Sunday 25th Jan 09 - "When You Come Together Everyone Has..."

These are my notes from Sunday 25th Jan 09.


I’ve been re-reading a book this week that I first read as a young Christian – it’s called The Radical Christian by Arthur Wallis - written nearly 30 years ago. In it he talks about us being radical as Christians. The word radical comes from the Latin "radix" meaning “root”. He is calling for Christians to get back to the roots of christianity. Really to take the bible and live it out. As we've been looking through Acts, it’s not just to enjoy the great stories of what God does but to help us to get back to the roots and live it out. Being a radical Christian is not about doing things differently but doing them biblically. I once went to a conference on "Radical Church". I might have expected it to be all about new techniques, about doing church differently, - instead it was about getting back to Church as it is in the bible. Radical church is church like it's portrayed in the bible.

I wasn’t here when Ola preached last time, but I hear he talked about God taking us out of our comfort zone. Being a radical Christian takes you out of your comfort zone.


I went to Hope Church Workington last week and Richard preached on exactly the same verse as what I felt God was talking to me about for today - so I’m encouraged. Not just the same passage but the same prophetic burden.

The verse is this. 1 Corinthians 14:26
"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."

Introduction

He starts with. “What then” – it means there’s some kind of summing up of what he's said before. "As a result of what we’ve just been considering what shall we say…"
So, first I want to look briefly at what Paul has been saying before this verse. My main source for much of this is “God’s Empowering Presence” by Fee.

It’s helpful to get this broad picture of what is going wrong at Corinth – it helps us to consider the implications more clearly for ourselves.

Corinth was a major city with a population twice that of Cumbria. It was well known for it’s pagan temples including one to Aphrodite the godess of love where religious prostitution was carried out. Other temples in the region were known for people attending getting into a religious frenzy. So some people in the church would probably have been saved out of that. It was a very different culture to ours.

The church at Corinth had gone off the rails in a number of respects and Paul’s letter is aimed at correcting these things. In particular this was due to a faulty theology. Gordon Fee says this:

“Because of their understanding of speaking in tongues as angelic language, they consider themselves to have already arrived at the ultimate spiritual existence which puts them above this present world”

It was what Fee calls “an over-realised eschatology”. They thought they had already arrived at some advanced spiritual state and to them, the evidence of this was their speaking in tongues so it became the most important thing for them. The result was a number of things that Paul addresses in his letters to the Corinthians


- Their worship was self-centerd
- They are over impressed with spiritual performance so they denigrate Paul as he is not impressive, not very eloquent, he came to them in weakness and fear (Chapter 2:3)
- There is division over whether people should get married
- There is sexual immorality (Chapter 5) and they are proud of it
- There is disorder over communion (people were stuffing themselves and getting drunk) (Ch11;21)
- Their times of meeting together are chaotic.
- There is division (Ch1:10 and others)
- There appears to be no sense of ongoing sanctification

In particular Paul addresses excessive speaking in tongues in the meeting.

Paul addresses the speaking in tongues situation by saying it’s better to prophesy than speak in tongues. Why? Because prophecy is for the benefit of others not for yourself. They were babbling away in tongues, it was a symptom of their selfish behaviour. (not the love that Paul speaks of in the well known passage in chapter 12). So, he says, it’s better to prophesy because then you are building up / strengthening others. If you do speak in tongues it should be interpreted. Why? So others can understand and be built up.

So he hasn’t shut the whole thing down? No – he refocuses them. Only a few tongues at a time and make sure they are interpreted, only a few prophecies at a time and make sure they are weighed. Why? – so we are all built up.

So we get to 1 Cor 14:26 – he has corrected a lot of what is wrong, now he comes to some positive statements this is how to do it …

1. Participation is encouraged

In the face of abuse of spiritual gifts he does not order them to be stopped. In fact he says “everyone has”. It’s not the elite. Every one of us has the potential to contribute when we come together. Whether it’s house group, prayer meeting, or Sunday morning. Paul is eager for spiritual gifts and other contributions from everyone. It's not a limited list. Paul is giving a list of examples.

Roger said when he preached a couple of years ago we are to be participators not spectators.

Some modern evangelical charismatic churches effectively believe in the priesthood of all believers but ministry of the few. Paul’s view priesthood of all, ministry of all.

God Channel focuses very much on the one man ministry

1 Corinthians is not about one man ministry or team ministry but whole church ministry

I don’t think Paul would have seen contributions as getting in the way of worship. He didn’t have a liturgy to say spiritual gifts should only come at one time in the meeting.

Paul appears as interested in the horizontal aspect of coming together as the vertical. In Eph 5:10 speaking to another with psalms hymns spiritual songs. Goes against the grain of western individualism
The tongues babblers were focussing exclusively on the vertical.




2. It’s not about Performance

One thing that Rich said at Hope Church was that we must avoid thinking of our gatherings in terms of how well we perform. We can think of performance in terms of how well we do and also in terms of performance to be watched. We need to be able to make mistakes. It’s very orderly in the graveyard, but there’s not a lot of life! We need to allow room. We can assess our Sundays in terms of performance. How good was the preacher, were we entertained? We can rely too much on the band and the pa, the choice of songs etc. We can have an us and them - The band/the congregation. The preacher/the congregation.


Christianity is not about performance.

It’s possible to set the quality control levels too high! Excellent musicians, Ohp has to be done perfectly etc

My house – church is living stones – lets not put on a render of concrete

At Hope they’re small enough to meet in a circle. This stops us relying on a few people doing things at the front. The synagogue would have been in the round. Danger with our set up is that subtly we rely on the people at the front. We’re stuck with it, but we don’t have to be constricted by it. Bible weeks, conferences are not our model for worship. I remember Terry Virgo saying that he was concerned to see churches of less than a 100-150 doing worship in the Stoneleigh model.

3. Passion - Our Motivation

It’s not just about formula. We don’t do it out of a cold sense of “this is the pattern we have to follow it”. It’s not a set of rules.
We come ready to contribute because we love God and love eachother. If I bring a scripture it’s to glorify God and because I believe others will benefit from hearing it. I pray out not because it’s my duty but because I love God and believe my prayer will help others in their worship. I pray for the sick because I’m compassionate for the ill person and angry with their sickness.

1 Corinthians 14:26 is the outworking when a people passionate for God and who love one another come together.


Come next week ready to contribute, to prayer meetings, to housegroup. If we’re leading something we come prepared. Come prepared even if you’re not leading.


Questions for reflection / housegroup discussion:

- What things most strike you on this subject?

- What are the results if we don't all contribute?

- What things stop us from contributing in meetings?

- What can we do to make positive contributions?