The Cross’ Message About Worship Optional Bible Prep

1 Cor. 12–14, Preaching Passage: 1 Cor. 14:22–40

 

Summary:

 

         What we have learned in the previous week informs us that there will be topics and issues about which Christians disagree (e.g., meat sacrificed to idols). Paul urges us to focus primarily upon the things about which we all agree––the broad consensus throughout Christian faith upon which all groups of Christians generally agree. These are the places in the Bible that things are discussed very clearly and regularly. However, not every topic is discussed as regularly or in a manner that is perfectly clear to everyone. And the areas in which there is controversy and division among Christians––unsurprisingly––are the areas where the Bible doesn’t say as much or doesn’t speak comprehensively about the subject. Two examples are in this chapter: spiritual gifts and the roles of men and women in the church. We have certain texts, not many of them, and the ones we have are disputable for a variety of reasons (cultural, linguistic, inter-textual, historical, etc.). These topics are not central to the Gospel message, but they are central to the cross’ message about worship, about how we live the message of the cross amongst one another.


As in the previous lesson, Week 4, we have freedom in Christ to abide by our conscience when it comes to walking out our faith with Jesus, so long as we’re willing to (a) be wrong, (b) consider first the people with whom we disagree, and (c) never coerce or compel another brother or sister to abide by our conscience rather than their own. So long as we abide by Paul’s instructions regarding Christian freedom, we can present disagreements and arguments to one another with gentleness, respect, and thoughtful consideration. The need for this manner of engagement will surface in any grouping of different people, and because the Gospel is delivered for all we will meet these challenges in our gatherings and worship. The positions we at Frontier hold are discussed below, but it is vital that we learn to hold these with open hands. Our mission, the message of the cross about our worship, is more about how we faithfully and lovingly engage one another than the particular positions and views we may hold at a given time.

 

Key Texts:

 

  1. The purpose of spiritual gifts
    vv. 22–25

    • The church gathering has a basic goal of experiencing God.

    • This section warns churches against turning their services into lecture halls.
       

  2. The purpose of worship
    vv. 26–33

    • The church gathering has a basic goal of instruction, to inform, educate, and encourage. The goal is to learn without becoming a mere lecture hall.

    • This section warns churches against emphasizing experiencing God so intensely that it results in self-indulgence or mere emotionalism.
        

  3. The inclusivity of Christian worship
    vv. 34–40

    • The original Mosaic sign of the covenant (circumcision) was available only to adult men. Following Jesus’ instruction, the first Christians adopted a more inclusive sign of the covenant, something that anyone could participate in––baptism.

  • 1 Cor. 14:34–6 contains a Corinthian slogan that Paul cites and argues against. When one is aware of the slogan, the text in Greek reads as follows:
     

Corinthians to Paul: “As in all the churches of the saints, the women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak but are subject to 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” vv. 34–5

 

Paul’s response: “What? Was it from you men that the word of God went out? Has it reached only you men?” v. 36

 

 

Bible background: How do we know vv. 34–5 is a Corinthian slogan?

 

         As we saw in 1 Cor. 6:13 and 18, the Corinthians had written responses to Paul which he cited back to them when he disagreed with their teaching and instruction in the Corinthian church. As we consider the evidence, bear in mind that the instruction in this passage is not that women cannot teach or preach but rather a far stronger restriction: “Women are to keep silent,” which includes but is not limited to teaching and preaching. The restriction is to speaking for any purpose whatsoever. With that in mind, we know that 1 Cor. 14:34–5 is a Corinthian slogan by several measures:

 

  1. The NT’s view of prophesying and praying would contradict this instruction, for the NT Gospels detail female prophets and Paul’s own letters encourage women to prophesy and to pray.

  2. If this were Paul’s instruction, then Paul would have contradicted himself within the space of less than a page (1 Cor. 11:5). The issue in Chapter 11 is veiling; that women will in fact pray for and prophesy over others in the church is assumed by him. Furthermore, Paul does not view prophesying and praying in the context of church as significantly distinct from preaching or teaching.

  3. This instruction is severely inconsistent with Paul’s instruction elsewhere: “[T]here is no male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28c).

 

 

These are among the reasons that scholars have long wondered whether 1 Cor. 14:34–5 was ‘added in’ to the original text at a later date. There are a number of resources that discuss these aspects and provide ‘creative outs,’ so to speak, to the difficulty they present when insisting that this passage is Paul’s genuine sentiment. However, there are two further points of severe inconsistency and contradiction that devastates attempts to explain away the above three issues:

 

  1. The appeal to “the Law” –– “[T]hey are not permitted so speak… as the Law also says” –– can be found absolutely nowhere in the Law, nor in the entire OT for that matter. There is no Pauline scholar who believes that Paul would make up OT laws that don’t exist, nor that a Pharisee raised to memorize the OT could make so grievous an error as to attribute a text that doesn’t exist to “the Law.”

 

  1. Paul never––ever––cites “the Law” as a basis for action. In fact, Paul emphatically rejects the Law as a basis for action for those in Christ: Rom. 3:28, 6:24, 7:16, 8:2; Gal. 3:11, 13, 4:5, 5:18, and on, and on, and on. This is because Paul’s view, which is also explicitly stated in this same Corinthian letter, is that “[T]he Law is the power of sin” (1 Cor. 15:56b). Paul always––literally, always––rejects “the Law” as the basis for an action and consistently appeals instead to Jesus as the basis for a given action.

 

When we look closer at the Greek text, we find that grammatically there is a logical disjunctive (Gr., ἢ) at the beginning of 14:36 that most translations render as “or,” though it has a much broader semantic range. Second, the terms translated “only you” (Gr., ὑμᾶς μόνους) are specifically masculine where Paul had the choice between masculine, feminine, or neuter. In other words, the grammar alone shows that Paul is purposely ‘disjoining’ himself from the prior statement and, furthermore, Paul is explicitly addressing the claims of the men in the Corinthian church––i.e., “Is it from you men that the word of God went out? Has it only come to you men?” (1 Cor. 14:36). Collectively, this is how we know Paul is citing and responding to the claims of the men within the Corinthian church, who expected Christian gatherings and worship to abide by the customs and norms of broader Greco-Roman culture.

 

Key Idea:

 

        The cross’ message about worship is that Christian gatherings have specific goals for us to accomplish in knowing God, worshiping God, including others who are normally or often ostracized and outcast, and especially in our loving and caring attitude toward others with whom we may disagree. When we worship in such an inclusive manner, emphasizing the things we all share in Christ, using our spiritual gifting(s) to bless and encourage one another, we have come to the true worship and enjoyment of Christian worship and fellowship.