Lesson #20

1CORINTHIANS 14
Lesson #20
USING YOUR SUPERNATURAL, SPIRITUAL GIFTS

• Memory verse: 1Cor 14:40

• Now that Paul has given us the list of supernatural, spiritual gifts in 1Cor 12, and has sprinkled them with agape love in 1Cor 13, we are ready to learn how to use these gifts in the church.
• A review of the list of supernatural, spiritual gifts:
• =1= Word of Wisdom
• =2= Word of Knowledge
• =3= Faith
• =4= Gifts of Healing
• =5= Gift of Miracles
• =6= Gift of Prophecy
• =7= Discerning of Spirits
• =8= Diverse Tongues
• =9= Interpretation of Tongues

• Orientation:
• We can best understand this chapter if we divide the gift of speaking in tongues into 3 categories referenced in 1Cor 14.
• =1= Speaking in tongues in prayer to God. (2,4,5,13-18)
• This form of speaking in tongues is a prayer language that communicates with God “spiritual mysteries”. (14) What are spiritual mysteries?
• Read Rom 8:26-27
• There are times when we are impressed to pray for something or someone, but we do not have all the facts concerning the situation.
• Because the Holy Spirit knows the perfect will of God, the Father, He knows best how we are to pray. Therefore, the Spirit prays through the believer when the believer prays in tongues.
• Praying in tongues does not automatically benefit the individual with understanding, because he does not understand what he is praying. (14)
• =2= Speaking in tongues to give a message in the church. (5, 6, 9, 12,23,26-28)
• In this aspect of speaking in tongues, there needs to be present someone who has the gift of interpretation of tongues to make the message complete. With the two gifts present the church understands the message and is edified by it.
• Without the gift of interpretation, the gift of tongues should not be used in the church.
• =3= Speaking in another earthly language (tongues) that the speaker did not learn, but that the hearer learned and can understand. (21-22) This is what happened on the day of Pentecost. (Act 2)
• Notice that with this aspect of the gift of tongues there is understanding by someone in the congregation that understands that language.

• Read 1Cor 14:1-14

• “Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts…”

(1)

• Spiritual gifts follow agape love.
• When the believer has developed agape love in his life, the welfare of the body of Christ is important to him. Then the Holy Spirit begins to initiate the gifts.
• What does Paul say is the “best” of the supernatural spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit?
• The gift of prophecy is the “best” supernatural spiritual gift. (1, 5) Why?
• The gift of prophecy is a more complete gift than the gift of speaking in tongues because its message is more fully understood by more people and ministers to more people. It contributes to the building up of the whole body of Christ.
• The gift of tongues seems to be half a gift and the gift of interpretation of tongues is the other half of the gift. Together these two gifts are equal to the gift of prophecy.
• Paul says that he desired that every believer would speak in tongues and that every believer would prophesy. (5)
• It will help us to understand Paul’s meaning if we contrast the three gifts that Paul discusses in this chapter.

 

	The Gift of Prophecy in the Church	The Gif of Speaking in Tongues			The Gift of Interpretation of Tongues
		In Personal Prayer	Outside the Church	In the Church
Who receives the message?	Men (3)	God (2, 28-29)	Non-believer (11, 21)	Believers (22)	Believers (5)
The nature of the message	Edification (3) Exhortation Comfort	Spiritual Mysteries (2)	The crucified and resurrected Christ (21) (Act 2)	Words that edify the congregation (25)	Words that edify the congregation (25)
The purpose of the message	To edify the church (5)	To edify himself (4)	To bring people to salvation (25)	To edify the church (5, 12-13)	To edify the church (5, 12-13)
The gift is a sign to whom?	Believers (22, 41)		To Non-believers (22, 25)	Believers (22)	Believers (26)
				These two gifts together equal the gift of prophecy

