A Study in I Corinthians Week 15

I Corinthians 14:1-25

Tongues: Three Greek words for tongues: glossa (language); dialectos (dialect) and glossalalia (fabricated and non-meaningful speech - not used in the New Testament).

Prophecy [from Ancient Greek verb προφημι (prophemi)]: A prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a prophet, by God, which the prophet then communicates to others.

01. 1-5 Paul opens with a declarative: “Follow the way of love…” He asserts that we should desire all of the spiritual gifts. He does NOT assert that we will receive all of the spiritual gifts. But the gift(s) we have must be administered with love.

Verse 4 tells us that the use of glossa (language) edifies (builds up) himself, whereas the use of prophecy builds up the church. This makes sense, because the theme of I Corinthians is Unity in the Body of Christ.

If you speak in a foreign language, nobody will understand you unless your have an interpreter. We will be demonstrating this on our next Great Day.

02. 6-12 The point here is that speaking in a foreign language to the church is useless, since nobody will understand. (verse 9). This also means that we should speak intelligibly…making sense in what we say. In verse 10 Paul recognizes the world’s many languages all meaningful to those who speak that language. In verse 12 he admonishes us to excel in the gifts that build up the church.

03. 13-17 When pastor Dax or pastor William (our Spanish speaking pastors) speak to us, sometimes they struggle to get the English right. We might be spiritually correct in what we are trying to convey, but if we can’t convey it intelligently, we are just flapping our lips. Say something that somebody can say, “Amen” to. You may be spiritual, but you are basically useless to other church members if you don’t. Does this lack of usefulness create unity in the church?

04. 18-19 As a missionary, Paul had spoken in at least a dozen different languages. But in the church, he spoke whatever language the congregation of the church spoke. If he could not, he got an interpreter.

05. 20-21 He admonishes the members of the Church of Corinth to stop acting like children. Grow up!

06. 22-25 As a missionary, Paul had to speak the language of those in whose country he was preaching…to unbelievers…trying to bring them to Christ. In the church, Paul spoke in prophecy…a message given to him from God for the church.

If the church is engaged in some form of gibber jabber, or if each person is speaking in his native language (we have 18 nationalities represented in our church), and an unsaved person walks in, that lost person will not know what is going on.

On the other hand, if we stay on message and speak in a language everybody understands, the lost person will have his heart softened and will be receptive to the prodding of the Holy Spirit to come to Christ.

We are to clearly present the gospel in terms people can understand…ALL OF US, not just the preacher. What a powerful witness THAT would be!

A Study in I Corinthians Week 14

I Corinthians 13:1-13

Verse 31 ends chapter 12 by saying “Eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way.”

There are four Greek words for love that are important for Christians to understand. They are agape (an exercise of the will, a deliberate choice), phileo (to have a special interest in someone or something), storge (love and affection that naturally occurs between parents and children), and eros (erotic love). Three of them appear in the Bible: phileo; storge and agape.

In I Corinthians 13, Paul describes agape.

The Verses

1-3 No matter how spiritual I think I am, if I do not have love I am (choose one): [1) Not as good as I could be; 2) Better than most but not as good as others; 3) About where I ought to be; 4) absolutely nothing.]

Answer: 4) absolutely nothing.

So…do you have love? How do you know?

Paul gives us the yard stick.

4-7 Patient – Are you patient with others, including your spouse?
Kind – Do you exercise kindness toward others, including your spouse?
Envious – Are you envious of others, including your spouse?
Boastful – Are you boastful in front of others, including your spouse?
Prideful - Are you prideful around others, including your spouse?
Rudeness – Are you rude to others, including your spouse?
Self-seeking – Do you behave selfishly toward others, including your
spouse?
Anger – Do you get angry at others, including your spouse?
(All anger comes from not getting your way.)
Grudge – Do you hold grudges against others, including your spouse?
Love evil things – What’s your list of evils?
Truth – The truth is not what we say or think happened, it is what
actually happened.
Protect – Do you protect others, including your spouse?
Trust – Are you trustworthy? If you say you’ll do something, can you
be trusted to do it…even if you didn’t say the words, “I
promise?”
Hope – Are you filled with Holy Hope?
Perseverance – Do you Keep on Keeping On?

