Your Sons & Daughters Shall Prophesy - Prophetic Gifts Today In The New Testament Church

Christ's Continuing Voice in the Church

Church today. Paul is, after all, speaking to God, articulating mysteries of God, edifying himself. All these wonderful activities are highly benefi cial and inspiring-but to the individual alone! Ten thousand glorious words to uplift oneself yield not one puff of uplift for the rest of the Church. Is it possible that all this personal, inward edification was the secret of Paul's outward spiritual success? Perhaps his public ministry was effec tive because his inner spiritual resources were sustained by frequent pri vate devotional prayer in tongues. I believe this to be true while hasten ing to acknowledge Paul's insistence that many spiritual words are useless to others in a church gathering if those words are meaningless. Verse 20. Be mature. We are to be childlike in our innocence and accept ance of the events of life ("a childlike unfamiliarity with evil," Message), but this must not replace our maturity in handling those same events, especially when it comes to worship services. Experience-oriented Chris tians can too easily swap mature, well-exercised intelligence for gullibil ity. We must conclude, then (combining this thought with those from two other verses), that being mature in our worship services means avoiding behavior that is: Signs ofa Mature Approach (verses 20-25) The opening admonition is timely, for many commentators consider this section of the chapter the most difficult in the entire dissertation. Paul wishes to establish an important point: A message from God in a public service in the known language of the people profits Christians and non Christians alike, but unknown tongues, when uninterpreted, bring con fusion to everyone. Verse 21. It is written. Paul likes to strengthen or authenticate his argu ments with Scripture. This approach reminds me of my days as a young man, loading and unloading railroad boxcars for Sunshine Biscuit Com pany. We stacked packages of cookies side by side and layer upon layer; then, every so often, we built a bulkhead with iron bars nailed into the wooden walls. Those barricades served to keep the merchandise from spilling and breaking during the severe jolting that occurred with the abrupt stopping, starting and slamming of cars together. "Proof Scriptures" are to a theological argument what my bulkheads were to securing a load. Here Paul builds his bulkhead, securing his dis • Childish (verse 20) • Mad (verse 23) • Confusing (verse 33)

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