Pages

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

The Wise in Love and Desire

 Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. 
(I Corinthians 14:1)
Paul’s summary exhortations are characteristically precise and clear. Here is a teaching telling us to DO three things. Those who are wise will hear these words of Jesus and put them into practice, while those who are unwise will hear these words of Jesus and not put them into practice.

However, while discussions of spiritual gifts have tended to divide the church into the haves and the have-nots, it is not because God’s word is unclear in revealing God’s will. Rather, the divisiveness is characterized by Satan’s work of pushing the church into pendulum extremes that keep us from truly living by the plumbline of God’s word and will, and the sark’s[1] work of pursuing its self-centered, self-protective philosophy of life. Both the devil and the flesh are determined to keep churches from putting Jesus’ words into practice as precisely and faithfully as his words require.

With the context of Scripture telling us clearly how to respond to this instruction, and the context of church history testifying to how easily the church divides over this issue, here are some additional bits of information that should draw us to settle on both the knowing and doing of God’s will.

1.  This instruction to “pursue love” is in the New Testament letter that contains the beautiful teaching about love in what is often called, “the love chapter” of I Corinthians 13. In fact, the command to pursue love comes immediately after this love chapter, particularly after Paul just said, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”[2]If the church accepts that “the greatest of these is love,” the response of obedient faith is, “pursue love”. Response: Yes, Lord!

2. The exhortation to “earnestly desire the spiritual gifts” is prefaced by I Corinthians 12 in which Paul gives an in-depth teaching on this subject. In that chapter Paul has taught us what to think about spiritual gifts, how they are distributed among the members of Jesus’ body, and how we are to show no favoritism or partiality in how we think of them. If we wonder how obedient faith is to respond to such teaching, Paul is very clear, “earnestly desire the spiritual gifts.” Response: Yes, Lord!

3. The elaboration to “especially” earnestly desire “that you may prophesy” is followed by I Corinthians 14 in which Paul shows why prophecy is as supreme in the gifts of the Spirit as love is in the fruit of the Spirit. While we may need to meditate on all the Scriptures about prophecy in the New Testament to be sure we understand this gift, we do not need to wait until we have full understanding to agree that God is calling us to “earnestly desire that you may prophesy,” in whatever he means by prophecy. Response: Yes, Lord!

4. This teaching is so clear that it will quickly distinguish those who say yes to their heavenly Father by pursuing love as taught in I Corinthians 13, earnestly desiring spiritual gifts as taught in I Corinthians 12, and especially earnestly desiring the gift of prophesy as taught in I Corinthians 14, and those who say no to this instruction by either refusing to pursue love, or refusing to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, or refusing to especially earnestly desire that their church may prophecy, or refusing all of the above.

    When Jesus reached the conclusion of his Sermon on the Mount,[3] he told us about the only two ways we can respond to his teaching, wherever we find it in God’s word. He wrote,

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”[4]

    We must be those who hear Jesus’ words as given through the apostles, and put them into practice with the same clarity of obedient faith as God has given us in the clarity of his words. Response: Yes, Lord!

5. Before Paul got to these three beautiful chapters on love and spiritual gifts, he had already made a foundational exhortation regarding how we relate to what the apostles had written. He wrote:

    “I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.”[5]

    Anyone who tries to exaggerate what Paul says about love and spiritual gifts (pendulum right), or to dissuade us from obeying what Paul wrote about love and spiritual gifts (pendulum left), is going beyond what is written (plumbline), and puffing themselves up so people will favor them instead of another teacher.

    We must respond to Paul’s teaching (what is “written”) by refusing to go beyond what is written in either exaggerating or denying these Scriptures. Response: Yes, Lord!

6. By the time we come to I Corinthians 12-14, and find something that is clearly written, we ought to have the mindset that we will treat this as the God-breathed Scriptures that are “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work,”[6] and that we will not be those who “’live by bread alone,” but  will be those who live “by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”[7] Response: Yes, Lord!

7. I do not write this as someone who is especially experienced in the use of spiritual gifts. Rather, even though I detest what churches force on people by exaggerating spiritual gifts far beyond what is written, and am deeply disappointed in churches that deny select portions of Paul’s teaching on spiritual gifts because a favorite teacher has told them to do so, I must be one of those who “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so,”[8] and, “accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.”[9] Response: Yes, Lord!

It is interesting that, after Paul explains to the church why prophecy should be pursued “especially” earnestly, he says, “Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.”[10] Our thinking about spiritual gifts should be led by the mature.

Why?

Because infants and children can only think of themselves, hence the focus on the gifts that would tend to be self-beneficial, or using spiritual gifts in self-benefiting ways. On the other hand, the mature have learned to think of others in the way the apostles taught, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”[11] The immature tend towards selfish ambition and conceit, while the mature have learned the humility that thinks more highly of others than the immature can imagine.

With the mature leading the way, the church can put Paul’s instruction into practice with conscious desire and effort to minister to people “for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation,”[12] and to do what, “builds up the church,”[13] in fact, to “strive to excel in building up the church.”[14]

Because the command of Scripture to pastors is, “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching,”[15] every pastor must preach what the apostles teach us about spiritual gifts, reprove the wrong beliefs and practices surrounding spiritual gifts (people on both pendulum extremes going beyond what is written), rebuke the wrong beliefs and practices of those who continue pursuing what is disobedient to God’s word, exhort everyone to hear all Jesus’ words and put them all into practice, and to keep doing so with “complete patience and teaching” even when he feels outflanked on one side by the exaggerators, and on the other side by the detractors. Paul clearly had to do that in his day,[16] and we who follow his example must expect to do so in our day.[17]

The conclusion is simple: “Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.”

© 2016 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)








[1] I often prefer the sound of “sark” as a transliteration of the Greek word translated “flesh” in the New Testament.
[2] I Corinthians 13:13
[3] Matthew 5-7
[4] Matthew 7:24-27
[5] I Corinthians 4:6
[6] II Timothy 3:16-17
[7] Matthew 4:4
[8] Acts 17:11
[9] I Thessalonians 2:13
[10] I Corinthians 14:20
[11] Philippians 2:3
[12] I Corinthians 14:3
[13] I Corinthians 14:4
[14] I Corinthians 14:12
[15] II Timothy 4:2
[16] In both I and II Corinthians, Paul testified to the problem of false teachers and “super apostles” (II Corinthians 11:5; 12:11) working to lead the church “astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (II Corinthians 11:3).
[17] Especially when Paul followed up his exhortation to pastors to preach the word by saying, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (II Timothy 4:3-4). Both pendulum extremes are “myths”.

No comments:

Post a Comment