Transcript

We’re developing, really come to the end of the third major area, where the Apostle Paul is giving some governing instructions about the exercising of spiritual gifts, specifically in the congregational worship service. There would be some differences if you just took the truths of this chapter and took them outside the worship service, but as we have said so many times, they had a chaotic mess during their worship service, because of their inappropriate use of genuine spiritual gifts and also the counterfeiting of some of the spiritual gifts. So Paul begins to give some governing instructions here, and the first one of the two governing instructions was, he gave them an exhortation to maturity concerning their understanding of spiritual gifts. He basically says grow up. Stop being childish and immature when it comes to exercising your gifts in the church service. And then we begin to develop the second sub-point, which was an exhortation to the management of spiritual gifts in the worship service.

And we come to verse 33, the last part of verse 33, down to verse 35. “As in all the churches of the saints, let the women keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but let them subject themselves, just as the Law also says. If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.”

Now once again obviously the Apostle Paul would not jump on the principle of the headship of men and authority in the church right in the middle of talking about spiritual gifts and specifically tongues, unless women speaking in the church out of order and out of place were exercising gifts out of order and out of place. And I believe that’s exactly what the implication is evidently in the area of counterfeiting tongues or misusing genuine tongues the ladies had joined in. We do know earlier in this epistle that the Apostle Paul had to correct ladies whom when these Greek ladies were liberated in Christ, they over compensated in that liberation, they felt like then they were under no man’s authority, and they were equal to men as far as leadership role. They are certainly equal in importance and value, that’s without question. I believe like Adrian Rogers says, that every man is infinitely superior to a woman at being a man. And every man, every woman is infinitely superior to a man at being a woman. And that’s always been true. We need to quit trying to meld the two together like there are no difference. Hey wake up, open your eyes, we’re different. The gender difference is overwhelming and substantial.

But nevertheless, Paul has had to lovingly reprove the ladies. They were under a great, unloving domination by husbands, they grew greatly liberated in Christ but Paul says, that doesn’t mean that God’s original design for familiar or family structure changes when you get saved. God still intends for husband to lead and lead his wife lovingly and he still intends for a woman to submit to her husband in a loving Spirit also. And you know I would exhort some of these, how many of you girls in the church are single girls, raise your hands. Raise your hand. Thank you. You know I love you, I wouldn’t have spent that week at camp if I didn’t. Now here you are, you’re single, and when you get married God’s not going to erase this verse. He’s not going to say you need to stop being submissive to your husband just because you married a jerk. No, you marry him, you get him, and you have to submit to him. So be careful what you choose, cause you have to honor the teachings of scripture toward that man the rest of your life. Cause see right now you’ve got a choice. If he’s flip floppy on spiritual things, kind of half way committed, you’d better think about is that the man I want to honor his leadership for the rest of my life. You’d better find a man of God. So no until you find one.

Well, Paul has had to make some corrections for these ladies overcompensating in the past, and tell them, no, you’re still to function according to God’s structure for the family. And now in this particular problem with obviously ladies misusing the exercising of revelatory gifts. I use that word revelatory because again there was no pastor in the church. There was no set person who was the instructor, the teacher of the church. Those were appointed, 1 Timothy 3, makes it very clear God points out overseers in the church. And Paul’s writing, he talks about financially compensating leaders in a church, but especially the one who works hard at preaching and teaching, showing us that after the church got out of its initial development phase, God began to organize and structure the church. With certain persons have certain roles and certain offices of authority. That hadn’t really happened in the church at Corinth. So the Holy Spirit was using various people at various times to give instructions, teaching, insight, revelation, words of prophecy, proper gifts of tongues, and the interpretation of tongue and so on and so forth. But some of the women were joining in and that was violating the biblical principle of male authority in the church.

