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Post by sarah on Feb 6, 2007 16:53:17 GMT -8
10/05:
Wow there is all sorts of touchy stuff in here and about a million different interpretations of what Paul says here. I will write more later, but what jumped out when you were reading? I have heard both cessationist and charismatics use this chapter to back their positions. I think it makes a pretty strong case for tongues being a spiritual language and not just say "French". I also like where it is talking about the gift of prophecy and the important role it plays in the church (also mentioned in ch12)
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Post by michelle on Feb 7, 2007 19:11:03 GMT -8
10/05:
My initial reaction to reading this chapter was that if one is gifted with speaking in tongues how he/she must feel shot down when reading this. At first it can seem like Paul is teaching that the gift of speaking in tongue is not important. But after letting it set in I realized that what Paul was really trying to say was not that speaking in tongues is unimportant, but rather he was try to impress upon the church how vitally important sharing the gift of prophecy is. I think we see this in verse 4, "He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church." He goes on to talk about how speaking in tongues (while strengthening, encouraging and comforting believers) does not reach unbelievers, prophesying does. Prophesying can convict unbelievers to become believers. But since unbelievers won't be able to understand someone speaking in tongues, they cannot be convicted by it.
I think that this goes beyond speaking in tongues/prophesying. While fellowship is so important for believers for the reasons of encouragement and comfort (and countless other reasons) it should not be the basis of our existence. I think that what we share with each other in the group is important, but I think the point is that what we share outside the church is even more important. This is a place that I struggle. I'm not the type of person who can easily (or even at all) or comfortable share the gospel with others. I don't have the gift of evangelism. But what I know I can do are little things that express God's love to other people. Sarah, I think back to your story about the time that you drove by the little girls that were selling lemonade and you felt so convicted by God that you were supposed to go back and buy a cup of lemonade that you turned around and did so. I am amazed by stories like that and that is something that I am trying to make a conscious effort to do. I want people to be able to see Jesus in me (and ohhhh do I have a long way to go).
On a completely different note, I don't think it is a surprise to anyone that verses 34 & 35 are tough for me (and many women) to swallow. I know that the response to that is likely to be that Paul was speaking directly to a group of women in Corinth. But this just brings me to a frustrated question. How are we supposed to know what is meant just for the receivers of Paul's letters and what is supposed to be applied to us today?? It seems like some messages were meant just for the Corinthians and some were meant for everyone, but how is one supposed to distinguish between the two?? I find it so frustrating and it feels hypocritical. Sometimes it feels like we are just trying to justify our beliefs by saying "Paul meant that to the church of Corinth only." Can someone please just tell me what applies now and what doesn't???
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Post by Josh on Feb 7, 2007 19:12:11 GMT -8
10/05:
Having some experience speaking in tongues as of late, I have to say that I think the reason Paul dogs on it a bit is that it is so easy! Compared to prophecy and other gifts, tongues is kind of like falling off a log. Now, if I heard someone say that 3 years ago, I would have been angry. Easy???!!! I think that was because I was so committed to tongues being something that a person can't control-- almost like God just took over your body and made strange words come out.
I've come to see it quite differently (which, of course, is a whole big discussion outside the scope of this thread, but..). To me now it's more like learning to play an instrument. The only hard part about it is going outside of your comfort zone, but that's not too difficult when you're by yourself. I used to think it was so lame when I heard people try to teach people to speak in tongues by saying, "Just focus on a syllable", but despite the hokeyness of many tongues endeavors in the wide world of charismatica, I found that that's kind of true.
I've come to believe that Scripture does talk about two different kinds of tongues. There's the Day of Pentecost speaking in other human languages, and thens there's the much more humble one Paul talks about more frequently. It's just opening your mouth and letting it go, trusting that the Holy Spirit will make sense of it.
I'm painfully aware that I'm butchering this description and kinda wondering why I'm opening this pandora's box here with so little prep. But I would love to talk with any of you further about this.
