Edification of the Body II

March 16, 2025|Edification of the Body II|1 Corinthians 14:12-25

John-Daniel Cutler

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We are continuing our series through the book of 1st Corinthians. Last week, Will preached from the first part of chapter 14 under the title ‘The Edification of the Body’, this morning we are going to pick up where he left off under the cleverly named title, The Edification of the Body, Part II.

The last verse we looked at last week was verses 12, where Paul says, 12 …since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. 

Seeing how you are so eager or zealous for spiritual things, strive- aim to be; excel- to be pre-eminent (the best at) It seems from the context that many in the Corinthian church were desiring the spiritual gifts that would most elevate themselves or position them to be seen as more spiritual or special than someone else. They were acting so worldly that they had taken a legitimate spiritual gift, the gift of languages (or tongues) and were either abusing it for personal gain or simply using pagan religious babbling and attributing it to the spirit. Paul says, if you are eager for spiritual things, literally the spirit, then you should know that the purpose of manifestations of the spirit are not personal gain or personal recognition, but rather the edification of the body. That’s what you need to be aiming at.

Paul understood that every one of us is aiming at something when we come to church, but not every one of us is aiming at the right thing. I say that with full understanding that the statement I just made, more often than I would like to admit, includes myself. In essence we are talking about our ‘why’.

Many of you know that I am serving as a pastoral implementation coach for this years East Texas Regenesis cohort through the SBTC. This past cohort meeting the trainer and I were trying to get the churches involved to think about the ‘why’ behind the things they are doing as a church. Even within well established churches often times we assume we all have the same ‘why’, but in reality, many times, we simply haven’t given much thought to it. I mean, have you ever thought about why you are a member of this church, why you regular gather with the saints here? When you pull up to the church building, when you take your seat in your Sunday school class, when you come into the worship center and take your seat, do you have a clear aim in mind? A clear purpose for your time here?

There is a saying aim small, miss small. That is if you focus on a smaller, more precise target, even if you miss, your margin of error will be less. I have to admit in both shooting and in church I have often taken the accuracy by volume approach. If we simply do enough stuff or send enough bullets downrange, surely we will hit something. Here in Corinthians Paul calls us to get clarity in what we are aiming at.

Specifically, Paul challenges the Corinthians and us to aim to be the best at building up the church. Today we are going to look at Paul’s explanation of how to do that. How do we strive to excel in building up the church, both as individuals and as a corporate body?

Building up the church is and has been a subject of much thought and writing for some time now. Unfortunately, we don’t always have a clear picture of what that looks like. Often including shallow ways to build a shallow church. Too often building up the church is primarily understood and addressed from the sole or at least primary idea of increasing numbers. Sometimes referred to as the ABC’s of modern church growth. Attendance, Baptisms, and Cash. Now none of those are bad things in and of themselves, we want people to gather in our churches, we want to see people baptized, and it takes money to operate a church as well as impact the world around us through ministry.

But when Paul says building up the church, he is not primarily talking about increasing the number of people who gather in a centralized location.

building up- Strongs- the act of one who promotes another's growth in Christian wisdom, piety, happiness, holiness The- definite article, church is singular

Church- Strongs- in a Christian sense 1) an assembly of Christians gathered for worship in a religious meeting 2)a company of Christian, or of those who, hoping for eternal salvation through Jesus Christ, observe their own religious rites, hold their own religious meetings, and manage their own affairs, according to regulations prescribed for the body for order's sake

Paul’s idea of building up the church is a group of Christians growing in Christian wisdom, piety, happiness, and holiness. It is measured in maturity and health over simply increasing numbers. So how do we strive to build up our church in this way?

I believe Paul gives us four guidelines that will assist us in the fight to excel in building up the church.

Let’s pick up with verse 12 and read through verse 25 together this morning and I think that Paul’s guidelines contained within will be fairly evident to you as we go, but for clarities sake, I will point them out as we go this morning and then we will go back and address each one more significantly.

1 Corinthians 14:12 (ESV)

12 So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.

1 Corinthians 14:13–25 (ESV)

13 Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret. 14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. 15 What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. 16 Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? 17 For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up.

We must embrace both spiritual gifts and spiritual understanding

1 Corinthians 14:13–25 (ESV)

18 I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. 19 Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue. 

We must value corporate clarity over self-centeredness

1 Corinthians 14:13–25 (ESV)

20 Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. 21 In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.” 22 Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers.

We must seek spiritual maturity over experiences

1 Corinthians 14:13–25 (ESV)

23 If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? 24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

We must reveal the gospel with clarity

Let’s go back and look at the first guideline the Apostle gives us.