And Paul, I think now, is straightening this out, he gives a clear authoritative command. Every Greek scholar I consulted said these passages are without a doubt clear. There’s no word problem, there’s no phrase problem, there’s no way to misinterpret it, Paul is being explicitly clear on this. He’s simply saying to these ladies, its been God’s established guidelines and God’s structure of male headship and female submission to that headship from the very beginning. Matter of fact, he says in verse 34, he says “let the women keep silent in the churches.” Now ladies I do not think he means any verbal sound, or you can’t make a statement to anybody, or in some informal settings of the church you can’t ask a question or discuss something or share what the word means to you. He’s not talking about that. He’s talking about in authoritative ministries. And when you spoke in a tongue, and there’s an interpretation, that was a prophetic ministry to the church. That was an authoritative ministry. When you stood up and gave a word of prophecy, that was an authoritative ministry. That is what Paul is saying you’re not to practice that in the official worship setting of the local church. That’s not a role God has given to women. “Let the women keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but let them subject themselves, just as the Law also says.” Paul says we can go all the way back to the Old Testament, and this is the way God’s truth is revealed in the Old Testament. It reaffirms the structure of the family. And he, he’s going to also show that it covers over into the New Testament.

Now I want you to go over to Genesis chapter 3, and we see from the very beginning this was the purpose of God. Genesis chapter 3, and look at verse 16. Now of course, these are, statements made to Adam and Eve after they fell into sin, but it affirms the status of how the relationship between husband and wife will be lived out, due to the fall, from now until there is that new age that we will go into that Christ will give us one day. Verse 16, Genesis 3. “To the woman He said, ‘I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth'” Now, now all you ladies that think there is pain in childbirth say amen. Alright. God kept his word. “In pain you shall bring forth children”. The beauty of this is, the implication is had Adam and Eve never feel into sin, this would not have been a painful experience. But one of the great ministries a lady has for the kingdom of God and the goodness of the world is bearing children, men can’t do that. It’s just one of those great ministries you have is now associated with pain because of your sin.

Next phrase, “yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” I think what he’s saying there, it used to be natural. It was your natural desire before sin to honor the headship of your husband. Now that you’ve fallen into sin it’s going to be unnatural for you to do what should be natural. Now your desire will be for your husband. Your desire will be in essence to rule over your husband. your desire will be to have your own way. Your desire will be to be a head, at least a co-head with your husband, except, no, he’s going to lead you. See sin messed everything up. And now you’re in that quandary. And that’s why it takes a Spirit filled lady to truly honor the teaching of scripture, because in your flesh you can’t honor this principle.

So he says all the way back in the Old Testament it was established that God has a structure for families with male headship and female submission. And then also Paul points out here in chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians, that this was consistently taught in all the New Testament churches. He uses the word churches in verse 34 of 1 Corinthians 14, in the plural, which means more than just the church in Corinth is referred to. And last phrase of verse 33 “as in all the churches of the saints.” He’s pointing out to the church at Corinth, this is not some cultural or geographical thing, not some unique situation you’re in, so I”m giving you a special teaching, he said, no, this is the general principle of God, for all families for all the ages.

Now another scripture that really affirms this is 1 Timothy 2:11-12. Why don’t you turn there right quick. 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 11 and 12. Paul writing to Timothy as Timothy is overseeing the churches, Timothy having been discipled by Paul is now giving the responsibility of overseeing some churches and Paul says to Timothy, “lLet a woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” That is in those settings, where the church is formerly meeting and it is time for a person to stand up with authority and teach and instruct and direct that is not a role that God has given to ladies. He’s very strong about that. Now what is the general point. I believe the general point is this. Women should not hold authority over men. That is not God’s design. It is improper, it is unfitting in the things of the Lord.

Now had the church not been in this transitional phase, I believe we had more, a direct instruction concerning offices. For examples, a woman should not hold the office of elder or bishop or pastor or overseer in the church. Now once again, for as we know and there’s very strong evidence for this, none of those existed. That’s why they have a top of the problems they had, nobody was overseeing the church in a direct role at this point. And but as ladies stood up during this transitional period, and gave their word or revelation, gave a word of prophecy, gave a revelation to a tongue, they were exercising authoritative ministry and Paul said that must stop. That is improper. Now, we do know the Bible teaches that occasionally, it wasn’t, not the norm, but occasionally God did call a woman to be a prophetess, but she was not to hold an office of authority and use that gift of prophecy in the local church setting. There’s a difference between the two.