Anyway, it makes sense what Paul's saying about how tongues is great for individuals, but often times lousy (without interpretation) for groups.
But why does Paul say 22 Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is for believers, not for unbelievers. and then go on to directly argue the opposite???
I think I read an answer to that once. It must be here in a book somewhere.....
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Post by Josh on Feb 7, 2007 19:12:46 GMT -8
10/05:
This is in response to that last parapraph by Michelle, copied here:
First off, it IS difficult. I think I stated below that the Bible isn't primarily a MANUAL OF TIMELESS TRUTHS sent out the sky by God, but it is an authoritative RECORD of GOD's INTERACTIONS with humanity.
I know that I, many times, have wished it was the former. But I have also come to learn why the latter is better. I hope to share with you all sometime soon an article written by one of my favorite NT Scholars, N.T. Wright (a fitting name, huh?). He adresses the dilemma that, in one sense, when we read the bible we are actually reading someone else's letters. Now, the doctrine of inspiration implies that they also speak to Christians throughout the centuries- they are in another sense, our letters as well. So, although they weren't originally letters for us specifically, we need not ask whether they apply to us at all, but we need to ask How do they apply to us?
And it is not easy. You can't just pick up the Bible and hope that it all makes perfect sense. Study is essential, of course. The Bible is simple enough for anyone to grasp it's main and plain things, but subtle enough that it often requires intense study.
So, when we ask the big questions, we must be up for the challenge of 'digging in'. In this endeavor, practical rules of hermeneutics are important and are not, when done right, just ways of excusing things away. These rules are things like considering the context and letting other Scriptures shed light on difficult ones. It is helpful to get a good book like "Hard Sayings of the Bible" because we can't possibility all do all the study. But we can ascertain whether someone is making a good argument about a way of understanding particular verses. For instance, I am very confident in the things I have found in Hard Sayings-- their answers aren't just pathetic attempts to weasle out of a tight spot (which I've seen plenty of in Christians books of this sort), but genuinely deal with all the relevant issues of a passage, admit when they're still in the dark on certain things, and offer important insights founded on how the original hearer would have most likely looked at the passage.
Through it all, the more difficult passages may always retain an element of doubt in our mind, whereas we have more confidence in the clear ones. I have a hunch God wanted it that way.
An important side note:
Most of the Bible is more like a story than a how-to guide. The thing is, how-to manuals are clinical, not often reaching to the heart. But stories cut right to our whole being. What if Jesus, instead of telling the story of the prodigal son had only said, "Even though your sin has separated you from God, He is willing to forgive you." (Which, in effect, he does say elsewhere-- John 3:16, etc..). Well, we would be without one of the best stories ever told-- one that hits our heart much more than just bland propositional truth. The Bible, as a whole, is also a Story. To be sure, the Bible does have some segments of propositional truth (Romans is much more so than 1 Corinthians), but, taken as a unit, the Bible tells us about God through narrative and in narrative we often must learn indirectly.
Two more thoughts:
1.I suspect that's it sometimes seems that if some expectations in Scripture (ie, women's role in the church) are culturally relative or relative to a particular circumstance, then what's to say that other expectations (ie, no sex outside of marriage) might be as well. How a person tells the difference is part of the frustration. However, when we look at these particular issues, we find in fact that on the subject of women's roles we have a handful of highly cryptic verses addressed to a particular need in a particular place with particular words, as opposed to sexual purity, which is spoken of very plainly in a myriad of verses adressed very generally (and specifically) to a very broad audience and over a large span of time (OT to NT). That's not to say that something can't be said just once in Scripture to be a universal truth- it's just that frequency is one criterion to consider. And the more of these criterion the better case we can make that something is meant to be taken universally.
2. I'll soon follow up with some thoughts on the "women remaining silent" issue, which I also think is a passage that is easily misunderstood but also relatively easily explained as well.
