to 1 Corinthians chapter 14.
1 Corinthians chapter 14 is where
we'll pick up this morning, continuing on on our study of the Ekklesia,
or the Lord's Church. Currently we are going through
each and every verse where the term Ecclesiastes found. As we
are building our understanding of God's definition of what the
word church means. Not taking man and his traditions
and man and his understanding, man and his theologians word
for things, finding out what does God say about things. I found myself in the past often
being very wrong because I followed after traditions that I grew
up being taught, not necessarily were they all nefarious. All of this has grown up, from
my understanding, has come from different backgrounds that don't
believe like we do today. and everything, and I don't necessarily
believe the people that were teaching and preaching during
those times were necessarily nefarious people that was out
to dupe or to necessarily lead people astray purposely. There
may have been some out there, I don't know, but it doesn't
seem like that. Most of them very zealous for
religion, but nonetheless, Traditions, you know, whenever you hear them
over and over and over and over again, they begin to be like
truth to us, you know? And it's hard to say something
against that, especially whenever it's something that you've been
taught. And especially if it's something that you've been taught
by, you know, like me, I grew up underneath my father who was,
or my grandfather, who was the only pastor that I ever had until
I came here. And so to be able to stand up
and say, you know, take difference with my grandpa on this area
or this area or my family on this area or that area and everything
is not easy to do. And a lot of times it does throw
doubt sometimes whenever you're reading the scripture and the
Holy Spirit is truly convicting and leading you into the teaching
of a scripture that is maybe different and opposite maybe
of what you've been taught especially by a close family member growing
up. Satan likes to come in and throw those attacks in there,
you know. In this case, it would be, you know, half grandpa said. Is God really saying that to
you or, you know, are you just going against what your grandpa,
you know, is this a fad, is this a, you know, whatever the case
might be. And so I don't know how many
times that I've been on that merry-go-round where I've taken
something that it seems to be the truth to me that I know growing
up and I'm comfortable with because I've heard it all my life, but
yet as I study God's word and I began to see, or the Holy Spirit
begins to teach on those things, I began to see, well, that doesn't
line up with the rest of what I'm seeing in the scriptures.
doesn't work with the context or however the case might be.
And many times I've had to reevaluate the things that I've believed
in. A lot of times I've come to see that my understanding
was just basically human understanding, was following after a tradition
or somebody else. And I've even in the past and
still do to some degree once in a while, will have theologians
that I've read after, books that I've read, that have influenced
my understanding of things, influenced my take on things because of
certain teachings. And that too can cause us to
doubt the Word of God whenever we're studying that. And so that's
why I try to encourage especially younger preachers that sometimes
I talk to, especially on the internet, that, you know, matter
of fact, I had a guy a few months ago had listened to us on sermon
audio and sent me an email. And he asked me, he said, you
know, how do you, what do you do to prepare for your sermons?
What commentaries do you use and what study material do you
use? And I told him, I said, I know
this is going to sound funny and it's probably going to sound
way simplistic, but I said, You know, I don't use any of those
things for the most part. I said, that doesn't mean I don't
read other stuff besides the Bible. But I said, usually my
first priority is to look at the scripture and its context
within where it's at, who it was written to, the historical
aspect of it. And I see, you know, I look through
the Bible and let the Bible interpret itself. It's the best commentator
on itself. And once I see that, then I begin
to maybe read out and see, does other men that I respect have
that same view? Maybe there's a different viewpoint
to it. And then I'll look that, but it's always being considered
of what does the Bible say? If I go to a theologian and he's
saying something and the spirit isn't bearing witness with mine,
that this is truth, I'm not just gonna change my mind and say,
oh, well, John Gill said that, so I probably ought to change
mine. thought about that and say what he says. You know, there's
a lot of time I went and read John Gill and I thought, boy,
wow, he was way off on that. And Spurgeon and, you know, any
person that people like to put up on their pedestals. And so
we wanna look at God's word and see what it says. And we want
to adjust, even if it means having to go back and apologize and
say, hey, I'm sorry. I taught this like this at one
time, but since the Lord has shown me, given me greater light
upon that subject, and I think that I was wrong. And so this
is actually one of those places where I'd never really been taught
about the ecclesia as far as the biblical definition of that.
I grew up under a system where we believed that the church was
not only just a local congregation that gathered on Sundays, but
the church was something that was universal. But it wasn't
until afterwards, whenever I began my journey of putting away all
my reading materials and just looking at God's word did some
of these things. It's amazing what you'll learn
whenever you quit reading after fallible men and you just listen
to God. The Holy Spirit has promised
us that he would be our teacher The Bible says that they shall
all be taught of God and that you have no need of any man to
teach you, but the Bible says, but the anointing that you have
received of him, that's where your teaching is gonna come.