And we we have in Baptist churches traditionally in our day, we, we have deacons who function in authority over churches, which is a misuse of the office, that’s not what the word deacon means, it means servant, and that’s all, table servant. But we’ve come to view deacons as elders and we have said over the years, oh, there can never ever, ver, ever, be a woman as a deacon. Well, it all depends on what a deacon does. If you go back to just the servant and you say these people are assigned servant tasks under the authority and instructing of elders to serve the body of Christ, it wouldn’t bother me to call a woman as deacon in that setting. Because that’s not an office of authority over men. She’s a servant. What would be wrong with saying these ladies over here take care of special sick ladies in the nursing home, we’ll call them our deaconesses. See the problem with Baptists have been, we’ve taken the office of deacon and let them function like elders, and that’s why we’re scared to make a woman a deacon. Are you listening to me. The title doesn’t matter, what’s wrong with a woman being a servant to the church. It’s not a position of authority. We Baptists ought to get back to the Bible, let elders lead the church and deacons serve the church, the way the scripture teaches. And wouldn’t get all this tangled up mess, that we sometimes get into.

Alright, point again, women should not hold authority over men. Now there were feminists in this day, by the way. Actually there were some groups of feminists who were removing their tops and grabbing spears and going out into the woods to hunt wild game, to prove they were like men. I’m just going to tell you from, from my observation, there are a lot of occupational roles in the world that women shouldn’t hold. Its demeaning to them, its mistreatment to them, and its unfair and everybody. I’m so tired of say, seeing these police shows and you’ll see some bad guy wrestling with a police officer, be two male police officer fighting this guy, and the woman standing by like this, you know, because she’s not going to tangle with those guys and she shouldn’t. But why does this feminist humanistic society keeping pushing ladies into roles that are not intended for them. Its just awful what the feminists have done to women.

You see here’s an important point. The feminists views the world as made up of just individuals. And a woman therefore is just another individual alongside of a man. And the feminist says the individual is all that matters. So the feminists is pleased very well to throw away the time honored unique role of the family and structure of the family because the individual’s all that matters. The feminists is quite willing to throw away all the differences God designed in the sexes, male and female, because the individual is all that matters. And the cause or to the cause of individualism, throw away the family structure, throw away the difference in the sexes, we’re just individuals and that’s the only way you should look at it. But you see, God doesn’t view the world as made up of individuals, God views the world as made up of families. That’s his way. And he knows for a family to structure there’s got to be order, and to function rather, there’s got to be structure, there’s got to be order, somebody’s got to be in charge.

You see, when two come together as one flesh, you’ve got one organism, then. The bible says when man and woman are married, they become one flesh. And folks, you put two heads on one organism, you’ve got a monstrosity. And you put no head there, and you’ve got death. God meant for every organism to have one head. And in his sovereign purposes he said the male should be the head of the family structure. And so naturally he says, when you come into church that structure should remain. And shouldn’t stop at the church door. And so generally speaking, he’s not speaking in an absolute sense of there’s absolutely no exceptions when you hit the parking lot, but generally speaking when there are is official church services going on, men should exercise the roles of authority in leadership particularly those areas of teaching and preaching in the church.

Now look at verse 36, we see the strongest word of sarcasm yet from the Apostle Paul’s pen, when he says “Was it from you that the word of God first went forth? Or has it come to you only?” Now you see Paul knows as he’s writing this, some of them are bowing up. [Growl]. Some of those big feminists in the church [Growl]. Bowing up. Now, now here’s what Paul is saying in verse 36 when he says, “Was it from you that the word of God first went forth?” In other words, the Corinthians wanted to be a law within themselves. I mean, they, they weren’t real submissive. I mean Paul write to them, and they’d say, now wait a minute, I believe we’d better check that preacher out a little bit. Ah, I don’t know about what he says, I don’t know if I agree with that. Have you ever heard that. I don’t know if I agree with that. What’s going on down at the church. Well, Paul knew they were going to do that, so Paul writes them and says, well, who do you think you are, did God’s word come to you first. I mean, were you the ones that established the foundational truths of God for the local church and everybody is suppose to bow down and wait to you, for you to tell everybody what’s good, bad, right and wrong. Who do you think you are? Talking about a sarcastic rebuke, that’s what that is. “Was it from you that the word of God first went forth? Or has it come to you only?” in other words, you’re the only people on earth that’s got God’s truth. He said, no, you Corinthians need to repent, humble yourself, get on your face, and say what God says, we’ll honor, period. We’re not going to be a law unto ourselves and figure out what we think is right for the church, what’s right for the worship service, what’s right for the role of women, we’re going to do what God says is right. That’s the point he’s making there very strongly.

