Bible & Christians' Thoughts & Church & Prophecy & Tongues ali | 30 Mar 2008 01:25 pm
Why are people so anti-1 Corinthians 14:26-33?
What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. (1 Corinthians 14:26-33)
I’m stuck on this. I really am. I just can’t figure out what the problem is that people have with applying these verses to Church meetings today.
Of the arguments I’ve read, the most dogmatic is the necessity of the preaching of the Word. But how does that contradict these verses? Is not preaching meant to be God’s word to his people – a prophetic act? Can it not also be teaching (a lesson)? And evangelistic? (See 1 Corinthians 14:20-25) Is there not room for the all important singing (each one has a hymn)
and provision for weeding out false doctrine and words (let the others weigh what is said)?
I know and I’m incredibly glad that God has used the format of the one-man-preaching-band to bring about his wonderful purposes in so many people’s lives, but regardless of the pragmatic success of that format, here we have a description – no, a prescription! – for a Church meeting (When you come together) that otherwise Bible believing and following people cannot bring themselves to apply.
Why? I’m not a fan of the cynical reasoning that suggests that pastors and leaders are afraid of losing their power. Nor am I a frustrated pew-sitter chafing under thwarted ambitions to speak up the front – I actually preach pretty regularly. I am just lost for an explanation for the complete disregard of these verses.
on 31 Mar 2008 at 5:01 am 1.econ grad said …
Tradition may be hard to escape.
I used to be a part of a house church of 10-20 people. We’d have meetings like that described in 1 Corinthians 14:26-33.
I’ve never been in an incorporated Church that allowed that. Perhaps they’re afraid of unwieldy disorder caused by outsiders.
on 31 Mar 2008 at 6:52 am 2.Tania said …
Big question! Although I do think some people enjoy the power and limelight up front, in fairness that is probably only a small proportion of church leaders.
Perhaps church congregations as a whole like having everything served up to them on a Sunday. Maybe it’s much easier just to go along and watch and listen to someone else.
A youth leader once made this observation to me: we ask young people to consider their 5- and 10-year goals for work, study, family-life etc, but we don’t ask them how they see their future contribution to church life. He thought if we raised that question with the youth, they might become more active participants as adults.
on 02 Apr 2008 at 2:57 pm 3.Kiwi and an Emu. said …
[...] something that I still can’t get my head around: Why are people so anti-1 Corinthians 14:26-33? I ask the question at Kiwi and an Emu but can’t provide any [...]
on 03 Apr 2008 at 12:45 am 4.Theology for the Masses » Blog Archive » 218th Christian Carnival said …
[...] Why are people so anti-1 Corinthians 14:26-33? looks at why we can’t seem to apply what Paul writes here to the church today from carnival hostee Kiwi and an Emu. [...]
on 03 Apr 2008 at 2:38 am 5.Diane R said …
Amen. Great Post! And, frankly, if the younger adult generation were exposed to more of a “(neo)Pentacostal” service, they might lose their love for all things emergent.
on 03 Apr 2008 at 1:57 pm 6.ali said …
Doug, I think you’re right about tradition. The problem is there are so many people happy to not follow tradition in many other ways.
I’d be interested in hearing more about your house church experience.
Tania, I agree that people have become used to the present system. That’s a huge stumbling block to the application of these verses. However, I don’t see many (any) scholars advocating the application of these verses. If anything, they are explaining them away.
Diane, many of the “emergent” people have had experience of Pentecostal/neo-Pentecostal Christianity and it doesn’t seem to have stopped their trajectory. It is true, however, that a lack of power has been a real issue. I guess what I’m saying is Idon’t think it’s that simple.
on 03 Apr 2008 at 11:49 pm 7.Jeremy Pierce said …
I’m not sure if I’m detecting an either/or here when I accept a both/and, but I don’t see any problem with having an authoritative teaching of the word from those God has placed in authority to do so. Paul certainly did that, and I doubt it was far removed from what we call a sermon today. We have a 45-minute sermon in my congregation, with 15 minutes for communion. But we’ve got an open sharing time and an open prayer time on top of singing, and all of that takes an additional hour. I don’t think you have to sacrifice the authoritative teaching of the word to put some real effort and time into these other things. This is actually the second congregation I’ve been involved with that did things something like this, and I’m the only connection between the two (and both had this before I had anything to do with them).
I suspect the real problem is that people want an hour-long service and then can’t fit a decent amount of everything important into that hour.
on 04 Apr 2008 at 8:12 am 8.ali said …
Hi Jeremy
There’s not an “either/or” here. The passage, as far as I can see, does not exclude authoritative teaching. In fact, it may even include more than one leader giving authoritative teaching. However, I struggle to square the one-man-preaching-up-the-front with the passage under consideration.
The churches you have attended seem to be closer to this 1 Corinthian Biblical prescription than most. It’s rare. My view is that it is a valid application of the passage, though I’m not convinced it’s exactly what Paul had in mind.
So, thanks. You’ve given me two examples of Churches putting this into practice.
on 04 Apr 2008 at 1:01 pm 9.Jeremy Pierce said …
My current congregation has even made efforts to set up chairs to prevent the “up front” feel. There are three sections, one in the middle facing forward and two on the sides at angles facing inward and forward. That way each section can see all the other sections.