8-10 If you love, you love. If you “stop loving,” you never loved to begin with. Everything else on earth, physical and spiritual, will pass, but not love.

Verse 11 - Remember chapter 3, when Paul declared that he could not address the members of the First Baptist Church of Corinth as adults and had to feed them baby food? Here he’s talking about the same thing.

Verse 12 – We don’t understand a lot of things now (even though we sometimes act like we think we do). There will come a time when we will know everything there is for us to know: When we stand face-to-face with our Lord.

Faith, hope and love are all significant. But the most significant thing of all is love, for it was love that prompted God to provide the solution to our sin problem in the person of Christ at the cross of Calvary.

A Study in I Corinthians Week 13

I Corinthians 12:1-34

There are two Greek words translated tongues or language in the New Testament:

Glossa: the tongue, a member of the body, an organ of speech a tongue. The language or dialect used by a particular people distinct from that of other nations.

Dialectos: conversation, speech, discourse, language. The tongue or language peculiar to any people.

There is a third word in the ancient Greek language, Glossalalia: Fabricated and non-meaningful speech, especially such speech associated with a trance state or certain schizophrenic syndromes.

The word, glossalalia does not appear in the most dependable New Testament documents.

A very important principle to know: One cannot prove Scripture by one’s experience. One CAN prove one’s experience by Scripture.

The Verses

01. 1-6 Below is an overview of Spiritual Gifts. Notice that this passage conforms and re-states the theme of I Corinthians: Unity in the Church.

02. 7-11 The manifestation of the Spirit. Why do we each have a gift? For the common good of the Body of Christ.

03. 12-26 Here Paul really leans on God’s theme of unity. He uses the analogy of the body (since he constantly calls us The Body of Christ.

04. 27-28a Paul tells us that we are all different, but whatever gift we have we are to use. We do NOT all have all of the gifts, and there is not a single gift that everybody MUST have to please God. You want to please God? Use the gift you DO have for Him.

05. 29-30 The answer to each of the questions he asks is NO.

06. 31 We are to seek and desire the greatest gift. And next week we will examine it fully: The Most Excellent Way.

Gifts of the Spirit - What Are They?

Gifts of the Spirit are special abilities provided by the Holy Spirit to Christians for the purpose of building up the body of Christ. The list of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 includes wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, speaking in tongues, and interpretation of tongues. Similar lists appear in Ephesians 4:7-13 and Romans 12:3-8.

The gifts of the Spirit are simply God enabling believers to do what He has called us to do. 2 Peter 1:3 says, "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness." The gifts of the Holy Spirit are part of the "everything we need" to fulfill His purposes for our lives.

Gifts of the Spirit - The Definitions

There is some controversy as to the precise nature of each of the gifts of the Spirit, but here is a list of spiritual gifts and their basic definitions.

1. The gift of wisdom seems to be the ability to make decisions and give guidance that is according to God's will.

2. The gift of knowledge is the ability to have an in-depth understanding of a spiritual issue or situation.

3. The gift of faith is being able to trust God and encourage others to trust God, no matter the circumstances.

4. The gift of healing is the miraculous ability to use God's healing power to restore a person who is sick, injured, or suffering.

5. The gift of miracles is being able to perform signs and wonders that give authenticity to God's Word and the Gospel message.

6. The gift of prophecy is being able to proclaim a message from God.

7. The gift of discerning spirits is the ability to determine whether or not a message, person, or event is truly from God.

8. The gift of tongues is the ability to speak in a foreign language that you do not have knowledge of, in order to communicate with someone who speaks that language.

9. The gift of interpreting tongues is the ability to translate the tongues speaking and communicate it back to others in your own language.

10. The gift of administration is being able to keep things organized and in accordance with God's principles.

11.The gift of helps is always having the desire and ability to help others, to do whatever it takes to get a task accomplished.

Gifts of the Spirit - Which One(s) Do I Have?

The Holy Spirit distributes the gifts of the Spirit as He sees fit (1 Corinthians 12:7-11).

God does not want us to be ignorant of how He wants us to serve Him. However, it is very easy for us to get caught up in what spiritual gift(s) we have and then only serve God in that area of ministry.

That is not how it works.

God calls us to obediently serve Him.

He will equip us with whatever gifts of the Spirit we need to accomplish the task or tasks He has called us to.

Yes, God calls some to be teachers and gives them the gift of teaching, but that does not excuse the person from serving God in other ways as well.

Is it beneficial to know what spiritual gift(s) God has given you? Of course, it is.

Is it wrong to focus so much on spiritual gifts that we miss other opportunities to serve God?

Yes!

There is no magic formula or spiritual gift test that can tell you what gifts of the Spirit you possess. What we need to focus on is serving God.

Do you see a need in your church? Do what you can to meet it.

Is there a position in a ministry that is vacant? Pray as to whether God would have you fill it.

If we seek God's will and obey His leading, He will always equip us with whatever gifts of the Spirit we need.

Spiritual gift tests can be of some value in determining what areas God has especially gifted you.

As always, though, place far more emphasis on God's Word and submitting to the Lord's leading than you do on the results of a spiritual gift test.

Gifts of the Spirit - What Are the Gifts Used For?

The Apostle Paul indicated that the gifts of the Spirit are equally valid, but not equally valuable.

Their value is determined by their worth to the church. In dealing with this matter, he used the analogy of the human body.

All members of the body have functions, Paul declared, but some are more important than others (1 Corinthians 12:12-26).

The service of each Christian should be in proportion to the gifts which he possesses (1 Corinthians 12-14).

All believers, as members of the body of Christ, must be serving together in order for the body to be fully-functional. That is why a church needs pastors, teachers, helpers, servants, administrators, those with great faith, etc.

All of the gifts of the Holy Spirit working together are needed to produce the full potential of the church.

Since the gifts of the Spirit are gifts of grace, their use must be controlled by the rule of love - the greatest of all the gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 13).

A Study in I Corinthians Week 12

I Corinthians 11:1-34

If the subject of I Corinthians is unity in the Body of Christ (the Church), how do the principles laid out in chapter 11 relate to this unity?

Paul will deal with two main issues that affect unity: 1) Propriety in Worship and 2) The spiritual depth of communion (not “communion” as in the Lord’s Supper, but “communion” as in being one with and in Christ.

There are 16 verses that deal with the proper physical approach to worship and 18 that deal with our oneness in Christ.

The Verses

1-2 Verse one actually belongs to chapter 10 and is its logical conclusion. Verse 2 represents a bit of a change. Up to now, Paul has said, “…I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly…" (3:1). Now he praises them for seeking his wisdom and leadership.

3-10 Three things to recognize here: 1) There is an order to the universe: God/Christ/man/woman/everything else. 2) Women must have been allowed to pray and prophesy in public or Paul would not have even brought this up. 3) There are societal conventions that should be followed to avoid disunity.

11-16 Men and women are dependent upon one another (in marriage they become one flesh; in the church they form one body and in Christ they form one church. In verse 13, Paul gives the local church the right to establish norms (“Judge for yourselves…”): Should a woman pray uncovered? Is the length of hair important? Then in verse 16, Paul says “If you want to argue about this…don’t. We don’t have a set practice for this and neither do the other churches.”

17-22 Paul restates his observation that there is disunity at First Baptist Church of Corinth. You act impolitely, like pigs at a trough, rather than civilized people at a meal. Impoliteness in church is a rotten, despicable offense to God.

23-26 Now he deals directly with our attitudes during the Lord’s Supper, and our communion with Christ when we worship. We must remember whose we are, and how we got to be whose we are, every time we get together for worship. Our worship MUST be Christ crucified, buried and resurrected every time we gather, for we have no other message.

27-32 If we have had any part in bringing disunity in the church, we dare not participate in the Lord’s Supper, or in any worship experience until we have allowed the Holy Spirit to make our attitudes right before God.

This is NOT written about non-Christians participating in the Lord’s Supper, but about you and me participating in it. When you worship or take the Lord’s Supper you had BETTER recognize that you are a part of the Body of Christ and you had BETTER not be the source of pain to the body.

33-34 Do whatever it takes to bring unity rather than disunity to the Body of Christ, for this is a VERY SERIOUS matter.