• Purpose and order combined with love are important essentials in the use of spiritual gifts in the church.
• From Paul’s comments in this passage, there were evidently people in the Corinthian church that were abusing the gift of speaking in tongues. In what ways can this gift be abused?
• Abuse occurs if a person speaks in tongues in the church where there is no interpretation of the tongues.
• The body of Christ profits from the gift of tongues only if there is an interpretation of tongues. (6)
• Revelation, knowledge, prophesies, and doctrine will edify the body of Christ because they can be understood by everyone.
• A spiritual prayer language without interpretation in the church does not edify the believers.
• Paul’s examples: (7-11)
• Musical tones without some kind of order are simply noise.
• A trumpet call that calls soldiers to battle will not bring the soldiers to order if the correct tones are nor played in their proper order.
• A person that speaks in tongues without an interpretation is like someone speaking a foreign language that no one can understand.
• Paul’s remedy for this abuse of speaking in tongues in the church: (12)
• Those believers that desire spiritual gifts, should consider the importance of edifying the congregation of believers:
• –by giving messages of prophecy.
• –by giving messages in tongues and then asking God for the gift of interpretation.
• This passage tells us specifically that a believer who speaks in tongues can and should ask God for the interpretation of his words.
• God desires order in the congregation.
• God desires edification in the congregation.
• Therefore, God will give an interpretation to a receptive believer.

• Read 1Cor 14:15-20
• Those things that are permitted in the church:
• Praying in tongues (in the Spirit)
• Praying with understanding. In other words, in the words of your native language.
• Singing in tongues (in the Spirit)
• Singing with words of your own language.
• While all these things are permitted in the church, there should be an interpretation of the tongues so that non-believers and those people that know nothing of spiritual gifts will understand the words spoken.

• “Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?”

(16)

• Paul says that if there is public prayer in tongues in the church, without an interpretation, the non believer will think that believers are crazy.
• The other believers will not understand the prayer so as to agree in unity with the prayer. They will say amen (so be it) without understanding with what they agree.
• Therefore, there is more power in public prayer through church unity if the believer prays in his own language so all can understand and agree to the petition.
• Notice Paul says that the believer should remain silent in the church to pray in tongues to himself if there is no interpretation of tongues. (28)
• Read 1Cor 14:21-25
• An Old Testament prophecy:
• Paul quotes from the Old Testament that God will use people of other languages to speak to His people, the Jews, but that they would not listen even though they understood the words of the language.
• Read Isa 28:11-12
• Therefore, speaking in tongues was a sign to the non-believer that the power and presence of God was there.
• When was this prophecy fulfilled?
• On the day of Pentecost God reached many people of different languages. These people were in Jerusalem for the Passover celebration.
• When they heard the disciple’s speaking in tongues after the Holy Spirit filled them in the upper room, three thousand people came to believe in Jesus Christ. (Act 2:41)

• Read 1Cor 14:26-33 Order in the worship service
• There can be many messages in various forms in the church service. (26)
• A psalm
• A doctrine
• A message in tongues
• A revelation
• An interpretation of tongues
• However, everything must be done in order, without everyone speaking at the same time.
• If there are messages in tongues, there should not be more than three messages with an interpretation.
• If there are prophetic messages, there should be only two or three messages.
• Notice that Paul says that other believers in the church are to judge as to the validity of the message. How must we do that?
• All messages must conform to the Word of God.
• All messages must conform to basic Christian doctrine.
• All messages must conform to the character of Jesus Christ revealed to us by the apostles.
• If there is any disagreement with a message, another should explain the truth from the Word of God. The person that gave the message should remain quiet. There must be no arguing in the church.
• Summary:
• Evaluation of the three gifts: Prophecy, Tongues, and Interpretation of Tongues
• Prophecy:
• Prophecy is the best gift because believers and non-believers can understand the words.
• This gift edifies the church.
• A sign to believers that God’s presence is active.
• Speaking in Tongues with Interpretation of Tongues:
• The two gifts equal the gift of prophesy.
• The gift of tongues is valuable for personal prayer.
• Paul said he spoke in tongues more than any of them. He obviously meant in personal and private prayer, otherwise if he spoke in tongues in church, they would have known it without him telling them.
• This is a valuable gift for a message to foreign non-believers if the message is in their language like the day of Pentecost.
• A sign of God’s presence to non-believers.
• Valuable for a message in the church only if it is accompanied by the gift of interpretation.
• Without interpretation, the gift of tongues in the church is out of order.
• A sign of God’s presence to believers.
• The supernatural gifts are subject to control by the believer. (32)
• In other words, the Holy Spirit does not force a believer to speak a prophetic message or to give a message in tongues. The believer remains in control of his mind and body.
• Read 1Cor 14:36-40
• Paul emphasizes the thought that the gifts come from God. They do not originate in the believer. The believer is only the messenger. (36)
• Therefore, what Paul has told us in this chapter about the gifts are commands from God.
• Paul’s final admonition is to seek the gift of prophecy, but not to forbid the speaking in tongues in the church as long as it is done in order with interpretation.
• The underlying principle for the use of supernatural spiritual gifts is order for the purpose of edifying the church. The gift is not to call attention to the gift or to the person that has that gift.
• All the gifts are to call attention to Jesus Christ and to build up the body of Christ.
• Why did Paul spend so much time talking about speaking in tongues?
• Pagan rituals in the Greek culture had ecstatic mutterings that indicated some spiritual dimension was present. However, the source of the pagan religion was Satan, not God.
• This is the reason we see a lot of discussion about the topic of speaking in tongues in 1Cor. However, we do not see very much mention of it in the book of Acts or in Paul’s letters to other churches in the New Testament. (Act 2 Act 10:46 Act 19:6)
• Read 1Cor 14:34-35

