Women Silent in Church;
Conclusion to Tongues; 1 Cor. 14:23-34
When the modern Pentecostal
movement began at the turn of the century in 1901 they expected this gift of
tongues to be human languages for the purpose of communicating the gospel in terms
of missionary outreach. It was only after a period of four or five years that
they realized that nobody was speaking legitimate human languages and they
began to come up with rationalizations to explain this
phenomena in terms of prayer languages or devotional languages or
something like that. An interesting side note is that many Pentecostal-Charismatics have been traditionally dispensational. When
we look at the dispensational chart the church age begins fifty days after the
Passover on the day of Pentecost and extends to the Rapture. This is followed
by the seven-year Tribulation period which ends when Jesus Christ returns to
the earth at the second coming and that is followed by the Millennium. We
believe, and what is clear from Scripture, that there is a gradual spiritual
deterioration (actually cycles) down through church history. Then there is some
disagreement among dispensationalists as to whether there is some kind of
end-time apostasy before the Rapture occurs. That is based on the word apostasia [a)postasia] in 2
Thessalonians chapter two, and we believe that is not talking about an end time
apostasy but is another word used for “departure,” for the Rapture. In dispensationalism we see these periods, these cycles,
throughout church history. However in Pentecostalism, because of their use of
Joel 2, what they teach is that there is this deterioration and then there is
this great end-time revival which they equate to the “latter rain.”
This idea of some end-time
revival before Jesus comes back at all, either the Rapture or second coming, is
completely inconsistent with dispensationalism and
completely inconsistent with the truth. That is why there has been a breakdown
among Charismatics in the last thirty years and why
they have been departing from dispensationalism by
the boat load as they finally woke up and realized that this whole idea of this
latter rain, this end-time event that would signal a new revival that must come
before Jesus returns, has a problem. What is the problem with that? If anything
has to happen before Jesus returns you don’t have an imminent Rapture. What
happens in churches that believe in the continuation practice of tongues is
that they completely fall apart when it comes to the regulations that are given
here in 1 Corinthians 14.
The rest of the chapter is
not too difficult, it is rather simple, it is much
more practical as Paul addresses issues in the congregation. He wants to drive
home the point in verses 26-40 that he has established in the first 25 verses,
that is, the priority and significance of edification, spiritual growth.
Technically this is referred to as the strengthening of our soul by Bible
doctrine. The only way we can learn Bible doctrine is by understanding
doctrine, and the only way we can understand it is first of all through the
teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit but we have to be able to understand
the words of the man who is teaching the Scripture. If he is just standing up
and speaking gibberish, or if he is speaking in a legitimate language that you
do not understand, then it is meaningless and has no value. It is a complete
distraction to any kind of learning or any kind of spiritual growth unless
there is a translation. Once there is a translation, then the utterance has
meaning and significance.
Paul is emphasizing that in prophecy, that is the giving of revelation in a language
that is understood, it speaks to “men for edification and exhortation and
consolation,” v. 3. However, the person who speaks in a tongue, v. 4 edifies
himself, and that is sarcasm. If it is not sarcasm then he is saying that it is
legitimate for a spiritual gift to function in terms of self-edification and
that violates the purpose and definition of the gift.
1
Corinthians 14:26 NASB “What is {the outcome} then,
brethren? When you assemble, each
one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for
edification.” What he is dealing with here is that they would all come together
with something to say and they would all say it, it was a rather disorganized
group as we saw in v. 23. There was a cacophony of blather here as one person
would stand up singing, another would stand up speaking in tongues, another
would stand up with some kind of prophesy or teaching; all kinds of different
things were going on but it was just bedlam in the congregation. We think that
would be absolutely crazy and why would they do something like that? Because of this pagan background of the mystery religions.
So Paul’s conclusion here is “let all things be done for edification.” You
can’t edify the body of Christ if everybody is speaking at the same time and
things are in a state of confusion. This is the theme of this section: that
everything that is done in a church should be done in an orderly, organized
manner. The public assembly of the local church needs to follow certain rules
and regulations to achieve this.
1 Corinthians 14:27 NASB “If anyone speaks in a tongue
[singular], {it should be} by two or at the most three, and {each} in turn, and
one must interpret.” Here we have a use of glossa
in the singular but it is referring to the legitimate use of the gift. Why is
that? Because of the sentence construction. “If
anyone,” talking about a person, singular, “speaks in a language.” A singular
person can only speak in one language at a time, he is
not going to speak in two or three languages at a time. Here there is noun-verb
agreement. The point that Paul makes here is that when the gift was being
legitimately practiced only two and at the most three should ever utilize the
gift in a public assembly, and there must be an interpreter present.
1 Corinthians 14:28 NASB “but if there is no interpreter, he
must keep silent in the church; and let him speak to himself and to God.” Some
people will say, see Paul recognizes that if he is
speaking in tongues he can speak to God. Notice the text: “he must keep silent
in the church; and let him speak to himself and to God.” That means there is
nothing coming out of his mouth. Being silent means mute, no volume, no lips
moving, no tongue moving, nothing coming out of the
mouth. “And let him speak to himself and to God” is an expression of silent
prayer. He is not saying he can speak in tongues as a prayer language. It is
amazing how many people can’t even read English!