Now, it doesn't mean that God hasn't appointed teachers in
the local church, but all those teachers in the local church,
all they're there to do is confirm the truth And until the Holy
Spirit teaches you that truth, it's not gonna be truth to you.
So even though I may stand up here week after week preaching
and teaching things, I'm not gonna change anybody's mind.
The Holy Spirit will be the one that changes the mind and will
be the one that teaches those things. And for those who have
been taught of God in certain areas, whenever they hear that
truth, that is a confirmation to their heart that what they're
reading in the Word of God, what the Spirit is telling them about
that, and what the preacher is saying is confirming that, and
then that edifies them, that builds them up. That's where
we are edified. We hear those things, it's comforting
to us, it's encouraging to us, and it edifies us in the faith,
or builds us up in the faith to hear that over and over and
over again. And so this morning, we're gonna
continue looking at each verse, because again, like I said, I
wanna build the defense of a local visible assembly, not because
of a Baptist system or a theologian that said something, or, you
know, I don't wanna say because J.R. Graves says it. Do y'all
know who J.R. Graves is? Y'all has heard that? My sister,
Louetta, has probably heard his name quite often. But we don't
wanna say it because of some particular theological system
or anything like that. be biblical. I know I've said
that a lot, but I think we need to really stress that point,
especially when it comes to subjects like this, where there is such
a diversity of understanding about that. And there is a pretty
harsh, I mean, whenever we start talking to people, whenever they
come and they want to be members of the church, one of the things
we talk about is the gospel. One of the things we talk about
is baptism. One of the things we talk about
is the Lord's supper. And then one of the things we
talk about is the church. And those five things are often
the great dividing point that people are just strongly opposed
against one of those things in one area or another. And so I think that it's very important
for us to continue to teach on these things And we don't have
to just kick them like a, whip them like a dead dog or anything,
but we need to occasionally continue to teach these things because
these teachings you don't hear very often. I think that whenever
we don't teach these things, we're not being faithful to the
service of the Lord. That's why he's put us here,
to teach all things whatsoever Christ has commanded us. And
so one of that is also talking about the nature and the working
of the church. Now in 1 Corinthians, we left
off last week going into chapter 14. So 1 Corinthians chapter
14, we're reading all these verses that have the term ekklesia in
it and seeing how it's being used. So far up till now, in
every instance that we've seen the word ekklesia being used,
it has been used either for the Lord's church in its institutional
way, meaning it's speaking of that kind, the Lord's kind of
church, the kind that he built. It wasn't the Greek city, ekklesia,
but he took that word, which was so much narrower than other
terms for called out assemblies. He used the word ekklesia, which
narrowed that down to a local congregation of people who have
been given lawful assembling privileges to carry on or conduct
the business of the state or the city. And whenever the Lord
said he would build his ekklesia, that's what he was taking away
from that word and he was using it for himself. I'm gonna build
my ekklesia. My gathered congregation called
out to conduct the business of the kingdom. And so, as we've seen up to this
point, that every instance this is used, we've not seen it anywhere
used in a universal, invisible way. It's always been about particular
congregations, or in its institutional use, talking about the kind of
church that Jesus built, or as it stands as an institution.
Much like I've used in the illustration before, the term family. Whenever
we speak of the family, we're not speaking of any specific
family, but we're talking about the family that God has designed.
Whenever we talk about the Christian family, we're not talking about
two men and a child. We're not talking about two women
and a child. We're not talking about three
women and one man and a child, okay? We're not talking about
that. The biblical family or the Christian
family is a husband and a wife and children if there be children.
That is the biblical family. So if we say we're talking about
the family, we're talking about a specific kind of family. And so it means anywhere that
a Christian family is found, if it meets the requirements
of a biblical family, then it's a family. And that's what we're
talking about here. Jesus built his church, his kind
of church, and anywhere that kind of church is gathered, that
is the church of Jesus Christ. That is a New Testament church,
if it meets all the requirements of Christ. And so that's the
institutional form. And so we've seen it that way.
We've seen it actually used in its direct form by specific churches,
singular and plural. And we've seen that whenever
plural church is used, Paul used the term churches. He didn't
use the term church as a universal body talking about everybody.
He actually said churches, so he understood. He defines church
as local bodies wherever they be found, okay? And so the church
is never a universal thing, but it is always a local, individual,
visible gathering of people. And so thus he uses the term
churches, plural. And in 1 Corinthians chapter
four, again, as we're reading through these things, we're jumping
right in the middle of contexts, we're jumping right in the middle
of a letter that Paul is writing to the Corinthians. But again,
remember, we looked at this last week as we went into Corinthians,
This is a letter written to the Corinthian church. He was writing
to them to correct that church because they had went aberrant
in some areas. And he was writing to correct
them, to reprove them and instruct them in righteousness with the
word of God or with the things that Jesus had given him to tell
and to teach all the churches as they were being gathered together
in form. But as we've seen going through
this, he has made reference to them in several places as a local
body. We've seen that he used that
term, as we looked last week, as a local body. He's used the
term as a single loaf of bread in chapter 10. We've seen that
he has said that ye are the church of God, the church of Jesus Christ. Okay, he has made that very clear.
He's also used the phrasing, as we looked last week, that
he said, now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular.
And he also used phrases like whenever ye come together in
the church. He says, when you come together
in one place. He's talking about divisions,
that a church doesn't have divisions. Okay? But yet if we have a universal
thing, that's divided more than anything that you could ever
think of. A universal church, is more divided than any local
church could ever be divided. I've been to churches where they've
had fights and there's usually one side versus another side,
okay? Two sides, so there's one division. But if you have a universal body
made up of the elect of all time, now just think about this, and
I don't mean to get off on a tangent here, but just think of this.
If we take every elect child of grace, and let's just say
only the ones who have been quickened and converted, okay? The ones
who have been born again, and then the ones who have been given
understanding and begin to experience the knowledge of their salvation,
okay? So just those ones who have been
awakened and been given to know the gospel and things like that.
Let's just take them, and we take, every one of those all
over the world. Now, in every one of those, you're
gonna find some in Methodist churches, you're gonna find some
in Baptist churches, some in Presbyterian churches, you may
find some in Catholic church, you may find some in an Episcopalian
church, you may find some in the Church of God, you know,
all these different denominations that are out there. And whenever
you look across the board, and even among in Baptist churches,
there is differences from what Christ has built his church on. They're teaching different baptisms,
they're teaching different Lord's Suppers, they're teaching different
memberships, they're teaching different gospels, they're teaching
all these different things. And so if we would take that
and say that everyone who is elect, scattered all over the
world, wherever they may be, is the body of Christ, Look how
divided that is. But yet whenever you have a congregation
who has been called out from all the rest of the elect, gathered
together under one body of belief, one faith, worshiping one Lord,
having been brought in to the church by one baptism, immersion
as a believer, okay? and being unified together, serving
each other, working together with each other, caring for each
other, looking out for each other, reproving, rebuking, correcting,
encouraging, edifying, serving each other, that is a body that
is functioning together with no division, with no schisms. And that doesn't mean that we
necessarily all have the same exact understanding of everything,
but yet we have that same common goal. and we are submitting ourselves
one another. What does it mean to submit yourself
one to another? Well, for one, it means to prefer
each other more than we prefer ourselves, right? That we put
each other first. I'm to put all you ahead of my
own self. And vice versa, you're to put
everyone else above your own self, okay? But the Bible also
says in submitting yourselves one to another is, In serving
one another, we are to look out for one another. We are to edify
one another. We are to build each other up
and to encourage one another. And even though we may have different
levels of understanding and we may have different thoughts on
certain things, we harmonize with each other, understanding
that the Lord is teaching all of us and that we trust that
the Holy Spirit is doing that job And that even though someone
may not see something now, that at some point the Holy Spirit
will teach them truth. Same thing looking inwardly. I may disagree and maybe I'm
the one that's wrong. And so I trust that the Holy
Spirit will bring us into unity. And that's why the Holy Spirit
tells us in the scripture that we are to strive to keep the
unity of the Spirit until we are brought to the unity of the
faith. See, the unity of the faith isn't the thing that is
the standard, okay? The unity of the Spirit is. When
a church is able to harmonize and be unified, even though there's
some slight differences, we are to strive for that unity. And
whenever we strive for that unity as the Lord teaches, He will
bring us into the unity of the faith, of doctrine, of understanding
of the things. And so that's another reason
why a local congregation is a wonderful thing to be a part of because
it's here that the Lord has made the pillar and the ground of
truth. It's here where the foolishness of preaching are saving people,
not saving people in the legal sense of Jesus dying on the cross
for their sins and their sins being remitted and their justification
before God being made, saving in the fact of hearing the truth
and that truth conforming their lives convicting them of wrong
thinking and bringing them to right thinking about the Word
of God. That's another way that we are
saved by the Word of God is through the preaching of the Word of
God. See, preaching never does save anybody in the legal aspect,
okay? Nobody's ever saved by preaching.
