Is God Among You?

Dr. James Boice: In the 14th chapter of First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul tells us that any gathering for worship should benefit and edify the entire body of Christ. And therefore, any practice that is not beneficial for all, no matter how good it may seem, should be avoided.
Guest (Male): Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, a radio and Internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically.
Dr. James Boice: Speaking in tongues was practiced in heathen religions as well as the church. And therefore, it follows that it was not and is not always evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Yet many hold this gift in high regard and elevate it above the more edifying endowments. Stay with us as Dr. Boice shares Paul's directions to the Corinthians on the appropriate use of tongues and their value in relation to the other gifts of the Holy Spirit. Every part of the Bible is relevant and is helpful for us in virtually any time of history or any period of our lives. But it is true that some parts speak to contemporary problems more than others, and I suppose in some ways this 14th chapter of First Corinthians that we come to now is one of those. Someone was asking me a question to which this chapter speaks directly. This person, a new member of the church, has a friend who was in a charismatic fellowship, and who in prayer meetings or meetings of the church always insists in speaking in tongues, and this is so even when there's no one to interpret and when in the opinion of the person who was asking me the question, it's actually very, very disruptive. And he was asking me what should be done. I said, well, what should be done is in First Corinthians 14. First Corinthians 14 says very clearly that unless there's somebody there to interpret so that what is said under this supposed inspiration of the Holy Spirit is interpreted and therefore beneficial to the church, unless there's somebody to do that, the person who claims this gift should keep silence. He said, well, we said that to the person, but they won't do it. They just insist on doing their thing. I said, well, that of course is exactly the situation Paul faced with these Christians at Corinth and it's for that reason that this chapter was written. I really don't know anything to add except that these are the guidelines that Scripture gives. This thing of doing what you want to do, or feel that is your thing to do in disregard of other people, whether in the church or elsewhere, is a very modern phenomenon. It's probably been true of all ages because it's one of the essential manifestations of sin, but it's particularly true in our time. Everybody wants to do their own thing. And there is a sense in which this takes place in the church. It certainly takes place in a variety of ways. And does, at least in this instance, and I think in some other instances it will take place in this matter of tongues speaking. What Paul is saying here is that what happens in the churches, in the assemblies, of Christian people should be beneficial. Therefore, if something is not beneficial, no matter how good it may or may not be in itself, it should be avoided for the sake of the other people. Now, he's giving a number of guidelines here in these chapters. Chapters 12, 13 and 14 of First Corinthians, which we're studying, deal with this matter of tongues speaking, though the principles applied to other things. And Paul is giving principles by which this phenomena should be handled and by which expressions of it should be evaluated. The first thing Paul says at the beginning of chapter 12 is that this same phenomena, this phenomena called glossolalia or speaking in unknown tongues, was not something that was unique to the Christian churches, but also took place in some of the pagan religions. And therefore, it follows that it in itself is not an evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Quite possible it could be a sign of the presence of another spirit, a demonic spirit, for example, or perhaps just the willful expression of the person who is practicing the alleged gift. So the first principle Paul lays down is that whatever it may be, this matter of speaking in tongues is not in itself proof that the person speaking in tongues is filled with the Holy Spirit or necessarily even knows the Lord as Savior. The second principle he mentions, and it's worth reviewing these briefly, is that there are many gifts. Sometimes when people are aware of a gift they have, they put an undue emphasis upon it and treat it almost as if it were the only gift, or at least the only gift worth having. Paul says that's not the case. He lists a number of the gifts in this passage. There's a gift of wisdom and knowledge, and faith, and healing, and ability to do miracles, and prophecy, and distinguishing between spirits, and tongues, and then finally the interpretation of tongues. And so he says, whatever may be the case, just remember that this gift is not an extraordinary gift in the sense of being more important than others, and certainly not in the sense of being the only gift, but rather is one among many. The next principle he lays down is that all the gifts are given for the benefit of the church. Therefore, when the gift is exercised, it should be exercised to edification. And what we discover as we begin to analyze these chapters, that this is the thing that is primarily in Paul's