, reviewed the list and went out intending to complete it.

Love…Agape.

Agape is “intentional” love…love with a purpose. It has been perfectly demonstrated in Christ. What is His intention? Christ’s sole intention toward us is to redeem us…buy us back from the consequences of sin.

Paul says this is the best way to satisfy everything in the first 12 chapters: live an agape life. His implication is clear. If I live my daily life with the intention of influencing people toward Christ, it will closely resemble the qualities on the list.

Paul was promoting Gestalt therapy before we even knew it existed…emphasizing personal responsibility that focuses upon the individual's experience in the present moment. If we “do this moment” properly, the ensuing moments will benefit.

Right now I am going to agape…

Oh, and Paul tells us what it looks like.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Don’t “do” this, “be” this. Very difficult, but possible. Just look at Christ. He is the incarnation of agape. We shouldn’t say “God, help me put up with my spouse”. We should say “God, help me be like Christ”.

It’s just going to look like we’re putting up with our spouse…

Live boldly out there today…

1 Corinthians 12:12-31, Where do I belong?

You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.
I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.
But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?
The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.
You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your “part” mean anything. You’re familiar with some of the parts that God has formed in his church, which is his “body”:
apostles
prophets
teachers
miracle workers
healers
helpers
organizers
those who pray in tongues.

But it’s obvious by now, isn’t it, that Christ’s church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, unidimensional Part? It’s not all Apostle, not all Prophet, not all Miracle Worker, not all Healer, not all Prayer in Tongues, not all Interpreter of Tongues. And yet some of you keep competing for so-called “important” parts.

But now I want to lay out a far better way for you. – The Message -
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“You’re not the boss of me!”

We should all agree this is one of the hardest parts of the redeemed life…living in the Body of Christ. We all aspire to free agency. We don’t want to serve anybody but ourselves.

It’s why so many of us go “church hopping”. We can’t find a church that does things our way.

God desires us to live in an interdependent community and…we don’t have a choice. It’s a “done deal”. We’ve already been given the Holy Spirit and He’s in charge. Paul says by means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. Curiously, God established an organizational construct that challenges our core sinful nature…selfishness.

Ironically, Paul says this submission to authority makes us more significant…not less. And, only a sinful nature would fail to understand the premise. The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.

But, true to form, a little significance goes a long way. So…we are happy to say we were on our High School State Champion baseball team but…not so quick to say we rode the bench all season. We wear the letter jacket (with the championship logo) until we’re 50 years old and just look pathetic. We encourage people to think more of us than historical fact warrants.

And we don’t even feel guilty. Aren’t “sins of omission” curious?

So Paul reminds us our lives should be filled with pleasure and significance because we are part of the Body. It’s always about the Body. In 1979 I was invited to become an active duty Air Force Chaplain. I remember looking at my image in the mirror…resplendent in my uniform…feeling so lucky to be part of a team I’d wanted to join for a decade. I couldn’t actually concentrate on myself because I was so consumed by the blessing.

The awesome responsibility to hold up my end struck me. I was now what God created me to be, but only so I could serve something more important.  Paul says I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of.

But, of course, when we get it right…it’s really sweet!

1 Corinthians 12:1-11, Do your part

What I want to talk about now is the various ways God’s Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often misunderstood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable. Remember how you were when you didn’t know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It’s different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can. For instance, by using your heads, you know perfectly well that the Spirit of God would never prompt anyone to say “Jesus be damned!” Nor would anyone be inclined to say “Jesus is Master!” without the insight of the Holy Spirit.
God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful:

wise counsel, clear understanding, simple trust, healing the sick, miraculous acts, proclamation, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues.

All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when. - The Message -

If it’s called “common sense” why is it so uncommon? Yet, Paul says “by using your heads, you know perfectly well…” I guess the Corinthians weren’t using their heads. If we look like the Corinthians we now know what the problem is.