1 Corinthians 14:29 NASB “Let two or three prophets speak, and
let the others pass judgment.” Paul now shifts to prophets. The gift of prophecy in the New Testament were similar to the
gift of prophecy in the Old Testament. There has been an attempt by some of the
people in the Vineyard movement, the Signs and Wonders movement, to prove that
the gift of prophecy in the New Testament was a lesser gift than prophecy in
the Old Testament and that therefore they were not subject to the rules and
regulations of prediction, that sometimes they just misunderstood what God
said, they just had these impressions and they blow it sometimes and are not
always accurate. This is just the most absurd thing in the world because it
diminishes the significance of God the Holy Spirit’s work in these gifts.
Furthermore, there is no basis for indicating that prophecy in the New
Testament functioned any differently than prophecy in the Old Testament. It was
a revelatory gift that had to do with communicating something God reveals. Here
Paul is saying that there is a limitation on the prophets as well. Then, “the
others” in this context is talking about the allos
[a)lloj], not the
heteros [e(teroj], which is others of the same kind. The others are other
prophets. The one who spoke may be all screwed up, so when another prophet
speaks the others with the gift of prophecy were responsible to evaluate what
he said, to make sure it was doctrinally correct and that he was indeed
receiving and had received a message from God. There was this basis of
evaluation here, it wasn’t just on the individual’s own authority, there was always a criterion of evaluation.
1 Corinthians 14:30 NASB “But if a revelation is made to
another who is seated, the first one must keep silent.” As soon as the first
one gets done, if there is somebody else with a message the first one needs to
shut up and sit down so that the other person can then speak. In other words,
one person did not dominate the entire worship assembly.
1 Corinthians 14:31 NASB “For you can all prophesy one by one,
so that all may learn and all may be exhorted. The point here is that the
exercise of the gift of prophecy was to be exercised one at a time, not
everybody standing up at the same time with this sort of gibberish and bedlam.
[32] “and the spirits of prophets are subject to
prophets.” Here is the word pneuma
[pneuma] again and here it means a spiritual gift. That means
it should not be understood as the spirits of the prophets but as the spiritual
gifts of the prophets, and they “are subject to prophets” hupotasso [u(potassw], the same word wee find in other passages as being
submitted to Christ or wives being submitted to their husbands. There was an
authority structure here and the other prophets were to oversee the operation
of the gift in the assembly so that a false prophet would not some in. [33]
“for God is not {a God} of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of
the saints.” So here the reason that is given for having order and regulation
does not some out of experience. The authority here that Paul comes up with is
not tradition, not culture, not a matter opinion or Paul’s personal opinion or
prejudices; it is not any human factor. He says that the reason we have order
in the body of Christ goes back to the essence of God. Because God is a God of
order, just look at what He produced in creation. Everything is orderly,
divided into categories, everything is clearly structured. God is a God of order, therefore if we are going to reflect Him in the
public assembly of the church then we should conduct everything with order and
regulation. There should be purpose, meaning and self-discipline. All of these
things are involved in the public worship of the body of Christ. This is the
standard rule for all churches.
1 Corinthians 14:34 NASB “The women are to keep silent in
the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject
themselves, just as the Law also says.” There are some who try to make this
relate to tongues and that is, at least generally, in the context. It also
would apply to prophecy. But it has to do with the fact that primarily in the
congregation the leadership in the congregation in public worship came from the
men. Why? Remember the church is a composite of families. There has been an
attempt ever since the fall for a subversion of male leadership. The Bible
emphasizes male leadership in the home and male leadership in the church. This
has to do with the fact that God has structured reality a certain way. A
congregation for the most part is a collection of families and if you have male
leadership in the home and then you come to the church and there is female
leadership in the church there is tension created, because now your spiritual
authority in church is different from the spiritual authority at home and it
creates a conflict. If you a pastor or a church leader and you start putting
women into key leadership positions in the church what will happen is that you
will feminize the church and it will run off the men. “… as
the Law also says.” In other words, he is arguing that this is a consistent
position in Scripture, not Paul’s personal opinion.
1 Timothy 2:8 NASB “Therefore I want the
men [the male] in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and
dissension.” Here the Greek word for men is aner
[a)nhr], not anthropos [a)nqrwpoj] which would be man in terms of mankind, but here it
is the male. [9] “Likewise, {I want} women to adorn themselves with proper
clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or
costly garments, [10] but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women
making a claim to godliness. [11] A woman must quietly receive instruction with
entire submissiveness.” That is, in submission to the authority of the pastor
who is teaching. [12] “But I do not allow a woman to
teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” In the Greek the
construction is clear. Literally this would be translated: ‘To teach, I do not
permit a woman.’ He is talking about the teaching of doctrine. “…or to have authority over a man.”
1 Corinthians 14:35 NASB “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.” What a profound statement! How counter that is to modern
society. [36] “Was it from you that the word of God {first} went forth? Or has
it come to you only?” In other words, are you going to say today, well that
might have been okay for those people in the first century but not today? In other words, You know
more than God knows? That is the
arrogant position of modern man and modern women. They want to judge the Word
of God. When you contradict the Word of God you are putting yourself in an
arrogant position of judging the Word of God.
1 Corinthians 14:37 NASB “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.” In other words, if you are a prophet and if you
are spiritual you will recognize the truth of what Paul says. [38] “But if
anyone does not recognize [is ignorant]{this,} he is
not recognized [he is to remain ignorant].” He is then therefore to learn. [39]
“Therefore, my brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to
speak in tongues.” The reason he says that is because the gift is still
operational. [40] “But all things must be done properly and in an orderly
manner.” That applies to everything that is done in the local church.