I. WE MUST EMBRACE BOTH SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND UNDERSTANDING.

In reference to striving to excel at building up the church, Paul says in verse 13, if you are one in the church exercising the gift of tongues, pray that you may interpret. Throughout his treatment of the spiritual gifts, Paul has consistently ranked tongues least, especially as we saw last week in comparing tongues with prophecy. However, we see that at least in the first century church, Paul is not discouraging the right exercise of the spiritual gifts of tongues, rather he is continuing to express the purpose of tongues. If it is as Paul has said and manifestations of the spirit are for the common good and we are to be building the church up through our spiritual gifts, then tongues without interpretation are altogether unhelpful.

Whatever benefit comes from the spiritual experience of tongues, if there is no understanding, there is no fruit. 14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. Unfruitful- That is, it is not producing anything of benefit. With this, Paul introduces a tension. He has told us to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, but he has also told us that our highest aim is to be the edification or building up of the church. If the way our spiritual gift is being expressed is not producing fruit, what should we do? Rather than ignoring the tension, in verse 15 Paul brings it to the forefront. What am I to do?

Paul gives two actions for us to consider where the tension may be felt. If I pray and if I sing. Whether I am praying to God or singing praises to God. He says, I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also. What does Paul mean when he says my spirit and my mind? What contrast is he drawing? R.C. Sproul says we should not read spirit vs mind as two distinct parts of man, rather we should understand Paul as saying when I exercise my spiritual gift, my mind should be included as well. Or also, that is in addition to. It is not either/or but both/and. As Will pointed out last week, it seems the Corinthians were imitating the pagan religions around them by seeking out of body experiences. In the pagan religions around them the commonly held thought was whether through rituals or ingesting certain things, you could enter a trance like state where your mind left your body and you joined with the god you were worshipping and you lost complete control of your body, resulting in incoherent babbling and in many cases rampant sexual promiscuity. To engage in spiritual worship at the highest level then was seen as a complete divorce of the mind from the body. Paul wants the Corinthians to understand, this is not genuine worship of the one true God and it has no place in the Christian assembly.

In contrast, our gatherings are not designed for the individual to experience spiritual ecstasy or an out of body individualistic experience, rather our gatherings are designed around mutual benefit and mutual understanding.

Why?

Because individual spiritual experiences and expressions apart from a mutual understanding excludes those around you from participating.

Look at verse 16 and 17. 16 Otherwise, that is, if you are not embracing both the spiritual and mental understanding in the way that you are participating, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? 17 For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up.

If you are claiming to be praying in the Spirit or singing in the Spirit, and you are not speaking or singing in an understandable way, how can those around you benefit from that? Specifically, Paul says how can they say ‘Amen’, when they do not know what you are saying. Amen is an interesting word. It was transliterated from the Hebrew (aw-mane') into the greek (am-ane') and then into English (‘ey-men’ or ‘ay-men’)

It’s literal definition and usage in the Old Testament was very similar to the meaning and way it is used today. The Israelites were commanded in Deuteronomy when they came into the promised land to stand between two mountains and the levites would pronounce the cursings and blessings of their covenant with God. After each curse was read by the levites, the people were commanded to respond ‘amen’ or ‘so be it’. This became a common expression from then on within the covenant community of Israel as we see in 1 Chronicles 16, when David leads the nation in worship as the ark of the covenant is brought into the tent prepared for it. He concludes his prayer of thanksgiving with, ‘Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting!” Then all the people said, “Amen!” and praised the LORD.

It is a way that the people participate in what has been said or prayed or sang. This continued into the synagogues and into the early church and was adopted by the gentile Christians as part of their worship.

All that to say, what Paul says, is if you do not exercise the spiritual gifts in ways that bring understanding, how can anyone truly participate in what is being done outside of the individual doing it, and if they cannot participate, they are not being built up.

As Will highlighted last week, this particular issue is not something our church struggles with, but without a doubt, with the establishment of the Pentecostal movement and its subsequent growth from the 19th century, this issue is alive and well within the charismatic movement today. On any given Sunday there are gatherings around the world where everyone is speaking in tongues, being slain in the spirit, running around drunk in the spirit and all that other unbiblical non-sense that directly contradicts Paul’s clear teaching here in 1st Corinthians.

