1 Corinthians 14:6-19
Introduction
I once heard a story about a pastor challenging their congregation about the next generation of their church. The pastor asked them, how many of them would be willing to give up their lives if it meant that their children and grandchildren would follow Jesus. Almost everyone put up their hand. Then the pastor asked them, how many of them would be willing to give up the music they enjoy in church if it meant that their children and grandchildren would follow Jesus. Far fewer hands went up. Dying for our children is one thing, giving up my music, that is going too far.
One of the most divisive topics for many churches has been the style of worship, and by that, we really mean the style of music. There are people with strong feelings on all sides. There are those who hate any music newer than one hundred years old and those who hate music older than five years old.
Many times I have heard people complain that they did not get anything out of worship. Some people have left congregations because that worship was just not for them. There is an assumption being made in those complaints. The assumption is that the primary audience for worship is us as individuals and the value of worship is based on how much we personally enjoyed it.
I want to make something clear. It is not wrong to have personal preferences about worship styles, including music. I have my own personal preferences. The mistake that is made is that worship’s main purpose is to be personally entertaining.
What is the purpose of worship? It is to declare the glory of God and to give thanks to God for all he has done. God is the audience. There is no support in the Bible for worshiping needing to be enjoyable to the individual. Can you imagine an Israelite sacrificing a sheep at the temple and complaining that they did not get anything out of worship? We can completely hate the style of music and yet if we choose to worship God, that is real worship. In some ways, it may be more meaningful worship than if it was something we enjoyed.
Worship is aimed primarily at God and that should guide all of our discussions of worship. But there is another principle that is expressed in the Bible. While we can worship by ourselves, and there is evidence of this in the Scriptures, there is also the principle of corporate worship. Something special happens when followers of Jesus choose to come together and join their voices in worship of our God. But that is where the problems start. “Where two or three people are gathered together in my name, there will be two or three opinions of what worship should look like.” How do we sort through this? You may be surprised to discover that the worship wars did not start with the introduction of chorus in the 1970s and 80s. It goes back all the way to the first century and it is something that Paul addressed directly.
Prophecy and Tongues
Now the worship war in Corinth is a bit different from what we see today and it will require some explanation. In this chapter, Paul focuses on the the role of prophecy and speaking tongues, things that Baptist churches are not known for. We need to understand what Paul was talking about here to understand the principles behind it.
We often think of prophecy as predictions about the future. For many people, the first name that comes to mind is that of Nostradamus. For many Christians, they equate prophecy with predictions about details surrounding the end times. None of that is what Paul is talking about here. In the Old Testament, prophecy is more often forth telling than foretelling, meaning the purpose was to get the people on the right track rather than to tell them about the future. In the New Testament, it would be something similar. It would be more than a sermon, it was usually a word of encouragement or rebuke given to a person by God to share with the community for the sake of the community.
Speaking in tongues is a bit more confusing. There is some debate as to whether it was an actual human but foreign language or if it was an ecstatic or heavenly language. The point was that when a person was speaking in tongues, no one knew what they were saying. Paul is not critical of speaking in tongues as he admits to practicing this spiritual gift himself. The person speaking in tongues would receive a personal blessing through this spiritual connection. It was a good thing. But it would not benefit others unless there was someone present with the spiritual gift of interpretation. When there was both tongues and interpretation, it was then almost equivalent to prophecy.
The most prominent group at Corinth valued speaking in tongues over all other spiritual gifts. They would speak in tongues during the worship service and rejoiced in this because it was personally edifying to them. Without dismissing the value of tongues, Paul corrects them by comparing tongues to prophecy. While tongues was personally edifying, prophecy was something that built up the entire congregation because everyone could understand the word of encouragement.
Here is the bottom line that Paul is trying to get across. Christian worship is not just about what you personally get out of the experience. More important than your experience is the blessing enjoyed by the entire congregation. Going back to 1 Corinthians 12, it is not about the member, it is about the body.
Blessing the Church
Most often, at least in Baptist churches, the issue is not about the relative values of prophecy and speaking in tongues. What Paul has to say here is directly relevant to the ongoing discussions about the styles of worship and music. Paul would tell each of us that worship is not primarily or even secondarily about our personal experience. If we could embrace this, the worship wars would completely cease.
However, I would like to suggest that this is much deeper than just what music we enjoy or other styles of worship we prefer. Really, the principle that Paul is teaching goes to the core of how we do church. What is the point of church? Not just the church event but the group of people we call a church?
We get this snapshot in Acts:
All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2:44-47)
Looking at that description of the church, try to imagine the phenomenon of what we call today “church shopping.” Church shopping is to quest to find the right kind of the church that is best for my personal needs. But the picture we get of the early church is more about what is best for the church community as a whole. The spiritual and physical needs are met for the community. And those needs are not met by a pastor or other leader but by the community itself. It was a radical community that loved God and loved each other. Obviously from what we read in 1 Corinthians, as well as elsewhere in Acts, they had their struggles, but what we read here is the ideal for us to aim toward.
Imagine every Christian community today made this the focus rather than the consumer mindset that is prevalent today. Imagine if our priority was always what was best for the community of believers and not what we wanted personally?
Conclusion
We need to remember that we bring to our church experience our personality, experiences, convictions, and preferences. Because we are human, we are going to want what we personally like to be the focus of what we do as a church. We just have to admit it.
But just because those are the temptations that we experience does not mean that those tendencies have to shape the way we are the church. What if our blueprint for church was what Paul wrote to the Philippians:
“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” (Philippians 2:1-4)
