1 Corinthians 14:1-40

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers?
If Peter Piper Picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

She sells seashells by the seashore.
The shells she sells are surely seashells.
So if she sells shells on the seashore,
I'm sure she sells seashore shells.
Red lorry, yellow lorry.

Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches?

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
If a woodchuck could chuck wood?
He would chuck, he would, as much as he could,
And chuck as much as a woodchuck would
If a woodchuck could chuck wood.

tongue twisters drive us crazy
Getting our mouths around the words together

Our tongues are often where we find ourselves in the most strife
In how we come at each other as well

Whatever we might think in our minds
once we've said it out loud we can't erase the words we've said

The Corinthian Christians had a problem with their tongues, it was twisting them up

It wasn't everybody in the church
It was getting at what was going on when they met together
As a household of believers - a church

Here Paul wants them to let God lift up their heads
Point their feet in the right way
Not get so caught up with pursuing the spectacular
Not so fixated on just their personal needs met

Show LOVE Paul tells them

As we caught that last week

1 Corinthians 13:1
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

Back also in 1 Corinthians 12 when Paul began this whole discussion on what happens when we come to church to express our community life

1 Corinthians 12:27-31

27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28 And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31 Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.

My question is : Where does your hope come from?
In this letter of the Bible in 1 Corinthians
We come to look at Life Square on at Jesus

The work of the Holy Spirit not only helps us see Jesus a little clearer God comes to us through his Holy Spirit He transforms what we want so that we want different things

Paul's point about whether God's at work in our lives is if
can we truthfully say Jesus is Lord

as members of Christ's body - everyone gets a gift
we are given by His Holy Spirit a diversity of gifts
to build one another up
we don't get 1 Corinthians 14 without knowing that it's part of the same letter of chapters 12 & 13

again in Corinth with many who'd come from their pagan pasts
where idol worship and ecstatic speech
was part of their pagan temple worship
noisy performance was what they once been used to be

pagan idol worship is all about the form
they did all that because they believed somehow
it kept their gods happy
maybe even found luck come their way in life

That's not worship Paul tells them
We stand before the living God
Who sees us clearly - who comes at us with mercy

worship before the living God when we come together as a church is the expression of that love for him

We worship God in song in reading and hearing from his word in bringing our prayers and petitions to God in encouraging and listening to one another because that is what we come to God with worship

the question was how were the Corinthians going at following Christ
where was their worship up to

again when it comes down to it
how God gifts his church isn't so much about
what are my gifts

It's How do we build one another up?
How do we come toward each other with Christ exalting love and mercy?
How do we seek to be like Jesus in the way that we speak and the way that we act?

in Corinth there was a group there
who considered themselves the wisest - the spiritual have's
the 'tongue speakers' who portrayed themselves
as men and women of the spirit
Paul gets to the heart of it
For all this apparent claim to being spiritually alive
he writes in verse 19-20

19 But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue. 20 Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.

exercise the gifts that build up the church
do it all in love is what Paul drives at

so Paul makes a couple of practical examples
with praying
or when the household of believers the church gathers

the test is how much is understood verse 15

15 So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.

prayer or praise first test is can I understand it

the second is
will this lead someone know about Jesus
this test is about understanding and conviction verse 23

23 So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who do not understand or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?

but if someone is prophesying

24 But if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all, 25 and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, "God is really among you!"

what Pauls getting at is the need to test out what's being said
don't just take my word for it for what I say each Sunday
check out what I say against the Bible

what we are most in love with claims the attention of our time
it's what we give the highest priority to

in Corinth they had a love for the spectacular
direct your gaze the right way Paul says on Jesus

hadn't we just seen all that in that wonderful hymn of love
gifts which are not love driven Christ exalting in ministry
to and for others are useless

Pursue love that builds others up

Verses 12

12 So it is with you. Since you are eager to have Spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church.

there's also part of today's passage that sounds harsh to us
so as with all scripture it's important
look at what the Bible has to say before we apply it to our lives

verses 34 - 35

33b As in all the congregations of the saints, 34 women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. 35 If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

Again Paul writes something which to us as modern readers jars us
It looks like he's saying that your gender
limits what you can do at church

turn back to chapter 11:5 we read of Paul talking about women praying & prophesy publicly in church

there we read how men and women we're made by God
to complement each other
as Paul seeks to affirm the marriages in the church
and the different roles each partner plays

now as we look at chapter 14
is Paul contradicting himself by saying that women
should remain silent in church?
NO certainly not

we have to do some spade work to see why

Paul was clear women like men have each been given spiritual gifts
to be used publicly in church when we meet together
we have been given the same Holy Spirit
with various spiritual gifts

here in Corinth Paul is speaking to a group of married women
in the Corinthian Church
were part of the overall problem of chaos
he continues on what we saw back in Chapter 11

for Paul as we read at the end of verse 26
one thing was to be foremost when the church meets

"All … must be done for the strengthening of the church"
or as we read at the end of this chapter in verse 40
40 But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.

let me try and paint the scene of that church a little clearer
the situation in Corinth when the church gathered
for its weekly time of worship together

was that a prophet would have spoken -

during that time the church should have been silent to listen
where there should have been that silence
before the next prophet got up to speak

instead some of these women seated together
in that time women and men normally sat in different parts
of church meetings

these women were breaking the silence
by calling out cross-questioning their husbands
as wives of these prophets
they were addressing their questions to their husbands

it was disruptive the questions were being asked
were intentionally trying to bring shame to their husbands
assert an independence in public
an attitude of defiance that was arrogant
it was selfish

STOP IT COLD Paul says - it's loveless

Paul was dealing with the pastoral problem
of an arrogant faction within the church
who needed to be helping the church family
not themselves

we keep coming back to humility and the way we see and serve one another

verse 40 But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.

When we look into the mirror of ourselves how do we go at coming to worship, to encouraging one another to point others to Christ to pray for others

Who we are shows itself in how we come at each other as a church family

Lets Pray
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