But, that does not mean we cannot learn from Paul’s rebuke of the Corinthian church or apply it here. Any spiritual gift we exercise that is not joined with understanding is not being exercised in the way God has intended. A teacher with the gift of wisdom or knowledge that does not seek to connect God’s word to the people he is teaching in a way that brings understanding, may well be spiritual but he is not being fruitful. Teachers and leaders, are you more concerned with showing off your understanding and grasp of God’s word, or connecting the truths within to those you are teaching? Those with the spiritual gift of discernment, are you more interested in showing how spiritually mature you are or are you genuinely concerned that a brother or sister is being led astray by a false teacher?

How you exercise your spiritual gift within the church matters. We must embrace both spiritual gifts and spiritual understanding if we are going to exercise our girts in a way that builds up our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. The second guideline Paul gives us is that we must…

II. WE MUST VALUE CORPORATE CLARITY OVER SELF-CENTEREDNESS.

Lest anyone misunderstand and say, but wait Paul, don’t you speak in tongues. Why are you being so hard on us who are desiring this gift?

Paul values the gift of tongues, when it is rightly expressed and in the right purposes. He says, I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. What is interesting is that we have no record in the New Testament of Paul exercising the gift of tongues and yet he says that he speaks in tongues more than anyone in the Corinthian church. This implies two things for us.

One, in the book of Acts when Luke says that…

Acts 14:3 (ESV) 3 So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

We can rightly assume then that as Paul encountered gentiles who spoke different languages that one of the signs and wonders God worked through him was the miraculous gift of languages so that the word of God would continue to spread.

Two, that Paul didn’t think it was important enough to record the details of the miracles, which is consistent with what he has been teaching the corinthian church in regards to the gift of tongues. The gift itself is not the focus, but rather how God uses the gift to bring knowledge and understanding of who He is and what He has done in and through Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son. So Paul both acknowledges that he has the gift of tongues as well as expresses gratitude to God for the gift, but, notice what he says.

Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue. One interesting thing to note is Paul is not simply making a comparison of one being more valuable than another when he compares five intelligible, helpful words to ten thousand unintelligible and therefore unhelpful words. In Greek, ten thousand was the largest named number, representing countless or an innumerable amount. In fact, the same word is translated in 1 Corinthians 4 as ‘countless’.

Don’t miss this. Paul is saying there is no comparison between five words spoken in church with clarity and purpose than an infinite number of words spoken in a church that are spoken for the benefit of the speaker alone. Remember this is the same Paul whose letters often include sentences in the Greek that read more like paragraphs than sentences.

Notice also, Paul specifically addresses the context. In church. This is going to set up what else he has to say about tongues later in our text, but for now, for our purposes notice that he is dealing with the corporate nature of the church. Even if you think, like many Charismatics do, that Corinthians teaches that there is a divine prayer language or a divine devotional language that somehow connects you spiritually to God, Paul says, the public gathering is not the place for it.

Why?

Because the public gathering is not about the individual experience, but the corporate one.

If this goes for the exercising of spiritual gifts, how much more does it apply to personal preferences?

We have had brothers and sisters leave our fellowship for the most ridiculous and selfish reasons, and I don’t say that to put them down, but to highlight the fact that for many of us, we have completely missed the point of the gathering. We have become so consumed with our personal experience that we completely neglect to think about the corporate nature if the gathering.

Everything we do together and how we do it, what we sing, what we display, it all communicates something. Maybe you have never thought about it like that, but it is true. So how do we determine what to do together, as your pastor, how do I make leadership decisions concerning the corporate gathering?

Too often, over the last 40 years or so, in the church we have started with questions like ‘what do people want in a worship experience?’ and then tailored our church around perceived preferences and desires. But rather than asking what I want or what you want, we ought to be asking, ‘how does this produce corporate clarity in the church gathering.?’

Our desire ought to be that, to the best of our ability, we are clearly proclaiming the message of Christ in everything we do. Now, it is an obvious truth that not everyone in our church has agreed with all the decisions I have made in our church as your pastor, and over the course of the last almost four years, I am sure that I have just about upset every person here in some way or another. What I pray that you will see this morning is there is a reason for the way I am trying to lead you, and it is not personal preference but rather a desire that the public gathering brings corporate clarity.

I debated getting specific here, but I do think it will be helpful to address a few of those decisions this morning. One question that is often asked either to me or to others about me, is why don’t we have special singing? That is why doesn’t our choir or individual members of our church ever sing a special song for the church.

Very simply, I don’t think there should be anything in our public gathering that every asks you as a participant to become simply a spectator. Is eliminating them altogether the best way to ensure that this doesn’t happen? Maybe, maybe not. Marcus and I have spent a lot of time talking through this from a theological and biblical standpoint. I have talked to pastor friends about it and I am still not sure if there is a way to incorporate them into the Sunday morning gathering in a way that promotes the corporate experience over the individual one. But in an effort to focus us on the corporate experience over individual ones, we have chosen to not have them right now.