Hope that helps to some degree, knowing that it's probably a good thing to live with some tension on this subject-- it keeps us from extremes, and makes us accept some gray areas, which is why, I suspect, God gave it to us this way.
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Post by Josh on Feb 7, 2007 19:13:28 GMT -8
10/05: 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 NIV: For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, 34women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. After consulting two great books on this subject (Hard Sayings and What Paul Really Said About Women), I'll propose a slightly different reading of this passage, based on other possible meanings of key Greek words: A CLEARER RENDERING: For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, 34women should KEEP QUIET in the churches. They are not allowed to CONVERSE, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to CONVERSE in the church. First off, Paul elsewhere (even earlier in this book) states that women will be 'speaking' in the Church: praying and prophecying out loud. There are other examples of women speaking in the Church in the NT as well, so Paul can't be talking about absolute silence. Women in Greek and Jewish culture did not typically receive much formal education or religious education, so in a new more 'liberated' environment, a problem arose in Corinth. Apparently women were asking their husbands and others to explain things that were being said, thereby interrupting the 'orderly' worship service Paul is concerned with (see verse 33)All the talking was creating chaos. Some see the obscure reference to the Law in verse 34 as a reference to "Do unto others as you would have them do to you" as there is nowhere in the Old Testament or Greco/Roman law that speaks of women remaining absolutely silent. So, he's saying, have respect for others when they are speaking. So, the reason Paul seems to single out women here is because they had a lot of academic catching up to do in their society. He was saying that the Church service wasn't the place to interrupt with questions. In the book "What Paul Really Said..." there's this great example of an identical situation a missionary encountered in a Chinese church. The women, largely uneducated, got into the habit of interrupting things with side conversations. It wasn't anything inherently wrong with women-- it was just time and place. In our culture where men and women are educated equally, this isn't normally an issue. It's just a normal expectation that both men and women understand that one person talks at a time. For more discussion on this, click here: Women's Role in the Church?
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hume
Advanced Member
Posts: 136
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Post by hume on Feb 7, 2007 19:14:26 GMT -8
10/05:
N.T. Wright relates this explanation of the passage, which he attributes to a historian named Ken Bailey:
"In the Middle East ... it was taken for granted that men and women would sit apart in church ... Equally important, the service would be held (in Lebanon, say, or Syria, or Egypt), in formal or classical Arabic, which the men would all know but which many of the women would not, since the women would only speak a local dialect or patois [i.e., most women hadn't been allowed the necessary schooling to follow along with the preacher] ... the result would be that during the sermon in particular, the women, not understanding what was going on, would begin to get bored and talk among themselves. As Bailey describes the scene in such a church, the level of talking from the women's side would steadily rise in volume, until the minister would have to say loudly, ˜Will the women please be quiet!", whereupon the talking would die down, but only for a few minutes. Then, at some point, the minister would again have to ask the women to be quiet; and he would often add that if they wanted to know what was being said, they should ask their husbands to explain it to them when they got home. I know there are other explanations sometimes offered for this passage, some of them quite plausible; this is the one that [strikes me] as having the strongest claim to provide a context for understanding what Paul is saying. After all, his central concern in 1 Corinthians 14 is for order and decency in the church's worship ...
What the passage cannot possibly mean is that women had no part in leading public worship, speaking out loud of course as they did so. This ... is proved at once by the other relevant Corinthian passage, 1 Corinthians 11:11, since there Paul is giving instructions for how women are to be dressed while engaging in such activities, instructions which obviously wouldn't be necessary if they had been silent in church all the time."
(from a talk entitled, "Women's Service in the Church")
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Post by Josh on Feb 7, 2007 19:15:30 GMT -8
10/05:
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
BTW, I think the use of this passage (which is actually from chapter 13) by cessationists to claim that tongues and prophesy have now ceased is sloppy hermeneutics. Has knowledge ceased? And even if it were argued that this was some 'special kind of knowledge' that only the disciples had, the context of this passage is clearly our resurrection experience (the 'perfection'). So, these things will all cease when the resurrction happens, because as powerful as these gifts are they are like looking into a dark glass compared to the clarity we will have then.