mind. In chapter 12, it's that which takes up the largest portion of the chapter. The fourth principle Paul lays down is that if you're going to rank the gifts, he doesn't do this in any rigid manner, but he does suggest that if you're going to rank the gifts, then tongues come somewhat low on the list. In the closing paragraph of chapter 12, he does sort of number things. He says God has appointed first the apostles, second the prophets, third the teachers, then, that is number four, workers of miracles and also those of gifts of healing. And then at the very end he mentions tongues. This leads into what he says later, because the point he's going to make is that it is quite proper to desire spiritual gifts and ask God to give us gifts that will be useful in the Christian ministry, but if we desire that, we should desire the best gifts, and that means we should not seek to have this gift of tongues primarily. There are other things we should list higher. Then in the 14th chapter, he speaks of the dangers of this particular gift, the danger of disorder in the church, the danger of a lack of intellectual content, which is a danger in other things as well. And then finally, at the very end of the chapter, he gives this principle where he says, be eager to prophesy but do not forbid teaching in tongues. You see, when you speak about all these difficulties, or dangers, or problems in the practice of a gift, it would be our tendency, wouldn't it, to say, well, a gift like that, which produces obvious disruption in the church and which is attended by so many dangers of misunderstanding, a gift like that not only shouldn't be practiced, but probably is invalid. We would tend to say something like that, just definitely is not of God because it operates in bad ways. And that you see it's significant that Paul doesn't do that. Paul at this point as always in his letters has far more balance and judgment than we do. And it's interesting that he doesn't say, don't do it because this isn't of God. On the contrary, he reaffirms it. He says it is of God, but he says, make sure you exercise it in God's way. If you don't, all you're really doing is indulging yourself. He says, what you're doing is calling attention to yourself. You're saying that you're the one that everybody should focus on. And as a result of that, you fail to benefit the church and you certainly don't glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in the midst of these two chapters that lay down the principles I've just mentioned, we find 1 Corinthians 13. First Corinthians 13 is the great chapter on love, and I must admit that in times past, when I looked at these chapters and was trying to analyze them and found that chapter 13 in the middle of chapter 12 and 14, it seemed in my mind to be somewhat of a digression. All I understood that Paul was saying that everything we do should be characterized by love, and love is great, and therefore love should be operative in this matter as well. But I didn't understand how it fit into the sequence of what he's talking about. I think I do understand that a little better now because what Paul says in chapter 13 is most certainly the prelude to what he says in chapter 14. Chapter 14, Paul is going to contrast prophecy, by which he means speaking in an articulate and understandable way, with tongues, which he's using to refer to speaking in a language that no one understands. He's going to contrast the two. He's going to say, desire to prophesy rather than to speak in tongues. And because he's going to say that, the reason is what he has given in chapter 13. You see what he's saying is that everything you do should be characterized by love, and that means love for others, not love in the abstract, but love for God and love for the Christian community. And if, he says, you are really characterized by that love for other people, then you will not want to do anything in the Christian assembly which is not beneficial to them. It's on the basis of that that he lays down the principles that we find in chapter 14. Now, as I say, when Paul contrasts prophecy, as he does in verse one, with speaking in tongues, which he mentions in verse two. What he's contrasting there is that which is understandable with that which is not. We're somewhat misled at this point because in the English language, prophecy has taken on connotations of foretelling almost exclusively. A prophet is one who looks into the future and who can tell you what's going to happen, next year or the year after that, or 10 years from now or whatever it may be. In the Bible, the prophets were capable of doing that. And quite often in their prophecies, we do have statements concerning things that are going to come in the future. But in biblical terminology, prophecy is a much broader word than that. Prophecy in part can concern that which is going to come in the future because those who spoke as biblical prophets spoke by the inspiration of the Spirit of God, and God sees the end from the beginning, and it follows that part of a revelation of that nature might very well have to do with the future. But the word prophecy itself concerns not so much foretelling, but as is often said in trying to explain this word, forthtelling. That is the closest parallel in contemporary experience to prophecy is preaching. You see, it's somewhat different than teaching. Teaching is to take a passage and explain what it means. I have sat in university under some