Look at verse 37, he doesn’t let up on them here. He said, “If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual” Now obviously what Paul is saying is many in the Corinthian church thought they were, particularly if they exercised some kind of external verbal gift. They really thought that meant they were the spiritual ones. Paul said okay, I want to in conclusion give conclusive guidelines on how you can know if you are truly spiritual. Are you ready, Paul is going to tell you, this is how you can know if you’re really a mature Spirit filled believer. Verse 37. “If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord’s commandment.” Here’s what he’s saying. If you’re spiritual you’ll know it this way. You will humbly, joyously, and whole heatedly agree with what I’m teaching, if you’re spiritual. He said, you will know that I am God’s Apostle, I’m not writing what Paul wants to write, I’m writing the authoritative command of Almighty God and if you’re spiritual, you’ll recognize that and joyously submit to it. You listen to me church, if you’re spiritual, you’ll submit to the word of God. You don’t come to the word of God with your little theology, and your predisposition and your understanding and your background and say, man, its got to be that way, you go to the word of God and you lay your heart out yielded at the altar of God and say God you shape me, mold me, change me, redirect me, reteach me, I’m your servant. That is a spiritual man of God. Now we don’t have any Apostles today. i can’t give you that same instruction Paul gave you. I’m a pastor teacher, I authoritatively preach what the Apostles wrote. But I cannot give you direct revelation like they could. That office is over, the New Testament canon is completed. So the question is, are you whole heatedly lining up with Bible. Not what you think, not what you feel, not what you’ve experienced, not what you believe, not what you’ve been taught, but as God’s word is laid out, do you joyously say I’ll line up with the word of God.

Well, I can tell you one thing, as a church you have a record of doing that. We’re doing things a lot differently today than we used to do them, and then, differently than most Baptist churches do them, but in line with this book. And you’ve said over the years, that’s all that matters. We can change anything, except this book. Everything else is on the table, but not the word of God.

Now look at verse 37 he says recognize, last part, “recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord’s commandment.” I believe he’s specifically talking about his instruction on the role of women. In the church. But in general I think he’s referring to all the teaching on spiritual gifts because what he was teaching so contradicted what they were practicing. He’s saying, if you’re really spiritual, you’ll change your practice, change your viewpoint and line up with what I’ve taught you.

Now as briefly as I can, I want to talk about, I want to give you eight summarizing points. Of this whole study of understanding spiritual gifts. But let me give you eight summarizing points. I went back through my notes and I went back through the text, you could put 12, but these are eight I think significant points I think came out of this entire study called understanding spiritual gifts, covered chapters 12, 13, and 14.

Number one, first of all, he gave us very clearly the purpose of spiritual gifts. The purpose of spiritual gifts is the edification of the local church body. The edification of the local church body. That’s why your given your spiritual gifts. That’s the purpose it was given. So we could edify, build up, mature one another. That’s why he so highly exalts prophecy and so discourages speaking in unknown languages. Prophecy is clear, understandable and edifies. The unknown languages, unless there is an interpreter, could not do that at all.

Alright, number two, he showed us the author and the distributor of spiritual gifts. The author and the distributor of spiritual gifts, is the Holy Spirit of God. And your gift is an unmerited gift designed and given by him. The Holy Spirit offered the gift, he created, he gave it to you, its unmerited, you did nothing to deserve it or earn it. God didn’t say, well, this one is so special I’m going to give him that gift, oh this person is so special and unique, I, no, that had nothing to do with it. Unmerited gifting. Unmerited gifting. Given to you by God.

Number three, he told us something about the diversity of spiritual gifts. In that God has gifted each one of us uniquely and no one has the same spiritual gift mix. See when God gave you your spiritual gift, he actually gave you a mixture of gifts. Maybe a little bit of service, a little bit of giving, a little bit of mercy, little bit of prophecy or teaching, I don’t know, you’ve got a mix that gave you your unique spiritual gift. And that’s why there’s a diversity, everyone in this room’s different. Now some of us are more common to each other, than maybe somebody else in the room, but all of us are uniquely gifted, there is a diversity all the way around the room.

Then number four, he taught us something of the unity of spiritual gifts. The unity of spiritual gifts. That is that God so distributed the gifts, so that we are mutually dependent one on the other. The very fact that all of our gifts are unique makes us mutually dependent on each other. I have a strong gift of leadership, prophecy and teaching. That, that’s just my strong gift, but we would die as a church if there were not hundreds of you that had strong gifts of giving, service and mercy. You balance me out, and I balance you out. We’re dependent on one another, we’re a team. I’m nothing apart from you. And you would be nothing apart form a person who had the strong gift of prophecy, teaching and leading as your pastor. We’re mutually dependent. Our staff has different gifts, and we have to have each other, or we’d get out of line, we keep each other sharpened. So that builds a unity that dependency does.

Number five. He said something about the motivation of spiritual gifts. The motivation, that was chapter 13. In other words, our gifts, are only properly exercised under the control of agape love. Gifts are only properly exercised under the control of agape love, that love that only the Holy Spirit of God can manifest, that totally selfless love that he sheds abroad in our hearts.

Number six, the priority of spiritual gifts. Now he’s talking about congregational worship settings, and the priority in the congregational worship settings is always prophecy. A clear understandable teaching and instruction from God. Today the gift of prophecy is the man that can proclaim the truth of this book. In that day gift of prophecy includes divine, direct authoritative revelation, chiefly that came through God’s Apostles, but others also obviously, exercise that gift. Why is prophecy so exalted by Paul? Because it edifies the most. And that’s the purpose of spiritual gifts.

Number seven, he told us something of the order for spiritual gifts. The order that ought to be therefore in the worship service when you use your spiritual gifts. And Paul says this. Not verbatim, but in essence he says this. Using our minds and self control, gifts should be used in the congregational meetings for edification and evangelism in an orderly manner. Paul says use your mind, use self control and using your mind and self control, exercise your gifts in the congregational meetings, so that the most people possible will be edified and the greatest extent of people will be evangelized who are lost, and do it in orderly fashion. And that chiefly came, comes out of chapter 14.

And then number 8. Doesn’t have a title, but it is a specific word concerning tongues, because the Apostle Paul spent so much time on that specific gift. Tongues is the miraculous gift to speak in an intelligible language which is unknown to the person speaking. The miraculous to speak in an intelligible language, a language though that is unknown to the person speaking. At least according to Acts 2, the clearest section on what tongues is, that’s the clear understanding that we get from Acts 2.

Now let’s jump, shift gears a little bit and go to verse 38 and wrap this chapter up. “But if anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.” Recognize what? Recognize that what Paul is taught is the command of God. Cause if they don’t recognize that this is binding authoritative commands from God, then they’re not recognized. Paul says, if they do not line up with my instructions, then they have publicly indicted themselves as a rebel. Listen to me, when you have someone in your church, and i’ve heard it said before. That someone will say, there will be some sort of problem in the church, and the preacher or somebody say, well, this is what the word of God says, they’ll say, I don’t care what the word of God says. Have you ever heard a Baptist do that. I’m telling you, you’re talking to a lost church member when you hear that. You talking to an, I don’t care what the Bible say, we’ve never done it that way. I don’t care what it says. Well, Paul says, when that happens, they’ve publicly indicted themselves as a rebel, a back-slidder or an imposter. They publicly judged themselves as guilty.

Now, you look at this and you think, boy, has Paul got some kind of ego problem, he says, man, what I tell you is the Lord’s command, he’s so authoritative. No, he has a Christ confidence in what God’s called him to do. I like what J. Vernon McGee said one time, the man of God ought to get behind the pulpit, he ought to preach with authority or he ought to quit and go sell insurance. If you don’t know that God’s called you to that office, and your authority is the word of God, and if you can’t stand and preach it with authority, you ought to go do something else. And Paul has such authority. Now, now he is an Apostle. Again, that’s a unique calling, that was functioning for the early church and no longer needed, and now we have the authority of scripture. The writings of those Apostles. As a matter of fact, let me go full circle and talk about this thing of submitting to authority.

You know everybody has authority to submit to. He mentions the ladies here particularly, because obviously there was a woman speaking problem in the church. But all of us are under authority. All of you husbands would like to know your wives lovingly submit to your authority, but let me ask you something men, do you lovingly and joyously submit to the authority of your pastor. Do you lovingly and joyingly submit to the authority of your employer. Strong clear biblical instructions on that. Wives, let me ask you something, you love to know your children submit to your authority as a parent, but let me ask you, before your children, do you lovingly and joyously submit to the authority of your husband. All of us have our biblical authority. And when Paul said if you’re spiritual you’ll follow my command, that’s a broader principle and it says this, you’ll know a man’s spirituality, you’ll know a woman’s spirituality, you’ll know a young person’s spirituality by the way they submit to their biblically defined authorities. Because brother, I’m going to tell you something, it takes faith, are you listening to me, it takes faith and trust in God that you can submit to your husband and still come out alright. Say amen ladies.

Young people, it takes faith and trust in God for many of you, I didn’t have committed Christian parents, I know, for many of you to commit and say I’ll honor the authority of my parents, and I”m going to find the center of God’s will and that’s going to be best for me. That takes some faith and maturity. I’m going to do you better than both of those. It takes faith and great trust in God to submit to the leadership of Jeff Noblit, well thank you fellows. And know that God’s church is going to be blessed by it and come out better because of it. And I tell you what, wives if you’ll get on your face and pray for that husband, with all your heart and say, God I’m not trusting you, I’m not trusting him, I’m trusting you through him. Cause he ain’t worth it. You submit to him for the Lord’s sake, then you’ll have the confidence to trust your husband’s leadership because you know God can straighten him out. The men of this church who lead unto me, you can submit to me if you’re on your face for me, knowing that God’s big enough to keep me out of messes and out of troubles and out of the flesh. I’m not saying I never get there, I’m just saying he doesn’t leave me there. And you young people, if you’re spiritual young people, I want you to have fun while you’re young people, I want you to goof off, I want you to do all the fun things, but you get on your face and say God I’m trusting you to lead me through my mom and dad. I’ll not date without their blessing. I’ll not have certain social activities without their blessing, I’ll not have certain habits without their blessing, I’ll trust you to guide me in what’s best in my life through my parents. I’m not trusting my parents, i”m trusting God through my parents. Brother that takes spiritual maturity. And I believe that’s the broad principle Paul was eluding to earlier. When he talked about if you’re spiritual you’ll honor my apostolic authority. You’ll listen to my instruction.

Well, verse 39. And a concluding summarizing statement, Paul says “Therefore, my brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy.” Paul is not saying every single person in the church start seeking the gift of prophecy. No, he’s saying for church worship meetings you ought to be desiring more than anything for somebody to be prophesying. So everybody can be edified the most. But he says also in the church meetings, last phrase verse 39, “and do not forbid to speak in tongues.” The genuine gift of tongues had its place and role in the early church. Though prophecy was the superior gift, that gift should not be forbidden in that day and in that setting.

Verse 40. “But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner.” It wasn’t happening that way in Corinth. But Paul said, that’s the way it ought to be happening. The word “properly” has the connotation of beautiful or beauty. And the word “orderly” has the connotation of harmony. He says, when the church meets together, there needs to be structure, there needs to be meaning, there needs to be purpose, and there needs to be organization, the way the service runs so that it is a beautiful, harmonious service. Beautiful and harmonious. Well, that’s something of understanding spiritual gifts.