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Post by Josh on Feb 7, 2007 19:16:04 GMT -8
10/05:
This passage is a BIG PART of my dream for Sunday morning worship: 26 What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. 27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. 28 If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God. 29 Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. 30 And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. 31 For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. 32 The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. 33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
I know it sounds a bit strange to some ears. But also a great adventure to embark on.
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Post by Josh on Feb 7, 2007 19:16:50 GMT -8
10/05:
BTW, this last part of chapter 14 is meant as a summary for chapters 11-14, not to be directly attached to the sub-discussion about women talking: 36Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? 37If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. 38If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored.
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Post by sarah on Feb 7, 2007 19:18:04 GMT -8
10/05:
Ok no surprise to most of you that I eagerly desire the gift of prophecy. Although at present my portion of gifting is limited, I desire to grow in this gift. I really love the verse about how the spirits of the prophet are subject to the prophet. I think that boils down to a maturity issue. I have been in environments where people have gotten completely wrapped up in the word that they were sharing, and have walked over the tops of others. I love the instructions Paul gives us. It is not as if some force takes you over and you have no control. That would be potentially dangerous to the church. I think that this is why a lot of pastors are reluctant to encourage development of the prophetic, because without maturity it can become very self focused and cease to be prophetic.
I remember once I got a "corrective word" for the church, but I had absolutely no idea what to do with it. Being new to things, I thought I was supposed to share it right then, in the middle of the worship service. I prayed and just as I started to step forward, someone else stood and shared and I knew what I had didn't match. So I stepped back and thought the burden would pass. It didn't, so I prayed for a while about it and wrote it down. I finally gave it to a pastor at the church and never did know if it was shared with anyone. About 6 months later I heard that several others had been drawn to the same area of scripture and that one of them had shared with the leadership.
The whole thing taught me a lot. The first thing was that I had to give up a sense of ownership that I was carrying. I wanted the "right" thing to happen. I found a verse in Isaiah that helped a lot with that(55:10&11). Another thing I learned later is that corrective words should not be given publicly without sharing them privately. It is not a good thing to lambaste someone from left field. I also learned that just because God reveals something to you, does not mean you are supposed to share it with others. Sometimes it is private information for you in order to better intercede in prayer for that individual or situation.
I also like in this chapter where Paul talks about praying in his mind and in his spirit. I read that section about 4 years ago and decided to try it. It is hard, my mind especially likes to wander. I can now pray in tongues in my mind and through my mouth but I am working on increasing the discipline of my mind to stay focused on the task at hand. I find it a little easier to pray out loud in tongues and in English in my mind. I have yet to learn how to sing in the tongues though. I have tried a few times, but I get distracted by notes and rhythms. To much time in choir! There is still that part of me that gets performance oriented around music. AKA pride
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Post by Josh on May 27, 2009 14:08:04 GMT -8
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Post by Josh on Mar 27, 2016 18:38:49 GMT -8
I'm curious to hear current thoughts on the topic of "Tongues". What has been your experience? What do you believe about Tongues? What do you think about the idea of a "private prayer language"?
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Post by Josh on Apr 10, 2016 19:47:08 GMT -8
Here's the link to the audio of the teaching on this today: 1 Corinthians 14 Part 2There were some good follow up questions/ comments today. If there are more, post them here. One was that I think I overspoke when I implied that I didn't think there might be "card carrying interpreters". Let me clarify; yes, indeed I think that over time some people might become known as particularly gifted interpreter's of tongues. It's just that in any given situation, for someone who speaks tongues in the congregation, there is no guarantee that it will be interpreted, even if such people are present. So, I'll stress again that Paul allows for and encourages the members of the church to respond to spontaneous promptings of the spirit without guarantee that it will be tied up with a nice tidy bow, as long as there is a overarching concern for order and the edification of everyone present.
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