magnificent teachers. I have sat under men who were able to take works of theology and even biblical texts and teach them in a very clear and accurate way, and yet who were not at all themselves Christians. One of the best teachers at Harvard University was a man who had the ability to do this with the Puritans and with Puritan theology. He used to teach about Jonathan Edwards, and after he would explain the essence of Jonathan Edwards' teaching, would actually read portions of Edwards' sermons so effectively and so clearly that at the end of the class, those who were there listening to him would stand up and applaud the professor. And yet he didn't believe what Edwards was teaching. He was simply teaching it accurately. That is what teaching is. But prophecy is more than that. Prophecy is based upon teaching, but it takes teaching and applies it to the hearers in such a way that it says, listen, if you will listen to the voice of God, if you will hear the Holy Spirit, if you will believe these things, your life is going to be different, and these are the areas in which it's going to be different. So Paul says, look, if you are thinking about doing good as you should, if you're really a Christian, then when you compare the gift of being able to preach or prophesy in this way with the gift of speaking in tongues, you really have no choice and you must desire the gift to be able to communicate and apply the word of God clearly. He talks about it here. He talks about it in three areas. He says that prophecy is better than speaking in tongues for the church. Prophecy is better than speaking in tongues for the individual himself. And thirdly, prophecy is better than speaking in tongues for the sake of unbelievers. Now look, here's what he teaches about it. He says, in the first place, that prophecy in this sense, that is communicating the word of God in a clear and applicable way is better than tongues because it helps the church to grow. And speaking in tongues, unless there's somebody to interpret it, which of course is the principle he lays down, does not do that. Someone who sees somebody exercising this particular gift might be impressed. They might say, my goodness, look what so and so is doing. Isn't that spectacular? I've never seen anything like that, but the person isn't edified by it. This isn't true in the same way of all the miraculous gifts. Paul speaks elsewhere of the gift of healing, and the gift of healing is obviously beneficial, directly beneficial to the one who is healed. But he says that is not true of speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues calls attention to the one who's doing it, but it doesn't edify the church in the church's assemblies. What Paul wants is what he speaks about in verse three, where he says, everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, their encouragement, and their comfort. This matter of strengthening means the building up of the church. It's an interesting exercise to go through this chapter and see the number of times Paul speaks of building up or edifying or strengthening. What he means is that the time that is spent together in Christian worship should be beneficial and should be exercised in such a way that those who leave Christian worship go out taught better of the things of God and having received a clear direction as to how those principles are to be applied in their daily lives. In other words, what Paul is saying here in First Corinthians is the same thing that he says in the book of Ephesians, the fourth chapter, when he talks about the giving of the gifts of apostles and teachers and prophets there. This is a key verse for the function of the church because there Paul explains precisely and in detail what should happen. He says God has given to the church apostles, prophets, and teachers for the building up of the body in order that the church might be able to function and do its work of ministry in the world. In other words, he says, in this great task in which we're involved, time is of the essence. And when Christians come together, their time together must count to those ends. Secondly, he says that this ministry of prophecy should involve encouragement. It's a pity, isn't it, that we often forget to do that, especially those of us who are so given to an intellectual approach to things or to teaching. We think that all that is necessary is to get the doctrine straight, and of course that's very, very important. But Paul was not only a teacher in this sense, Paul was a pastor as well, and he recognized that those to whom he spoke were often discouraged in their Christian lives or Christian ministries. Even though we know what we should do, and we try to do it, we often come up against what seemed to us to be stone walls. It seems to us sometimes that day after day, or week after week, sometimes year after year, we bang our heads against a stone wall, and nothing seems to happen. We're trying to do the right thing. We're trying to be obedient to Christ. We're trying to preach and share the word with all of the gifts at our disposal, but nothing seems to happen. Paul says, you see, one of the functions of prophecy or preaching, this kind of teaching in the church is that it should encourage believers in the work that God has given them to do. And then the third thing he mentions is comfort. He says, when we spend time together in our assemblies, there should be a measure of comfort also in what is said. In the last century, there was a great preacher in London by the name of James Parker. James Parker often used to speak to young seminarians, young ministers, and he always used to say something like this, young men, when you preach in your churches, always preach to broken hearts. Because he said, when you preach to broken hearts, you'll never lack for an audience. All he was recognizing is that people, even Christian people come to church with hurts. They come with wounds, sometimes wounds inflicted in the family, sometimes wounds inflicted in the marketplace, sometimes great griefs that have come into their lives because of ruptures in the past with other people, or sometimes sickness, or death, or many other things. We only have to look into our own lives to know what that is. Paul says, you see, if you're really thinking about other people, if you're really concerned about them, and if you're beginning to exercise the kind of love about which I spoke in the 13th chapter, you'll recognize that people are hurting. And so in your worship services, you won't be trying to call attention to yourself as so many people do, but rather you'll seek to do that which is helpful to them. He brings in an illustration at this point. He talks about music. He talks about the flute and the harp, and then later on he speaks about the trumpet. And he says, there has to be something intelligible in order for music to make sense. If everybody just gets together with their instruments and plucks the strings or blows on their horn and doesn't pay attention to an ordered score, it's not beneficial to anybody. It's cacophonous. As a matter of fact, it's horrible. And if in battle, somebody picks up a trumpet and just blows on their trumpet, it doesn't blow a recognizable tune that people could interpret. The soldiers aren't going to know whether to go forward and charge or go backward and retreat. He says, it's the same way in the worship service. You know, I suppose an illustration of that that comes a little bit closer to home is the way many of us sing. I love to sing. Although I love to sing, and I'm sure the Lord is pleased with my singing, I'm not sure if I sang up there in the back of the church it would be edifying to the church as a whole. My singing is the kind of singing that ought to go on in the shower with the downpouring sounds of the music. I'm able to lift my heart and praise to God, but everybody else just kind of stays in the other part of the house until the shower is finished. You see, Paul is saying, if you like to sing like that, well, go do it. But when you're in church, try to do what is going to be helpful, what's going to be strengthening, encouraging and comforting to the Christians. So that's one thing. He is talking about prophecy being better than tongues where the church is concerned. Secondly, there's a little parenthesis beginning with verse 13. In which he talks, I believe, about the beneficial effects of prophecy rather than speaking in tongues for the individual himself. What he does here is contrast praying in the spirit and praying with his mind. The way many of us think, that contrast would be weighted on the side of the spirit because spiritual things are good. So we would say, wouldn't we, it's much better to pray in the spirit than to pray with our mind. And of course, what we mean by that is probably right. We mean that there's no use just saying words. Really, we have to be in tune with God, and we have to pray in the same way we worship. The Lord himself said, he who worships must worship in spirit and in truth. What we mean by that is right, but we're wrong if we contrast that kind of praying with praying with our mind. Because, in that verse I just quoted from the fourth chapter of John's gospel, when Jesus said, true worshipers must worship the Father in spirit and in truth, it is interesting that he combined truth with worshiping in the spirit. You see, he's saying it must be a heart worship. It has to be genuine. It has to be our spirit bearing witness with the spirit of God, and the spirit of God bearing witness with our spirit. It has to operate on that level, but at the same time, it has to be according to truth, and truth involves content. So this is what Paul says. If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, that is a tongue I don't understand, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. So, what shall I do? Well, I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind. You see, we have such a danger in our time of indulging, especially in American Christianity, in what I call contentless Christianity. It's the kind of Christianity that often takes place in services where there seems to be a great deal of fire, but not much light, a great deal of emotion, but not much instruction. And so, people will go away on an emotional jag. But when you ask them afterwards what it is that they learned, or what difference it's going to make in their lives because of the time they spent together in that particular form of worship, there's really very little to offer. I think that's a terrible danger. The reason why it's such a danger is that if we get off into that kind of an emotional jag apart from content, it's very easy to find ourselves performing in ways that are contrary to God's revelation in his word. We can say, well, I just feel that it's the right thing to do. I was just so excited. I just thought that we should do this. But of course, that's always dangerous unless you can go back to the word and say, this is what the word teaches. And as I try to take that word and apply it to my life, it seems to me inescapable that it has to be applied in this way. Some of the great spokesmen of our time have called attention to this. John Stott in some of his writings calls attention to the practice of Christianity without content, and he says how dangerous it is. Francis Schaeffer in some of his writings has done the same thing. He says in our world today, we must stress content, content, and then content again. And I believe that's absolutely true. That's not to say content apart from an emotional response. People respond in different ways, but we're hard-hearted indeed if we can read these great truths of the Gospel of God's love for us, and his desire for our lives, and not be emotionally moved by them. That follows, but you see, it should be the content of Scripture that moves us, rather than simply indulging in that emotional experience alone. So Paul says, you see, prophecy in the sense of proclaiming the word, teaching the word, applying the word, is not only beneficial for the church and should be practiced for that reason, but it's beneficial for the individual himself. And then finally, he talks also of the benefit of this for unbelievers. And it's interesting how he does it. He begins to talk about it in verse 22, saying that tongues are a sign not for believers, but for unbelievers, and prophecy is for believers, not for unbelievers. What he means by that is that tongues is a miracle, and therefore a miracle is something that the unbelieving world will sit up and notice. Where in the experience of Christian people, it shouldn't be all that unusual. It should be more commonplace. That's true enough. But he says, he says this in contrast to what he has just stated in verse 22, if in your worship service, you practice a kind of worship in which here and there, and all over the church, one after the other, sometimes several at one time, people are standing up and are babbling away in tongues, and an unbeliever comes into your gathering, as we hope will be the case. He's going to say, I've never been in such a crazy place in my life. They're all out of their mind. He's not going to get anything out of it. He can't understand a word. He's going to turn around and leave and say, that's a good place to stay away from. But on the contrary, he says, if an unbeliever comes into your fellowship and instead of that kind of unintelligible speech, he finds people actually articulating the great truths of the word of God, showing what they mean and why they make sense and how they apply, not to the life of people who lived a generation or a thousand years ago, but how they apply to the lives of people living today, and why they're important, then he says, that person is going to go out of there edified. And he's going to say, the way this section ends, God is really among you. And of course that's what we desire, and that's why we do things the way we do. In the last half of this chapter, Paul sums it up and applies it in several areas that he has not spoken about in the first half of the chapter. His essential point is that what we do must be done for edification, for the building up of the church. And so he summarizes, he gives some rules that should be followed if we really take that seriously. He doesn't say that people must never speak in tongues in church, but he says, if you do, it should be done this way. There should be two or three who speak in tongues, not more. Not 20 or 30, not something in which you should overindulge. Two or three, he says at the most. And then secondly, they should speak one at a time. Not all at once, even if you could understand them. They should speak one at a time because if everybody is speaking at once, you can't even catch the words. One at a time, he says. And then thirdly, when they speak, there should always be someone there to interpret. Because if what we're concerned about is the edification of the body and the communication of scriptural truth to unbelievers, then it must have interpretation. Because something which is unintelligible is no message at all. So he sums it up in that way. Then there's a paragraph here in which he applies it to other parts of worship as well. He's been talking about tongues and principles that could control the practice of the speaking in tongues. But he says, look, the same thing applies to preaching. When you have a preaching service, you should have two or three at most. You're going to wear the people out if you have 15 or 20 people preaching one after the other on and on and on. He said several, just a few. And furthermore, they must speak clearly so they can be understood, one at a time. Because he says, you see, we're concerned about the same thing. It's not that this is valid and this is invalid, but it's what we're trying to accomplish in Christian worship. Then I suppose for the same reason, he has a little paragraph here in which he speaks about women being silent in the church. This doesn't mean, I am sure, that a woman can never speak in a church building. When he talks about the churches, he's referring to the assembly, the worship services that go on. He often uses the word in that way. And we know that even in such services, there's never the case that women can't do anything because in the 11th chapter, he talks about a woman praying, and it seems to assume that she