Another question that has come up , not to me, but indirectly a few times, is where are the flags? While the discussion around this topic is inherently a long one and one with multiple viewpoints, ultimately and especially in todays overly combative political climate, I think to avoid confusion over where our ultimate loyalties are as citizens of heaven, it is better for us not to have them displayed in the worship gathering. Don’t hear what I am not saying. I love America, I am so grateful that God, in his sovereignty chose for me to be born here, free to worship according to my conscience and convictions. I will humbly and gratefully stand for the pledge and for the national anthem. But when we gather weekly, we ought to be reminded that no matter where we were born or what nation we belong to, we share a higher citizenship with all those across the world who name the name of Christ. I think flags and pledges in the church confuses rather than clarifies that.

While we may disagree on my conclusions, I pray that you see the heart behind them is not one of personal preference but of corporate clarity. I want everything we do to communicate clearly that Jesus is Lord, we are his people, and there is no other name by which we must be saved.

In the end, I would rather sing five words that are biblical and corporate with only what accompaniment that enhanced the singing of the saints than a thousand that produced emotional responses or were drowned out by instruments and special singers.

In the end, I would rather worship in a plain white room than to decorate it with a thousand things that could potentially create confusion on our role as a gathered body.

If we are going to build the body up corporately we must value corporate clarity over self-centered preferences and expressions.

III. WE MUST SEEK SPIRITUAL MATURITY OVER EXPERIENCES.

In many ways and at many times, Paul’s message to the various churches he writes is ‘grow up’. As Christians, our lives should be marked by an increasing maturity in the Lord. The Corinthian church was so consumed with spiritual experiences, they were not only not maturing, they were actually hindering others from maturing as well, possibly even harming them in the process.

Paul says this kind of thinking is childish which points us back to what he said in chapter 13. 1 Corinthians 13:11 (ESV) 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

The Corinthian’s use, rather misuse of spiritual gifts and self-centeredness was, one childish, but two harmful, or as Paul calls it, evil. Paul says, I want you to flip that. I want you to be mature in your thinking and infants, babies, in regards to evil. Paul points out that what is driving all of the division and harm in the Corinthian church is a lack of mature thinking. They were not thinking through the purpose of their gathering, they were not thinking through the ways their personal expressions of worship were affecting those around them in the church, they were not thinking through their spiritual gifts and how they should be using them to bring understanding, not confusion.

They seemed to be measuring their spirituality based on what experiences they were having, not on how maturely they were thinking. Let’s address Paul’s specific instruction to them concerning tongues and then try to apply it to our church.

Paul first tells them that they are not thinking maturely about things, specifically, we know that in this section he is dealing with the issue of tongues.

So he goes to the Old Testament and quotes from the prophet Isaiah, but also an idea that is expressed elsewhere, such as in Deuteronomy 28 that God warns the nation of Israel that languages they do not understand will be evidence of his judgment on them. Paul’s application of this warning, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is not a one to one. Specifically in these passages God is warning his people that when they rebel against him, nations of foreigners will overtake them and when they hear languages they do not understand, it will be a sign of his judgement on them. Paul says, therefore, unknown languages are a sign for unbelievers, not believers. What did Paul base this on or where did Paul draw inspiration from for this interpretation? A quick look at Acts chapter 2 shows us where he may have made the connection.

At Pentecost, we are told that the disciples began to speak in other tongues. This seems like a clear pouring out of the spiritual gift of tongues. In the crowd, many heard their own languages, but others who couldn’t understand said they were drunk or filled with new wine. God was speaking through the Jewish disciples by strange tongues or the lips of foreigners and as Isaiah said, some did not listen to him. This was the sign that God’s kingdom had come on earth and it would include men and women from every nation. The Jews had rejected the Messiah and as unbelievers, they stood in judgment.

What is Paul’s point?

Strange languages and tongues are not a sign for believers, but unbelievers. Even at Pentecost, God did not use tongues to communicate the gospel, but rather he used Peter speaking clearly to the crowds, declaring Christ, as the means by which some 3,000 were saved.

What we need, as believers in the church, is not miraculous and unintelligible speech, but the clear proclamation of God’s truth. This is what will build up the body, not spiritual experiences.