There’s also a great effort to make the front section not seem like it’s where professional clergy sit. The worship leader is almost never one of the elders (although one filled in at the last minute recently). The worship leader leads the service, and that person alternates every third week. In most weeks, one elder gets up to pray a confessional prayer after the first hymn, a different elder leads the open prayer time, and the third elder gives the sermon. Occasionally when an elder is absent or leading communion (each elder does it 4-5 times per year, and the other men in the congregation take turns the other weeks) they’ll ask someone else to lead the confessional prayer, and one or two other people sometimes give sermons. But elders are always sitting in the congregation except when up doing those things. The worship leader steps back during the open prayer time. These are all part of a deliberate effort to remove the sense of certain people being the “up front” people and others being the audience.
on 06 Apr 2008 at 11:57 am 10.Jim Vellenga said …
One thing that is important to remember is the context that these verses were written into. In other words, what was Paul dealing with in the Corinthian church that required him to give these directives. At there very least from this letter we can see there was an arrogance and desire for everyone to speak, so apparently they were all speaking over one another. Remember he also gives directions on how they are not to speak in “tongues” unless someone can translate in this section as well. It is only as we come to understand what was being corrected that we can start to see how this applies to us today. At the very least it calls for orderly worship services which is the basic thing that is being called for here.
The other thing we have to keep in mind is that there is at the very least an implication that there are elders whose prime task was preaching and teaching (1 Timothy 5:17).
I would guess that part of the reason this sort of worship approach is not used is that it would be difficult to allow for this in any congregation larger than about 50. Having said that, I know churches in that 50-70 range who do have a time either right after the sermon or at the end of the service where there is discussion of what was preached by the pastor. We do that at the end of the service through the summer months where I serve. The other way this could be applied in larger congregations would be having smaller discussion groups following the service where people discuss the topic preached.
Just some quick thoughts. I have not particularly studied this particular section in depth, so I am dealing with it as best I can.
on 06 Apr 2008 at 2:39 pm 11.ali said …
Jeremy, that sounds like a good set up. I’m not sure a lot of people in Church these days could cope with what you’re church is doing, but it sounds great. Certainly, it’s far closer to what these verses describe than anything I’ve seen today.
on 06 Apr 2008 at 2:51 pm 12.ali said …
Thanks for the comment, Jim.
Yes, I agree re. context. The problem with that for modern day churches, of course, is that the solution to the Corinthians’ eagerness to speak was not to limit it to one person up the front, but to introduce order. Paul’s instructions in these verses are pretty general, but even so they are rarely applied to Churches (though Jeremy, and no doubt others, have examples of moves in that direction).
As for the elders whose main job is to preach or teach, as far as I recall, biblically preaching is evangelistic and teaching is didactic, and neither of these is ruled out by this passage. You might also look at the early Church and see that a lot of teaching actually took place outside of a Church meeting, or consider that the words for the teaching done indicate that it was dialectic, which fits in very nicely with this passage. There is also the synagogue service that gives some possible insight to elders judging what is taught (and possibly teaching that way). In all, I can’t see that 1 Tim 5:17 presents a problem.
As for numbers, it may be that to apply these verses Church sizes need to reduce. (Maybe that’s why people are so blind to what this passage says!) The Church is meant to be based on the family, and certainly big numbers makes it more and more difficult to keep that basis alive. There are definitely benefits to huge numbers in a Church, but in terms of individual development in the faith, many people learn that Christianity is a passive religion, consisting of sitting and listening and doing what they are told. That is not the biblical model, nor is it helpful.
I don’t imagine that any Church leaders who decided to apply this passage to their Church meetings would find it easy or without sacrifice, but just because it’s difficult does not mean that the verses should not be applied!
on 11 May 2008 at 3:08 pm 13.Kiwi and an Emu. said …
[...] I’ve lamented about this before, and received some encouraging responses, but I still find it completely astounding that claims are still made that there is no pattern for meeting in the New Testament - back in 1994 right up to today! [...]
on 22 May 2008 at 5:24 pm 14.Jonathan said …
Hmm. Having been brought up in more conservative manner, I’m not so comfortable with the term “prophets” in modern worship and ‘church’. I think it is acceptable for it to be quoted in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Christians but in today we have the full revelation of the Scriptures. I believe we do not need a prophet in today’s Christian society. A prophet was an intermediary between God and man, to claim such now is to belittle the position of the original Apostles and more importantly the Saviour himself. He is our only intermediary. I can accept the terms teacher, expositor, interpreter for example. Today we speak from completed Scriptures. There is no need for revelation.
on 23 May 2008 at 8:49 am 15.ali said …
Hi Johnathan,
Thanks for the comment.
I don’t think the application of these verses stand or fall on whether you accept prophecy as a gift in the church today or not. In fact, there is a group of non-Charismatics are very involved in living out these verses. Check out http://www.ntrf.org. Still, most evangelicals today - whether Charismatic or not - ignore these verses. I just can’t understand it.