THE KING’S BUSINESS
1138
one else is speaking or wants to speak. I must obey the Spirit, otherwise I will ‘grieve’ Him or ‘quench’ Him.” Paul antic ipates and answers this objection. His answer is decisive, it is this^ “The Spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets,” i.e., to say, the prophets own spirit acted upon by the Spirit of God is subject to the prophets control. If this is not true God would.be “a God of confusion” ; for the Spirit of God operating upon the. spirits of several different believers at the same time, unless they could control their own spirits thus operated upon, several would he talking at once and there would be nothing but confusion in the assembly, and not good but much harm wrought. Paul says, that “God is not a God of con fusion.” On the contrary He is a “God of peace.” It sometimes happens in these days, and apparently happened in Corinth, that people who feel greatly moved by the Spirit allow themselves to do outlandish things in the gathering of God’s people and when expostulated with they say, “I can’t help it, the Spirit so leads me.” Paul words in verse 33 very aptly to their case: “God is not a God of confusion, hut a God of peace.” Paul is here drawing to a close the dis cussion of the disorder in the church in Corinth. “Woman,” i.e,, married women, were taking a place of prominence and even authority that was inconsistent with the place God had assigned to women. Paul’s directions were very simple. “Let the woman (there is good reason, both in the words and from the context, for translat ing it married woman),” says Paul, “keep silence in the church (i. e., in the formal public gatherings of believers.” This does not forbid a woman, even though she is a married woman, giving her testimony for Christ in an informal gathering, when there will be neither undue notoriety nor an assumption of authority over her husband (cf. 1 Tim. 2:12). Neither does it forbid the woman who has the prophetic gift exer- Thursday, December 20. 1 Corinthians 14:3^-36.
12:10; 1 John 4:1-3). It does hot do even in a' gathering of apparently earnest Chris tians to take it for granted that everyone who claims to be speaking in the Holy Spirit is really speaking in the Holy Spirit. There are other spirits besides the Holy Spirit and. these other spirits sometimes control good people, and people claim to speak in the Holy Spirit when it is really some other spirit who is directing them. All this is plainly taught in the Word of God here and elsewhere (cf. 1 John 4:1-3). We take it for granted that if any one speaks in any spirit, it must indeed be the Holy Spirit who is speaking through him. Paul says, no, it may be some other spirit and that we must judge whether it is the Holy Spirit or some other spirit that is speaking through the man. If while one were really speaking in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God suddenly reveals some thing to another sitting by, the one speak ing should “keep silence,” that is he should cease speaking and give place to the other. This is a better rule for conducting a Chris tian service, than “the laws of Parliamen tary Practice.” In this way all would have the opportunity of prophesying (i.e., speak ing out to others what God had spoken to them), “one by one” and in this way there WQuld not be a few teachers and the rest learners, but all would be learners (v. 31; James 3 :1 R. V.) and all would be “com forted” (or, exhorted). They do not seem to have been troubled with “painful pauses” in the church-gatherings in Corinth. The difficulty rather seems to have been that all wanted to speak at once and some found it difficult to get an opportunity to speak at all. The Holy Spirit was present in greater richness and fulness than ordinar- one-man affair. They did not have, a pas tor who did all the talking and teaching. There were many gifts and many were possessed of gifts. Wednesday, December 19 . 1 C orinthians 14 : 31 - 33 . Paul now anticipates the objection that someone might raise, viz., “When the Spirit comes upon me I must speak even if some
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter