Another one of my friends is going to be getting married sometime in the next month and
In looking at this as I started thinking about some of the weddings that I've done before
What was funny is that before coming to Christ Memorial?
I don't know that I've ever actually conducted a wedding in a church before I had done a wedding on a mountain
I had done a wedding in a bar. I had done a wedding on a ranch
You know in a box with the box with socks. I mean whatever it may be
but one of the things with the different weddings is that
99 times out of a hundred you can almost guarantee
That they're going to want one specific passage read in the wedding, which would be
first Corinthians 13 and
You've got to have the love is patient love is kind love keeps no record of wrongs and some of the couples that are out there are saying
I think we may have to go revisit those a little bit there
But in thinking about it is the funny part about first Corinthians 13 is that it has absolutely nothing to do
with weddings and in reality it has actually nothing to do with
couples whatsoever is that it actually is trying to explain a little bit more
About what we're speaking about the unity of the church from first Corinthians 12 now
I'm not going to be the jerk pastor who tells a married couple. You're not you can't use that passage
It's not technically about weddings and then everybody goes to find somebody else to do their wedding for them
But with it though is when we think of some of those parts of that chapter
When we think what is before the wedding scripture of first Corinthians 13?
We realize why all those random parts are in there
Because it seems so out of context when all we know of it is the wedding scripture
So for example when it says if I speak in the tongues of angels and of men but have not loved, you know
I'm a sounding gong clanging symbol
Because we're looking at first Corinthians 12 talking about having gifts of speaking in tongues of angels
And he's trying to put it in context or to realize that it's not just you can do it
That's great. But are you loving your neighbor as you do so or if I have the gift of prophecy and I can fathom all mysteries
What does that have to do with married couples? Well, no is that realizing is that in chapter 12
Some people had a gift of being able to speak the truth of the present or the future and others were able to give
Wisdom and knowledge so they're trying to explain yes, but
Whatever gift you have are you doing so with love for your neighbor?
Not just trying to be puffed up and prove something to other people if I have a faith that can move mountains
Because in chapter 12 it had said
For those who have faith who have the gift of faith and it sounds strange
Because we may be thinking well wait a minute
Shouldn't we all have the gift of faith? Yes, but it's specifying the idea of faith that can do miraculous things
And then on top of it says love does not dishonor and this idea of being able to point out
that oftentimes in
Especially in the early church, but we still see it sometimes today is that people might try to prove themselves to be more
Spiritual than somebody else and it's almost like trying to honor yourself
by shaming somebody else and
It says when I was a child that thought like a child spoke like a child that reasoned like a child
But when I became a man, you know, I put away childish things and you're like, okay now you just lost me Paul
And that's because in chapter 12
He's trying to let them know that they need to become more mature
They need to think through what it is they're doing and not just try to be excited and try to just have everything be
Whatever seems like fun at the moment
And he's trying to get them to think through things
So trying to understand
chapter 13
Today's passage is needed
But today's passage has a lot to it and one of the things that always struck me whenever I would read chapter 12
Was the idea when it says no one who says Jesus be cursed has the spirit of God
And that's one of the things about this is this idea of
Can Christians say?
Jesus be cursed and you know, that's something that's interesting is how often
Do you feel like you are genuinely being asked by somebody to curse Jesus?
That's not like a normal thing you don't go to Starbucks and give them your Starbucks points and they say thank you
Would you like whipped cream great? Would you like to curse Jesus? No, okay? That would be fine. That'll be seven dollars
But we think about what in the world is the understanding that's happening here
What are they trying to get across now? What you have to realize is that there actually were times
Where people were being interrogated
About whether or not they were actually Christian and there was a test
Later on so this was later after Paul was writing here, but it gives a context
is that emperor Trajan the Roman Empire if he wondered if someone was following this
Christian sect would actually have a person in front of him and say okay curse Jesus and
If a person could curse Jesus in front of him and give a sacrifice to the gods
He would let them go because no one who's a Christian can do that
But if they couldn't and if they still had to proclaim Jesus as Lord
It kind of proves who they truly are
But you see there's also a lot more to this context too
See there were also
different cults at the time that might try to combine
Christianity
into what they were teaching and doing at the time
Dionysus or
Bacchus or basically the god of partying and revelry there was a cult and
With it was that they would oftentimes have these like strange worship times where they were in these ecstatic movements and everything where they were just
Experiencing whatever was overwhelming them at the moment and in their ecstasy. They would say all sorts of random things and
some Christian believers at the time speaking to Corinth
Some of them were tempted to listen to some of them and what may come from these particular
priests and priestesses
The thing is though
That you never knew whether they would or wouldn't bless or curse Jesus
And to be able to say that whatever you're hearing from people around you
It should never be if it's the spirit of God the spirit of God is not going to fill somebody and then they go
And curse Jesus
But third
Is to remember that whatever we do to the least of these we have done
onto Christ
We oftentimes love the idea of blessing Jesus name
But are we willing to do so by blessing the people he loves and
That's something that we have to remember is that whether we have blessed or cursed our neighbor is
Also indicative of whether we are blessing or cursing
Jesus
Because as much as we in the world we have to make difficult life decisions
We don't have to do so
hurtfully or without compassion
We can always pause whether it be our family our friends our business our home the world around us and always say
Can I do this?
With compassion and understanding in my heart
But it then goes from this idea of
Those who follow Jesus his spirit cannot say Jesus be cursed and it starts going into the different gifts of God's spirit
The thing is is that there are different places in scripture that actually list out
What are the gifts of God's spirit and?
There are some that are listed here in 1st Corinthians 12. It talks about
Sorry, it talks about being able to give wisdom as well as those who can give knowledge
Talks about those who have faith and those who can do healing and miraculous powers
Those who can have prophecy
distinguished between spirits speak in different kinds of tongues and
In and interpret the tongues
We're going to notice that the two in regarded tongues are last in this list and
We know that Paul is trying to help explain to the people
What they're supposed to do with those tongues, but you see this list
This is not the only place for time where we see a similar list
It's it says in here about wisdom and knowledge. Let's be honest
There are a lot of times where somebody may have a lot of book learning, but they don't seem to be very wise
So maybe they are able to teach
Physics to a high school class, but they're not quite sure what to do with the breaker box outside of their home or
Oftentimes wherever somebody may be able to be really intelligent about knowing all these completely flowery things to speak
Maybe they majored in communication, but then in person they seem to get on everybody's nerves
And there can be knowledge, but not always wisdom
And at the same time there can be wisdom and not knowledge
Or maybe a person is always trying to somehow balance things out, but doesn't have enough input to do so
but comparing this list with
Romans 12
Where it says having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us
Let us use them if prophecy in proportion to our faith if service in our serving the one who teaches in
His teaching the one who exhorts like you are urging people to things
Then in his exhortation the one who contributes in
Generosity the one who leads in zeal and the one who does acts of mercy
with cheerfulness or
In Ephesians 4 it says he gave the apostles the prophets the evangelists the shepherds and
Teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ
All of these lists are supposed to be similar. They're not exhaustive
It's not like you can't say well, you know, I have a particular gift from God and I'm glad to use it
But it's not listed in here. So therefore I have to ignore it now granted
I believe that the Spirit of God has given me that the gift of terrible jokes
But for some reason Paul forgot to include it in here because I don't think he knew the Greek word for it
But with these is that we realize that the other passages
Notice that they don't specify
speaking in tongues
And that's because speaking in tongues was not supposed to be something so special and set apart
That it missed the point of all the other gifts
It's not supposed to be something for its own sake
Not something where that goes beyond
speaking the gospel
teaching
Bringing people to know one another and to know God more clearly
And that's something that we need to at least understand a bit before we can ask this question about
speaking in tongues
huh, and
Let's just be honest
Lutherans have a rough time with passages like this
We really do and you know if somebody all of a sudden were to over often the fellowship hall start speaking in tongues
We probably go check to see if the security guard is still here in the narthex and that's the thing with it though is
What even is it?
What is the speaking in tongues?
Because there are
discussions about whether or not
There are two different things happening
between acts to
Where the people at Pentecost
We're speaking in different languages in different tongues
Versus first Corinthians 12
Where they are the speaking of tongues and the interpreting of tongues
now
Oftentimes we may be looking at this idea of whether or not those are two
separate types of things if you look at reading the chapters on their own if
You look at them in their context because what we see in acts, too
Is that you have people that are all of a sudden speaking languages to people in front of them that they can understand?
Whereas you may normally have people that are speaking Aramaic
Maybe Greek maybe Hebrew remember Aramaic was kind of a common language
It's like what English has become for us today, but for business
You would speak Greek
For religious purposes you had Hebrew
But now all the different people that might be coming through
Jerusalem and the Roman Empire speaking all these other languages and all of a sudden you're
Explaining the gospel to them, but it's coming out in completely different and strange words
it was like
when I was in in China and I was trying to learn
Chinese and I was trying to like pick up some things and
Sometimes whenever you've learned you're trying to learn a different language
But maybe you had tried a different one before and you realize I never learned that word
but I had never learned the word sandwich in Spanish and
Here I was trying to learn sandwich in Chinese
Sun Misa
All right, and so I could say
Well, y'all Sun Misa I want to sandwich
But the problem was that I never learned what it was in Spanish. The problem is is that nowadays I
Keep trying to say yo quiero un sandwich and all I come out with is yo quiero un sun means
Oh and the poor lady at the taqueria has nobody to deal what I'm trying to say to her
Now in my mind
I'm trying to say sandwich and I'm trying to do it as bilingual as I can
But the word coming out is completely wrong
Or different from what I'm expecting
But could you imagine that now at this moment?
They're not just doing this as bilingual or trialing will people who accidentally slip up and fall into their other language
But now they're doing it with languages that they never actually knew
Their brain is trying to say one thing and it comes out differently
But now if you look at first Corinthians 12
It seems completely different a ton of angels
as if it's some other type of language that nobody actually speaks on earth and
The only way to try to understand it if somebody else is standing there saying okay
I think this is what the angels would understand you to say they might call it holy mumbling in some ways now
And do you have to mention is that?
we
believe
That God could very well utilize tongues again as
Needed to spread the gospel it is always possible for God to do his work
What's been interesting is the cessationists the ones who say that there are no more gifts of the spirit today
what they will say is
that
At that time first Corinthians 12 did not mean anything other than speaking in
Human languages that other people understood at the time and they believe
Many of them that only until the Pentecostal movement became a thing 18th 19th century
That all of a sudden commentaries
Started adding this angel language in there to meet what was being taught
by that particular church body
The reason why they would say this number one because many of them are
uncomfortable with the concept of tongues, but also
When they look at the word tongues is that it's the same word between the two passages
But if you look at the context in first Corinthians 12 and it speaks to there are the tongues of angels
We also know that there were many early church fathers
When they were speaking and talking at different times that would reference this idea of there being a different language
That somehow came from heaven
Ignatius and tertulian and
Augustine
Even to the point where there was even
Montanus who even had a heretical sect based out of it or
Even during the dark ages the Middle Ages if you will where they would be
Different monks or nuns who would speak to the idea of having a heavenly language and ecstatic speech
So ever since the time of Paul there have always been those
Who have felt like they were able to have some time of
Speaking in some other language that no human would understand
But is there something to it
To be fair
It has actually been studied
To actually measure the brain waves is that when a person is speaking in tongues at a time like that
It actually shows
That it's not using the same part of the brain
That you would normally use to communicate when talking to people
So whatever is happening
They genuinely believe that they are speaking in a heavenly language in their mind. They're not faking it
But that doesn't mean that we should just always
accept it
No matter what comes from it
Why is that?
because of the purpose of gifts
Because the purpose of gifts is always to proclaim
Christ
Because that's the thing about this is that if somebody is wishing to have a time where they are
Speaking something that they feel is mystical or grabs attention and somehow people are going to listen more
Is that we have to be careful at those times?
Even for those who feel themselves gifted in
This particular area many of them are trained to start by doing it by just mumbling and
Hoping that the spirit will take it from there or
Others where they know that they have just been caught up in a community that was doing the same
But even more than that is even asking what was the purpose
Because Paul tells us that tongues were only meant for unbelievers
the purpose behind it
Was going to the Gentiles
Was going to people who were speaking other languages and making sure that they could hear the gospel so if you are
In a worship setting with believers the gift God desires
is prophecy
speaking truth
And that's the thing that we have to be careful about
We are in a world where people have many different perspectives on what faith may be
But whatever that perspective may be that is always meant for the same purpose
To proclaim Christ Jesus
It's not about trying to do something for ourselves
But more than that
Is to also be able to point out
That many of us have many different gifts
We are all sorts of different gifted types of people
There are those who are teaching there are those who are teaching
There are those who are preaching there are those who are comforting and caring for one another
There are those who are getting out there to make sure that they share the gospel and those who are going out to plant new churches
There are many people doing many different things
But we're all meant to be sharing in the same spirit of God
Whatever it is that we feel called to by God
We should still be learning who he is in spirit and in truth
And we should still be asking is this bearing the fruit
That God desires of us
Because whatever your gifts may be
They will always be to share love
joy
peace
Patience kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness
and self-control
Whatever someone may tell you is from God
If it is not to proclaim his gospel and to bear the fruits of his spirit
then run away
Because all of these are meant for one spirit and for one Lord
So as we continue in this world around us and we see that there are so many things that we may pursue in faith
People may come to you with things that they declare to be of the spirit of God
But you must always pause and ask
Is this
Proclaiming Christ Jesus to the world in a way they can understand as
It and is it helping us to grow in humility and truth in the fruits of God's spirit
Because nothing from God will ever contradict that
Thanks be to God