can pray or teach in a certain way. That's all right. What's he talking about? Well, he's talking about, I believe, the same thing he's talking about in that key text in First Timothy, the second chapter, where he says he suffers women to keep silence in the church, and he's giving instruction for the ordering of the church. And he says, a woman is not to usurp authority over a man. What he's talking about is the authoritative teaching and disciplinary role of the session or the ministers in the churches of Jesus Christ. He's saying there is a restriction here. And so, when we're talking about order in the churches, it's not to say that women don't have gifts and that there aren't places for those gifts to be fulfilled, but in this authoritative teaching and preaching role, which ministers occupy, this is something that should be restricted to men and not to women. He comes to the very end and he sums it up. And he sums it up with the three principles that you find in verses 39 and 40. First of all, be eager to prophesy. You see, if prophecy is as good as he says it is, if preaching or teaching in this way is as good as he says it is, then every one of us should seek to be able to do that in some way. He says, if you're going to desire anything, desire that. Secondly, don't forbid to speak in tongues. Whenever any of us receive enlightenment like that and have something that we suddenly realize is good or better than something else, the first thing we want to do is restrict somebody else's exercise of the gift. We're all very guilty of that. But Paul says, no, don't do that. He says, you desire the best thing, but make sure that you don't forbid somebody else to do what they're doing. And then as he concludes, he says, everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way. That is, it should be done in a way that is appropriate to what we're trying to accomplish. Because in the final analysis, it's not because of who we are or how spectacular we seem. It's not even to the extent of how eloquent we can speak about biblical truth, or how clear we can be in their exposition, or how wise we may appear. It's not because we do spectacular things in our services. It's not because we have magnificent stories to relate how this had been true of our lives, and God intervened in a supernatural way and did this. Those things have their place. But rather, it's the word of God. Whether we're faithful in the exposition, the teaching, and the application of this word. That's what God honors. God honors his word. God doesn't honor your experience. God doesn't honor your intellectual capabilities. The devils are smarter than you are. God honors his word. And where we're faithful and where we teach that, God himself, who speaks it and who stands behind it, carries the truth of that word home to the human heart and brings about that rebirth which is absolutely necessary if one would see the kingdom of God. Let us pray. Our Father, we ask you to bless these truths to our hearts and to our practice. We read many passages of your word that seem to instruct us essentially in a personal way. But then we read a passage like this, which is so clear in speaking to the way we should conduct ourselves together as Christian people in Christian worship. We would pray, our Father, that you'd give us ears to hear and grace to learn and obedient spirits to do what your Holy Spirit says to us. Not to our honor, but to the praise of the honor, of the glory of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
Guest (Male): You're listening to the Bible Study Hour, featuring the teaching of Dr. James Boice. Preaching God's word has fallen out of favor. Many in today's church no longer believe in its power. But Scripture is a necessary part of God's plan, and the 21st century church needs some strong biblical preaching. Find out more in a message entitled, Making God's Word Plain, by Dr. Phil Ryken. We are offering this message free to you as our way of saying, thanks for listening. Call us at 1-800-488-1888. We'll be happy to send you a copy of, Making God's Word Plain. That number again is 1-800-488-1888. When you become a monthly supporter of the Bible Study Hour, you help us in our mission of bringing the infallible Word of God to people who listen around the world over the radio and online. In essence, you come alongside us in fulfilling the Great Commission. You can make a donation online at thebiblestudyhour.org. You also have the option of calling us to give at 1-800-488-1888. And our mailing address is 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601. Thank you so much for your support. Dr. Boice's impact reached far beyond the pulpit. Our Bible teacher was a prolific author and articulate spokesman for the Reformed faith around the world. Audio and print materials from Dr. Boice's event, broadcast and writing ministries are available at Reformedresources.org. That's Reformedresources.org.
Mark Daniels: I'm Mark Daniels. The foundation of the Christian faith is the resurrection, and the 15th chapter of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians is the most comprehensive chapter in the New Testament concerning this monumental event. Join Dr. James Boice as he summarizes Paul's reason for detailing this important event, and considers the apostle's proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our salvation. That's next time on the Bible Study Hour, preparing you to think and act biblically.