Therefore, if we want our church to grow in maturity, if we want, as Christians to mature in the likeness of Christ, what do we desperately need? The Word of God clearly proclaimed over spiritual experiences. For many today, their measure of the value from the gathering is how did it make them feel, or whether they were moved emotionally. Friends, emotions are helpful and useful in many ways and are absolutely a part of genuine worship, but they are not the primary thing. If you get emotional singing a theologically sound and biblical psalm, hymn, or song, awesome, praise God, but that is not the most important thing. If the sermon moves you emotionally, praise the Lord, but that is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that you receive that which Paul says will help you grow and mature in Christ.

But what about the non-believers among us? How do we strive to build up the body in terms of non-believers who gather with us on the Lord’s Day?

Paul shows us rather than try and design emotional experiences to move them, rather than try to adapt our services to be seeker-sensitive, or whatever other popular terminology is used, we ought to do the things we are called to do together in a way that speaks clearly.

Let’s look at his final guideline this morning.

IV. WE MUST REVEAL THE GOSPEL WITH CLARITY.

Paul asks them to think about the logical outcome of the way they are gathering right now. They are so worried about having the spiritual gifts that look and sound impressive, they have turned the gathering of the church into an opportunity to try and elevate themselves. Paul says, okay, imagine it. Imagine you are there together with the body and everyone is speaking in tongues, everyone is primarily focused on exercising their gift in their way and someone who doesn’t belong to the church or an unbeliever comes in to the gathering, will they not conclude that you are out of your minds?

By the way, if you have ever watched a Charismatic service where people are being slain in the spirit, running and jumping around, speaking in tongues, and being drunk in the Spirit, you know exactly what Paul means. If when you gather, you value spiritual expressions over understanding, if you value yourself over the corporate body, if you seek emotionalism over maturity, then you have completely obscured the gospel to the point that an outsider or unbeliever cannot even understand.

But, if all prophesy. Now Paul does not mean that literally everyone prophecy. We know this because he said earlier, are all prophets, of course not, but he is building on what he said about prophecy being greater than tongues. Earlier in chapter 14 he says, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation, and the one who prophesies builds up the church. I think he is continuing to help the Corinthian church to see, the purpose of spiritual gifts is not to confuse the gospel, but to clarify it.

If an unbeliever comes into the gathering and everyone is speaking, singing, and affirming the truth together, if God’s word is at the center of what they are doing, then he says, the unbeliever will be convicted by all and they will be called to account by all.

In John 16:7–8 Jesus says that the role of the Holy Spirit in the world will be to convict. “7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:”

Paul says two things will happen in the gathering when God’s people speak the truth together in the gathering. An unbeliever will be convicted by all and called into account by all.

Convicted- often translated exposed or rebuked Called to account- is the idea of being examined so that the hidden part of his heart is made evident and so falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

Do you see what he is saying? When the Spirit operates within the body of Christ, through individual manifestations of the Spirit used for the corporate building up of the church, the result will be that the Spirit will use that clear proclamation of the truth to expose and examine the sinners heart, revealing to them the depth of their depravity and their desperate need for a savior.

When we unite around the gospel. When we both hold it to be true and we sing it together and we pray it together and we read it together and we sit under the preaching of it, we are all participating in the clear presentation of the gospel.

This is how we build the church up both in maturing one another and corporately displaying the gospel to unbelievers so they may be convicted by the truth and come to a saving knowledge of Christ Jesus.

Paul tells us we should be striving to excel at building up the church. This is our ‘why’ as we live out meaningful membership in this local body as a ‘covenant family pursuing Christ in community.’

He then goes on to give us four guidelines, that we have states as four imperatives.

I. We must embrace both spiritual gifts and spiritual understanding.

II. We must value corporate clarity over self-centeredness.

III. We must seek spiritual maturity over experiences

IV. We must reveal the gospel with clarity

If we want to see our church built up the way God calls us to be then these are the Biblical guidelines we must not only understand but grab ahold of as we strive to excel at building up the church.

If you are a member here, I pray that if you have been unsure of your ‘why’ that today God will give you clarity through his word.

If you are a visitor here and you know the Lord, I pray that God will show you that whether it is here or another bible believing church, that you need to find a body of believers and commit to building it up.

If you are a unbeliever here this morning. If pray that through the truth that we have sung together as a church and through the proclaimed truth of God, you will see that we are united together this morning around a savior that has rescued each one of us from sin and death, that we have been joined to him in life and salvation, not that any of us were worthy of it, but because of God’s great mercy and love. And most importantly, I pray that you know that salvation is available to all those who, having the hidden part of their heart exposed, fall on their face in surrender before the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us pray.