The Holy Spirit's the one who quickens. No one was ever quickened
by a preacher or by preaching. They were quickened by the Holy
Spirit of God. to hear that word. And so church,
the gathering of the disciples, the bringing together of the
people of God into one location with its roles and with its laid
out service plan that God has given us is there and is profitable
to us. And so why people like to just
think that's immaterial is just heart-wrenching because It truly
is a blessing to be a part of the Lord's church. And so we
should really truly look and seek to honor the Lord through
the working and serving of the local church. Now here in verse
four, chapter 14, we're jumping right into part of where Paul
is correcting them on their use of spiritual gifts and particularly
here, the way that they kind of went haywire and ballistic
on the gift of tongues. Nothing's changed today. Charismatic
churches are just as rabid about the gift of tongues, although
the tongues that they use is not biblical tongues. It's completely
and totally anti-biblical. But here again, we're not gonna
deal with particularly this issue. We're just gonna see how Paul
uses the term ekklesia as governed by the Holy Spirit in his writing.
1 Corinthians chapter 14 and verse four. He says, he that
speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself, but he that prophesieth, or preaches,
edifieth the church. Okay? Now, so the spiritual gifts
we learned last week, remember? The spiritual gifts were given
to the church so that they might edify each other. The Holy Spirit
gives each individual a gift as he wills, okay? So we don't pick our spiritual
gift, okay? I didn't pick the spiritual gift
of pastor, preacher. Okay? The spiritual gift is preaching. The role is pastor, okay? That he's given. That is not
something that I chose. Matter of fact, you guys have
heard me give my testimony before, how I told my grandpa, you know,
I really don't wanna do that. That's not my thing. I don't
want to have to do that kind of stuff. He said, if the Lord's called
you to do it, He's gonna give you the desire to do it. He's
gonna give you the heart to do it. He's gonna enable you to
do it. And that seemed to be the fact after a while. The Lord did give me that, where
I thought, no, I ain't never gonna be a pastor. I don't wanna
do that. I just wanna go around and teach everybody. preach mainly. I wanted to go preach. Go beat
the pulpit, tell them how it is, stir everybody up, and then
go, you know. Leave the preacher with a mess
on his hands, you know. Having to go behind me and correct
whatever he thought was wrong, doctor. But that was a bunch
of pride for youth back then. And so, but anyway, the Lord
gives those gifts. So, we seen last week that he
gives those gifts as he wills, and the purpose for him giving
each individual that gift is so that it might profit with
all. That word with all means to profit the whole church. Never are we ever found in scripture,
whether it's in Corinthians or anywhere else, that a spiritual
gift was given for the edification of the individual that had that
spiritual gift. Okay? These people that believe
that they've been given the Spirit, the gift of tongues for them
to pray in the secret prayer language. No, that's not biblical
at all. Not biblical at all. Whether
it's true tongues or false tongues, the purpose for tongues was for
something outside of that person that had the tongues. Okay? There's absolutely no reason
why I should have to pray to God in tongues. There's no reason
why I should have to pray to myself in tongues. The purpose
of tongues was for another purpose, okay? And we'll get off on that
when we go through and teach on those things. But, so, moving
into 14, Paul has already laid the groundwork that each spiritual
gift is given to profit the body, that is where it's been placed.
And we've seen that, that it was It was an individual body. My gift of preaching and pastoring
is not effective for anybody that's somewhere that I'm not,
okay? Today, I am not edifying Coweta
Baptist Church in my preaching. My gift being exercised today
within the body of Christ is not going anywhere outside of
right here. So he's talking about a local
body, not some universal body. So with that in mind, we move
into here, and whenever he says, in verse four, he that speaketh
in an unknown tongue edifieth himself, but he that prophesieth
edifieth the church. Okay? He edifieth the church. So again,
this term ekklesia here is talking about the Church of Corinth.
He's instructing them, hey, if you prophesy, you're edifying,
and I've already told you that the whole point is to edify the
body, to edify the church. That's why these gifts were given,
is to edify the whole body, not yourself. And so if he's talking,
if we keep that context rolling as it's been going through Corinthians,
we see that we can't see anything else than Paul is speaking of
the church local, that body where that individual gift has been
placed. Look at verse five. I would that
ye all spake with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied. For greater is he that prophesieth
than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret that the
church may receive edifying. So again, the emphasis here is
on the spiritual gift being used to edify the whole body, not
the individual. So again, it's about unification.
It's about being unified. It's about working together,
serving together, praying together, worshiping together, Spreading the gospel together,
okay? That doesn't mean we all hold
up hands and walk outside and go up and down the street sharing
the message of Christ together. But we're all involved. If we
would send anybody out of this place, and every time I go to
preach wherever the Lord opens a place for me to go preach,
you know where I'm going from? I'm going to represent our church,
the service of our church, the ministry of Sovereign Grace Baptist
Church. It's not Michael Smith Ministries. Okay, man, I almost
wanna puke every time I watch TV or listen to the radio and
I hear David Jeremiah Ministries or John MacArthur Ministries
and all this stuff. We don't see that. Paul never
said the ministry of the apostle Paul. He said that I'm an apostle
of Jesus Christ. The ministry was a ministry that
came from the local church. So anytime I go to, matter of
fact, whenever we go to places that they call for like fifth
Saturdays or Bible conferences and stuff, usually always the
host church will have a time where all the guest preachers
and anybody else from other churches are there. They'll ask, you know,
everybody, you know, have you stand up and introduce yourself
and where you're from. And we always stand up and I'll
say, I'm Michael Smith. I'm the pastor of Sovereign Grace
Baptist Church in Joplin. This is my wife, Laura, and my
kids. And we come on behalf of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church
in Joplin. We've come representing, serving
from Sovereign Grace Baptist Church. Whenever people are sent
across to be missionaries or whoever they were sent to be
missionaries, they always have a sending church, right? We see
that's biblical. Paul and Barnabas were apostles,
but yet they were sent from Antioch. All of the original apostles
were sent from Jerusalem. But anyway, we see that. We have
a friend right now, Matthew the Landry, who's fixing to go over
to Thailand to help Brother Paul and Susan Brown. He's being sent
from the church in Grenada, Mississippi. Okay, that's his sending church. Whenever they send out their
letters, showing where all of their funds and what all they've
done through their monthly reports, down at the bottom, they always
have, sent from whatever such and such church, okay? So the
church is the place where the ministry is at, and Paul here
is making that clear even within the context of speaking in tongues
and prophesying, he said, listen, if you're gonna use these spiritual
gifts, and at that time, the spiritual gift of speaking in
tongues was still intact, he says, the purpose of that is
for the edifying of the church, not yourself. It's the local
body. He wasn't talking about Antioch.
Your spiritual gift isn't for Antioch. It's for here. Okay,
it's for here. Now, why would they need a person
speaking in tongues in Corinth? Well, if they would ever have
anybody that would come into their service that didn't speak
whatever language they were speaking in Corinth. And at that point,
someone would stand to prophesy and he would be given the ability
to speak in whatever language that person that was there that
could not understand their language, he would speak in that language
or the pastor would speak in his language, but yet someone
who had the gift of tongues would then turn around and translate
what that pastor said. Had the gift of tongues or interpretation
of tongues. If nobody has the gift of tongues,
then there generally was somebody there that had the interpretation
of tongues. They may not be able to speak
in tongues, but they can interpret what that person said. That person
came into our facility and they're speaking Hebrew. And nobody in
the whole congregation speaks Hebrew, but this person here
don't know Hebrew, but yet whenever that person talks, he knows what
he's saying. And so he translates that to
the church. So you have those two gifts that was given to be
able to speak to those of other languages, and those who are
of other languages to be able to interpret what they say to
tell the church. But the whole point was to make
known to the church what was being said so that they were
all being built up together. And so this is talking about
a local congregation. It's not talking about a universal
thing. So again, we find the term ecclesia
is tied to a local congregation. Look at verse 12, it says, Even
so ye, for as much as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek
that ye may excel to the edifying of the church." Again, basically
the same thing as what we've been talking about. Paul's encouraging
the Corinthians to use their spiritual gifts for the edifying
of the church and not for themselves. Look down at verse 19. Starting verse 18, I have to say, I thank
my God I speak with tongues more than ye all. Makes sense. Paul was an apostle that traveled
all over the known world preaching the gospel. So for that apostle
to have that ability to speak in other languages so that he
might be able to minister the gospel wherever he goes would
be highly important. And so he's thankful that he
speaks with tongues more than anybody there in Corinth. But listen to what he says, yet
in the church, I had rather speak five words with my understanding
than by my voice, that by my voice I might teach others also,
than 10,000 words in an unknown tongue. Okay, so Paul here is making
clear that this local congregation, he said, whenever I'm in the
church, whenever I'm out going through from country to country,
language to language, I'm thankful that God has given me the gift
to be able to speak in all those different tongues so that I might
be able to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ. But whenever
I'm here with you who only speak Greek, I would rather speak five
words of understanding, not his understanding, but your understanding,
five words for you to understand than to stand up here and babble
and show how great I can be an orator in all these different
languages. See, the purpose was Paul was
saying, the whole gist of this is the edifying of the single
body, where everybody's gathered, giving gifts, exercising these
gifts, why? For the building of the whole,
for the profit of withal, so that all of us will be built
In the faith, that's why we have these things. So again, it's
speaking of a local congregation and the gift was given for the
local congregation. Look at verse 19. Oh, I'm sorry,
we just went to 19. Verse 23. If therefore the whole
church, here it is, the whole church become together into one
place. There's that phrase again, two
phrases I should say. The whole church, Now, if that's
a universal invisible body, then there has to be some point in
time where we all come together into one place. Have you ever
seen that ever in the face of history? I don't care, going
all the way back to Adam to now. Have you ever seen where all
those who are born of the Spirit of God, who are the elect of
God, have ever gathered all in one place? Will there ever be a time when
all those who are the elect of God will ever be gathered into
one place. Yes. But that's future, right? That's after the resurrection.
That's whenever we come, whenever Christ comes again and gathers
us all to himself. But guess what? We're still gonna
be one, local, gathered, visible, Okay? So we know just from the fact
that not everybody who is elect is gathering together in this
context here. He says, if therefore the whole
church be come together, which is proper to say, because that's
the definition of ecclesia, is to gather into one place, which
is also proper because that means that it's a visible congregation.
in one locality. If therefore the whole church
be come together into one place and all speak with tongues and
there come in those that are unlearned or unbelievers, will
they not say that ye are mad? Okay, again, I don't wanna get
into the whole discussion on tongues, but again, look at the
context of what he's talking about. Again, instructing the
church at Corinth, Single congregation. And he says, if therefore the
whole church, and we just said, we can't mean everybody everywhere
that's the elect of God, okay? So it's not talking about a universal
invisible body. It's not even talking about a
universal visible body. I've yet to see that either,
okay? He said, whenever you come together
into one place, and if you're all there and you're all speaking
tongues, That would be like if we came in here today, and I'm
speaking English, and Brother Ed's speaking German, and Zach's
speaking Chinese, and Caben and Waylon, they're speaking two
other languages, and we're standing up, and we're talking, and everybody's,
and then somebody comes in, whether they're a Christian, as it says
here, whether they're a believer or not a believer, whether they
come in, what are they gonna think? Well, those people are
nuts. What are they doing in there? They're all English-speaking
people. Why are they in there speaking other languages to each
other? Especially if other people don't understand that language.
See, that's why I said, and there come in those that are unlearned. What is he talking about? Unlearned
of that language, not unlearned of just, you know, we're not
talking about a dummy, an idiot, someone who's you know, grade
school, okay? He's saying someone who comes
in who is unlearned of the languages that are being spoken. If someone
comes in and they don't know those languages, they're like,
what in the world is going on here? Or an unbeliever comes
in, will they not say ye are all mad? Why the unbeliever? Well, because that was their
whole reason for tongues in the first place, really. Tongues
were given to be a sign to the unbeliever, not to the believer. And here we have Pentecostal
churches saying that tongues is a sign that someone's been
born again. Tongues is a sign of you being a believer. It's
a sign to other believers how spiritual you are. The more you
speak in tongues, the more spiritual you are. Some even go as far to say that
if you don't speak in tongues, you're not born again. But yet, The scriptures got a
different thing to say about that. Anyway, again, the term
ekklesia found here in verse 23 is definitely speaking of
a localized visible congregation. The whole church comes together
into one place, okay? So he's using that in the context
of a local assembly. Look at verse 28. But if there be no interpreter,
let him keep silence in the church and let him speak to himself
and to God. Okay? But if there be no interpreter,
let him keep silence in the church and let him speak to himself
and to God. Now again, when we get in on
teaching on spiritual gifts and stuff, you'll find out this is
not a special prayer language that we're to speak in tongues
This is, remember, tongues isn't gibberish that just comes off
the cuff, okay? That you don't get into this
little trance and just start, you know, red leather, yellow leather,
you know, whatever. And what is the one that JC does?
I don't remember. He's got one, how to speak in
tongues, and it's not funny to me. Again, remember, these are people
that come in that are speaking another language. Like if I went
to Thailand and I walked into their church, I'm used to speaking
English. I don't know Thailand. I don't
know Thai language, Burmese or whatever they speak. I don't
know that. I speak English. So whenever I come in, if I would
get up and start preaching, but yet there's nobody to interpret
what I'm saying, is it going to edify anybody? Is anybody
going to get anything out of it? It's just gonna be people
up there staring at me for however long up there speaking in language
that they don't have a clue what I'm saying. So what Paul is saying
is if somebody comes in among, but if any man speak in an unknown
tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that
by course, meaning if there are three men within the congregation
that speak in tongue and there's those among you who are needing
tongues to be used. He said, let at the most three
speak, but in order. Okay, not at the same time. That's
another thing. Going to Pentecostal churches,
everybody just jibbering away all at the same time. If you
just be quiet and just listen, it just sounds like a bunch of
chatter and teetering. You know? But here Paul has laid
it down. If anybody has the gift of speaking
in tongues and somebody comes in among you, where tongues is
needed, guess what? At the most three, one or two,
at the most three may speak in order, okay? Verse 28, but if there be no
interpreter, if there's no one there to interpret what's being
said to those people that are in there of the other tongue,
if there's no interpreter to interpret to the church What's
being said to that person who has a different language, then
you're to keep quiet. That person who has a different
language to come in, we're just gonna have to sit in silence
and listen. Okay? What's he saying? The importance is that the whole
church be edified. And if somebody comes in and
speaks German, comes in and sits in here and say, I have the gift
of tongues and I can speak German to that person, but yet nobody
in here has the gift of interpretation, then I'm not to speak German
to that guy because the whole church ain't gonna be edified
about what I'm saying. They're not gonna know. They're
gonna have to sit in silence at me speaking German to that
guy who understands German. And so now, at that point, Paul
says, if somebody doesn't have the gift of interpreting, so
that the church can hear what you're saying to them. And again,
why, why, why? Well, for one, edification, but
second of all, accountability, right? If somebody is in here,
just think about it. Somebody's in here preaching
and teaching in a language and somebody doesn't understand that,
and they don't have somebody interpreting that, how are we
to hold them accountable to the word of God? How do we know that
somebody ain't in here preaching false doctrine, leading people
astray? if we don't have that. See, again,
it all comes down to the welfare, the edification, and the service,
the proper service. It's what I've said all along
from the very beginning of this. It's not about whether you're
saved or lost that you're in the New Testament church. It's
whether or not that you are giving proper service. This is where
the service to God and worship of God has been called to take
place at is in the lawful assembly, the ecclesia. And so it's about
proper service to God. See, whenever we come together
and we're all doing our other thing, again, it comes down to
schism. If everybody's speaking a different language, there is
no unity. There is no building up. There
is only tearing down and causing division. If we all come in here
speaking a different language, well, just go back, remember? In the Old Testament, that happened,
right? At the Tower of Babel, they were all unified in serving
to build this one big tower that they said was gonna reach to
the heavens. But what did God do? He confused their language.
And at that point, what happened? They ceased being unified in
the service of building that tower, whatever it was, And they
just ended up having to abandon the job because nobody could
get nothing done, because nobody could understand each other. And so if we're all in here just
babbling, we ain't gonna build each other up. So again, it's
all about the unification and the edification of the local
body. Look at verse 33. I'll start in verse 32. And the
spirits of the prophet are subject to the prophets. There's a lot
to be said about that. For God is not the author of
confusion. Notice it didn't say for God
is not the author of sin. It says the author of confusion
there. For God is not the author of
confusion, but of peace as in all the churches of the saints. So here, Paul uses the plural
again, churches, and he ties that with the plurality of saints. Okay, anywhere where the saints
are gathered, that's a church. But he doesn't make all the saints
that are out there the church. He recognizes that the gathered
saints is a church. But the universal saints are
called saints. the elect, people of God. But nowhere does the Bible describe
all the elect of God as the church. Whenever plurality is used, the
word churches is used. If it was a universal invisible
church, Paul could have easily said, and use it here to press
his point, he could have said, For God is not the author of
confusion, but of peace, as in all the church, or in all the
saints." But he didn't say that. He said, in all churches of the
saints. Why did he say that? In all churches
of the saints. Well, because a New Testament
church is only made up of believers, right? At least that's how it's
designed. That doesn't mean that there's
not gonna be terrors that's gonna come in among the wheat. It doesn't
mean that there's not going to be false professions that are
made. People that come in and we are
duped because of our, you know, blindness of our understanding
and things, you know, being deceived and things such as that. But
that was how it was set up, right, in the commission. Make disciples, baptize them, bring them back,
teach them all things whatsoever Christ commanded. is made up
of believers, the saints. Look at verse 34. Let your women
keep silence in the churches. Okay, he didn't say in the church,
he said in the churches. So he's establishing not only
a precedence there of Corinth, but he's establishing this precedent
in every church, why? Because the Lord only has one
kind of church. And if Christ give doctrine and
practice to his kind of church and said, this is my church,
this is how you'll recognize my church, this is how you'll
know my church, this is how you are to perpetuate my church,
wherever you're at, whatever, state, city, whatever, wherever
you're at, who call upon my name, who are gathered together, and
you're following this, my doctrine, my practice, the doctrine of
Christ, then you will be my ekklesia. And so Paul here is letting them
know that to let the women keep silence in the churches is not
just for Corinth, but everywhere else as well. Every place that
is a church of Jesus Christ is to follow this command. Let your
women keep silent, for it is not permitted unto them to speak,
but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith
the law. So again, this is talking about
local congregations because of the fact that he used plural
churches. He didn't use churches and universal
and visible anything. Matter of fact, if he would have
used that, guess what, ladies? You can't ever talk, period.