But…don’t misunderstand this. We aren’t really all that smart. So, Paul explains it’s a communal project. The mind of God is so unapproachably sublime that it takes all of us…working together…to appropriate it for our benefit. We’re told God decided to endow each of us, individually, with a piece of whatever is required to comprehend the almighty. Paul says   Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful:

Then, he lists the kinds of things God has handed out. Do any look familiar? Some should. I promise you, you have some of them. But, herein is the dilemma: If I have been given a gift of proclamation I am dependent on several other gifts to make sure my proclamations are true and faithful. It’s why good preachers spend hours in commentaries and scripture. We need help. The question is obvious: What are you contributing? It’s all there because it’s all necessary. If you don’t contribute your part it might not get done.

Now, that’s just common sense…

Live boldly out there today…

1 Corinthians 11:17-34

Regarding this next item, I’m not at all pleased. I am getting the picture that when you meet together it brings out your worst side instead of your best! First, I get this report on your divisiveness, competing with and criticizing each other. I’m reluctant to believe it, but there it is. The best that can be said for it is that the testing process will bring truth into the open and confirm it.

^20-22 And then I find that you bring your divisions to worship—you come together, and instead of eating the Lord’s Supper, you bring in a lot of food from the outside and make pigs of yourselves. Some are left out, and go home hungry. Others have to be carried out, too drunk to walk. I can’t believe it! Don’t you have your own homes to eat and drink in? Why would you stoop to desecrating God’s church? Why would you actually shame God’s poor? I never would have believed you would stoop to this. And I’m not going to stand by and say nothing.

^23-26 Let me go over with you again exactly what goes on in the Lord’s Supper and why it is so centrally important. I received my instructions from the Master himself and passed them on to you. The Master, Jesus, on the night of his betrayal, took bread. Having given thanks, he broke it and said,

This is my body, broken for you.
Do this to remember me.

After supper, he did the same thing with the cup:

This cup is my blood, my new covenant with you.
Each time you drink this cup, remember me.

What you must solemnly realize is that every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you reenact in your words and actions the death of the Master. You will be drawn back to this meal again and again until the Master returns. You must never let familiarity breed contempt.

Anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Master irreverently is like part of the crowd that jeered and spit on him at his death. Is that the kind of “remembrance” you want to be part of? Examine your motives, test your heart, come to this meal in holy awe.

If you give no thought (or worse, don’t care) about the broken body of the Master when you eat and drink, you’re running the risk of serious consequences. That’s why so many of you even now are listless and sick, and others have gone to an early grave. If we get this straight now, we won’t have to be straightened out later on. Better to be confronted by the Master now than to face a fiery confrontation later.

So, my friends, when you come together to the Lord’s Table, be reverent and courteous with one another. If you’re so hungry that you can’t wait to be served, go home and get a sandwich. But by no means risk turning this Meal into an eating and drinking binge or a family squabble. It is a spiritual meal—a love feast.

The other things you asked about, I’ll respond to in person when I make my next visit. -The Message–

If I properly follow Paul’s thought pattern he says we are given this blessed freedom so we can help others life a more Godly life. (10:23-32). We do this primarily by giving honor to those in authority over us (11:1-16).  

Paul now takes issues with the church saying criticism and division within the Body of Christ are not in character for believers. In fact, such behavior is so odious Paul was inclined not to believe it.

Oh, now I have to honor my peers? Yes. You see…if I had any regard for my friend in the next pew I’d never conduct myself in a manner that would give him pause…

The problem is simple. When we dishonor our brethren it spills into our church practices and rituals. Paul sites an example of the Lord’s Supper. The believers had such little regard for one another that they turned a sacred sacrament into an excuse to party. It began to look more like an Irish wake rather than a sacrament. Not what God intended.

Paul reminds us of the sacred nature of the Eucharist. What you must solemnly realize is that every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you reenact in your words and actions the death of the Master… Anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Master irreverently is like part of the crowd that jeered and spit on him at his death.

I recently observed the Lord’s Supper in a local church. It wasn’t a party but it was just as bad. The minister did nothing to remind us of the sacred nature of the body and blood. He didn’t bless the elements. He didn’t even explain the meaning of the ritual He simply said “come on up”. I was so offended I didn’t partake. He dishonored the Eucharist. He dishonored me and he dishonored God.

Is nothing sacred anymore?

Of course, if we can’t honor our peers how can we honor God?

Live boldly out there today…