here is a link to an audio of the sermon https://anchor.fm/hope-whangarei/episodes/2-5-21-Howard-Carter---The-gift-of-the-spirit-in-public-worship-e102hm9/a-a5eapul
here is the written script (which differes from the spoken version...)
The first time I heard the gift of tongues used was in an
evening service at the Church I grew up in at Titirangi, way back in the 1970’s.
It happened in a very Presbyterian way. In a quite time after the worship songs
set aside for the use of the gifts, an elder in our church said he believed God
had a message for us in tongues. He then spoke that message out. A woman elder
on the other side of the church then gave a message in English. The minister
who was running the service asked if the first elder felt that was the
interpretation. Which the elder, said yes he did. Then the wife of another of
our elders spoke up and said she had been a teacher in Tonga for over three
years and while the language was not Tongan, it was a pacific language and she
recognised many of the words as sinmilar, which she said appeared in the right
positions for her to agree that it was an interpretation. It was a message of
encouragement for the church. It was intelligible, in order, weighed by the
Congregation and it built up the church. It fits into Paul’s teaching in the
passage that we had read us today from 1 Corinthians. A passage about the use
of gifts of the spirit in public worship. A difficult passage and one which has
been used and in some cases misused to justify different practices in different
churches.
Between Easter and Pentecost we are looking at the Gifts of
the Holy Spirit, we are doing that by working our way through the passages in
the epistles which have lists of gifts; Romans 12, Ephesians 4, 1 Peter 4 and 1
Corinthians 12, 13 &14. Hopefully as we do that, we will be encouraged as a
church to use the gifts that God has given us and be more open to the Spirit’s
presence and activity in our midst. We are God’s Spirited people he has
equipped us and empowered us to embody Christ together in the world.
The passage that we had read today focuses on two gifts,
tongues and prophesy, and very practical ways in which they are to be used and
why. It is the conclusion of Pauls teaching on gifts to the Church in Corinth. A church where there seemed to be an overemphasis
on the gift of tongues, as a sign of having arrived spiritually. Where this
gift seems to have been used in a chaotic way, with no consideration for other
people. Before he deals with this practical day to day stuff in the preceding
chapters Paul had gone back to look at some first principles. That there were
many gifts and they were given by the same spirit, Enosa spoke on that a couple
of weeks ago. That there were many gifts but one body, we belonged together and
the gifts were given to use in unity and equality for the common good. Which I spoke
on last week. Then he focused on the most important thing: the way of love. In
my daily devotions this week 1 Corinthians 13 came up and Adrian Plass
commented that we need to focus on love and realize that the gifts were like
helpful pots and pans in the Christian kitchen. Utensils that enabled us to
love one another.
Paul’s teaching here starts by reinforcing for his listeners
that they should follow the way of love. The sign of Christian maturity was not
spiritual gifts, not speaking in tongues, but love for one another. He
reiterates the fact that people should seek the gift of prophecy. Speaking
God’s word in a timely manner. Then he reinforces that by comparing tongues and
prophecy and their uses, particularly in public worship. Tongues unless it is with interpretation
seems to be for personal private use, prophecy is a gift to use in public
worship.
In verses 1-5 he articulates the fact that speaking in
tongues simply edifies the one who is speaking while prophecy edifies the body:
It strengthens, encourages and brings comfort. Paul actually wishes everyone
spoke in tongues because it is of personal benefit, but he would rather
everyone focused on Prophecy and spoke God’s word because it builds up others.
Tongues becomes prophecy and can edify the body when it is interpreted.
Then in v6-12 Paul backs this up by saying that it is
important that the words being brought in public worship are intelligible. They
can be understand. As the clear use of the gifts is to bring revelation, or
knowledge or prophecy or instruction. What good is it if no one knows what is
said. Last week as part of our service we commemorated ANZAC day and Phil
Cullen played last post and reveille for us. It sturred our hearts because we
know the meaning of those calls. Paul uses that sort of illustration here to
bring this idea of intelligibility home to the church. What good is a bugler
that does not know the signals and the calls? It’s just noise, You could
imagine an army in disarray trying to answer the bugle call. What good is a harp player Paul says that does
not know the tune? Maybe here is an echo of his words in 1 Corinthians 13 about
gifts being used without love, they are a clanging gong. Even Prophesy needs to
be intelligible. In pagan worship and temples, oracles would bring words from
the diety they served, but usually they were vague and mysterious and obscure,
A sign that they did not come from the living God. The church in Corinth needed
to know the difference.
In v.13-18, Paul continues to talk about tongues as being a
person’s spirit praying or singing. In Romans 8:26-27 Paul had said in our
weakness the Spirit intercedes for us in groans to deep for words. Tongues as a
prayer language fits that it enables us to cry out to God from the depth of our
being. Likewise Paul speaks of singing in tongues, that he is praising God from
his very spirit. Often this passage is used to justify time of singing in
tongues in a service. However again Paul goes on to say that in public he wants
to pray with his mind as well as his spirit. When he gives thanks to God he
wants people to be able to say Amen. To agree and see the wonder and greatness
and goodness of God. Everyone else kind of finds themselves in this situation of
feeling like an idiot they don’t understand. By the way the word Idiot is used
in the Greek here, and it means the uninitiated, those not in the know. Paul
finishes this section by saying he speaks in tongues more than any of them, he
is affirming it as a gift, and this would have actually shocked the church at
Corinth who saw Paul as rather unspiritual. But in Public worship he would
rather speak 5 words that were understood than ten thousand that were not.
There is a stage in the development of infants and children
as they are starting to learn to speak that they learn to make sounds, and Paul
starts his next section by saying the Corinthians are like that they think
they’ve got it when all they are doing is go go-ing. He follows that up by
quoting the book of Isaiah where it says that even if the people were to be
spoken to in a foreign language that there would not turn and repent.
Then in verse 22-25 he speaks about the impact of the gifts
of the Spirit on non-believers. He says that tongues is a sign for unbelievers.
That has been interpreted in many ways as a positive thing. In Acts 2 it is a
sign that the gospel and the promise of the Holy Spirit is for all people. But
again notice there that the people heard everyone speaking in their own
language. Here Paul says for the unbeliever or the inquirer about the Christian
faith, they come in and everyone is speaking in tongues it is a sign that they
are all mad. However if they come in and the word of God is being proclaimed
and spoken then they will be convicted of their sin and come to repentance.
They will turn to worship God. I remember Jim Wallace, my senior pastor at St
john’s in Rotorua told the story of man who came to the Lord. Jim had met him
at a party and the man had said ‘I don’t need God, I have everything I could
want. I’m alright’. Jim felt the spirit say ask him why he sleeps with a gun
under his pillow. Which Jim did and the man turned white and asked how did he
know that. Well soon after the man came to Christ. Good use of the word of
knowledge.
Then at verse 26 Paul turns to start telling people about
how to act in worship. That it needed to be in an organised manner. People
prepared things and bought it to worship. if tongues were to used there needed
to be someone who could interpret there. Then only two or at the most three. Even with prophesy there should only be two or
three at the most speak. Then they should only speak once and not interrupt
each other. In pagan worship people would speak weird words etc as they were caught up
in mainic behaviour, where they had worked themselves up to a certain fever
pitch. Not so with you says Paul, the Holy Spirit does not possess or override
people. Rather the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet. The Holy
Spirit is gentle. So people need to do things in Order. Public worship should
reflect the character of God which is peace not disorder.
Then he finishes it off by giving some instruction about
women in worship. In June we will start a series on women in the Bible and my
contribution will be looking at challenging passages like this one in v.34-35,
which are often called the silencing verses. Because I believe they have been
wrongly used in the past to stop women from taking their place in leadership in
the church.
He lets people know that the instructions he
is given are the same for all the other Churches. And reiterates his main
point. Seek the more useful gift of prophecy and do not forbid speaking in
tongues. But remember to do all these things in Order.
So what does that means for us today?
Firstly, this whole series is to encourage us to use the
gifts God has given us and this passage gives us some very good insights and
guidelines about their use in public worship. In fact this really is some of
the only teaching on public worship that we have in the New Testament. As I
said before it has been used down through the ages in many different ways.
Traditionally brethren and Quakers would worship by being silent until someone
was ‘moved by the spirit to sing or to speak. It was organised behind the
scenes. Pentecostal and charismatics have seen it as encouraging things like
speaking and singing in tongues, but in a way that is in order. That it opens
the door for people to bring words, that prophecy is a more spontaneous
occurrence. Traditionally reformed people and other denominations,
Presbyterians are reformed, have seen that prophecy and people brining their
gifts to worship means that they prepare them before hand and bring them to
build up the whole Church. Those bringing prophecy are seen as the people set
aside for the study and preaching of the word. Preaching is hopefully prophetic, making the
timeless word of God timely. God is more likely to speak to us in the hours put
into studying the word and weighing words for a sermon. It strengthens,
encourages, reveals, instructs, points to what God is doing. They are all ways
that this passage has been applied.
SECONDLY, There is this tension between those who want the
more spontaneous and those who want the more thought out. One of the things
that the rediscovery of the gifts of the Spirit has meant is that more people
are actively involved in public worship. Which is great… It’s what we are
trying to encourage here.. I think there has been a pendulum swing also between
the spontaneous understanding and the more planned and organised understanding
of this passage. We need to embrace both… To let God speak through the well
thought out and the sense of speaking to us now.
Likewise we have a tension between people who want to focus on the more spirit idea of worship, emotion and feeling the presence of God and those who want a more cerebral thinking worship. There has been a pendulum swing between those two things. The age of enlightenment, where to worship was a matter of thinking, the Romantic Movement where anthems stirred the very soul, that is where our hymns come from, there was a rediscovery of wanting to be up-lifted in song. The charismatic movement, with an emphasis on songs that connected with the heart… on personal expression of praise and worship, more than corporate. Even being chant like, you know all that repetition so people could forget about the words and just concentrate on God. At the same time the other large movement in the church was a new liturgical movement where we rediscover the power of words and well thought out prayers and reflections and neo-hymns. Personally I like both extremes and find myself wanting to embrace the best of all parts of the spectrum if it will build up the church.
In the end Paul’s words are as real and as important and relevant
to us all today. The key is the way of
love. Christian maturity is that we are able to love one another. Love one
another across the same kind of issues the Corinthians had. Because we too can
fall in to the trap of seeing this way of worship, that we understanding of the
way gifts are to be used in public worship as the more spiritual way. That God only moves and speaks in the way we
prefer. Like the Corinthians need to
seek to allow Gods word to be at the centre of all we do, so it may be told
forth and strengthen and instruct and convict and reveal and even forthtell,
point us to the future. We all need to seek the gifts that will be of more use
to building up the Church, not denigrating or writing any of them off. In
public worship that they are used in a way that promotes
peace and in an orderly way. So we can lovingly work together to build up the
church to the glory of God.
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