But where is the prohibition of women speaking whenever the
church gathers? Whenever the service of the church
has come together in the lawful assembly, that's where the women
is to be silent at. That doesn't mean at home that
you're to be silent. Now, there are some men that
or like that, that women are to be silent no matter where
they're at, okay? Walk two steps behind, all that
kind of jazz. Now at the home and everywhere
else, the woman is to still be submissive to the husband and
to be quiet. The Bible says that that's true
of a godly woman, is that she's quiet. But that doesn't mean
that she can't speak. But in the church, whenever the
church is gathered and is in its capacity of its service,
then that's where the women are to be silent. And that's far
gone. You don't find that in too many
churches anymore. You go into a lot of churches, it's the women
that's running everything and talking all over the place and
arguing with the men and everything. And so it says, let your women
keep silence in the churches for it's not permitted on them
to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience as also
under the law. And so we see that's for every
church. And so that's not a, just a single occurrence. Look
at verse 35. And if they will learn anything,
let them ask their husbands at home, for it is a shame for women
to speak in the church. Okay? So again, if we take context
as it's been going along in this whole entire letter, why would
we think the term church here, ekklesia, would be anything more
than Paul reiterating the fact of a local congregation? or it is a shame for women to
speak in church. If it is a universal invisible body and it has nothing
to do with gathering of an assembly into a congregation for the service
of God and the taking care of the business of the kingdom,
and it's just a universal body, just the fact that you are in
Christ or just the fact that you are born again makes you
in this quote unquote, universal church, then at that point, then
there is no place that you guys can ever speak. And we know that's not true because
we know that there are women who did speak outside of the
congregation. Remember, we just talked about,
I believe it was last week, Phoebe, who was a great help to Paul,
service to Paul, and that he was commending her service to
that other church. Okay? So there is place for women
and speaking and helping. It's just not in the assembly,
when the assembly is gathered. And it's like here, whenever
we're gathered together, the women are to be silenced. Now,
once the service is over and we're fellowshipping around the
table and eating, and we're no longer conducting the business
of the church, That's when you ladies are free to share and
to talk and to visit and there ain't nothing wrong with that.
Encourage that. And like I said last week, you
know, encourage the women all together because so often you
either go to one stream or the other. Either everything is totally
let down and the women are running things, preaching, teaching,
you know, doing everything, which the Bible is opposed to. Or to
the total opposite where, you know, a church or whatever has
got the women so constricted that they can't even do nothing,
and they feel unwanted, unloved, and they feel stamped down. I mean, that's not how it should
be. And so Paul here is letting them
know that there is a specific place, specific time, specific
roles that God has laid down. And if we look at this and we
want to apply a universal invisible church to this, then the women
don't have any place to speak ever, period. Because it said,
and guys, he doesn't mean just keep, you know, don't talk so
much. What did he say? Let your women
keep silence in the church. For it is a shame for women to
speak in the church. I mean, it's pretty absolute.
So that can't be talking about a universal church. Otherwise,
women would never be able to, because if that's the case, you're
always going to be in Christ. You're always going to be the
elect of God. So that means you have no place to ever speak. And someone says, yeah, well,
that's talking about in the local church, but there still is a
universal church. Well, up to this point, we have
not seen any place that the Bible has taught a universal church.
It's always had to do with either the institutional aspect of the
Lord's church Or it's talked about a single or multiple congregations. Nowhere have we seen it taught
there. So why would you all of a sudden say, well, he's meeting
a local church here and still say that there's a universal
church out there? I mean, where's your ground? Where's the grounds
to say that? We don't have any yet. Now, we
still got a lot of verses to go, but we don't have any grounds
yet for that. We're good. Let's take a break.
We're at chapter 15. We'll take a break there, and
if you need to use the restroom, get a drink, come back. I kind of
lost track of your luncheon.