• “Let your women keep silence in the churches…”

(34)

• I have left these two verses for the end of our class. They need some explanation because they are so frequently misunderstood and often taken out of context. In that aspect, the denial of gifts given to women has done severe damage to the body of Christ, and raises the following questions:
• Why would God give a woman an obvious speaking gift and then forbid her to use it?
• Why would God restrict women to use only non-speaking gifts?
• This phase in verse 34 has been used in many churches to keep women from using any speaking gift in the church.
• What are the speaking gifts?
• From the list of supernatural spiritual gifts, we have the following gifts that require speaking in front of the congregation:
• Prophecy
• Speaking in Tongues
• Interpretation of Tongues
• From the list of administration gifts or leadership positions that require speaking in front of the congregation, we have the following gifts:
• Prophets
• Pastors
• Teachers
• From the list of operations, or motivational gifts that requires speaking in front of the congregation, we have the following gifts:
• Prophecy
• Teaching
• Exhortation
• In order to understand exactly what Paul meant by these words, we need to examine the culture in the Corinthian church.
• In the Corinthian church the men sat on one side of the church and the women sat on the other side of the church. Women did not have the opportunity of education.
• During the church service, the women would yell to their husbands on the other side of the room some question. With this confusion, no one was able to hear or learn anything.
• Therefore, Paul told the women of that church to be silent in the church and to ask their husbands their questions after they arrived home. (35)
• This command to remain silent in the church is not related to the gifts. Instead it is related to peace and order in the church, which is the theme in the last part of the chapter. (40)
• How do we know that Paul did not intend to prohibit women from using spiritual speaking gifts in the church?
• Read Act 21:9 four daughters prophesied.
• Act 18 Priscilla and her husband, Aquila, were teachers with a church in their home. Priscilla was more prominent as a teacher than her husband. She and her husband taught Apollos. (Rom 16:3)
• Act 16 Lydia was a prominent business woman and a prominent leader in the early church. She had a church in her home.
• Paul already taught us in 1Corinthians that men and women are equal under God. (1Cor 7 Gal 3:28)
• Men and women are equally gifted by the Holy Spirit and are free to use those gifts when they are under proper authority. This applies to both women and men.

HOMEWORK
1CORINTHIANS 15:1-34
This is a self-study. Please do not send homework answers to the teacher forcorrection.

• Application of 1Cor 14
• If you follow Paul’s command to desire spiritual gifts, (1Cor 14:1) after following agape love, in what ways can you increase the probability that the Holy Spirit will give you one or more of the gifts? (Read Heb 10:22-25 and Jam 4:8-10)

• Preparation for 1Cor 15:1-34
• Read 1Cor 15:1-11
• In your own words, what is the gospel message?
• Read 1Cor 15:12-34
• What would be the significance if Jesus Christ had not been raised from the dead?

• Memory Verse: 1Cor 15:22