In some churches, the pastor opens the floor to the people of the church for “testimonies”: Anyone who wants may get up and say a little something, sing a little something, preach a little, teach a little, and so forth. The pastor moderates. Sometimes the pastor is a really good moderator… and sometimes the pastor sits back and lets the church turn into the worst of America’s Got Talent.
For now, I’ll put aside why the pastor lacks a spine, and address the reason why the people of the church insist on turning their church into a talent show, with themselves the stars: They think they’re anointed. God has given them the ability to preach, to sing, to prophesy, to pray really well. They think these gifts need to be displayed, so everyone can appreciate their gifting.
But gifting and anointing are two entirely different things. Everybody has been gifted, in one way or another. Not every gift God gives falls into what we’d call the “supernatural” category. The musicians, obviously, aren’t performing miracles; they just have an impressive skill. (Well, some of them think they do, anyway.) But just because God dropped a talent into you doesn’t mean he’s given you the right to make the church your stage and captive audience. The church is for proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom, and we gather together to encourage fellow Christians to do that, to follow Jesus better, and to support one another. Not to show off.
That was Corinth’s problem, which Paul addressed here.
Why is it, Christians, that every time you gather together, every individual has a psalm, a lesson, a revelation, tongues, and interpretation? Everything must be done to build up the group.
When someone speaks in tongues—or two, three at most, and one at a time—one must interpret them. When there’s no interpreter, they must be quiet in the church; they must speak to themselves, or to God. Prophets likewise: Two or three must speak, and must be distinct from one another. When another prophet takes the floor to reveal something, the first must be silent. For everyone can prophesy, one by one, so that everyone can learn how, and everyone can help one another. The Spirit of prophets submits to prophets, for God doesn’t do disorder, but peace.
—Paul, 1 Corinthians 14.26-33 KWL
Defining “disorder.”
Now, to anti-charismatics, any behavior they don’t care to see is “disorder.” If they don’t like a shouting preacher, every time the preacher raises his voice, it’s “disorder.” If they don’t like women preachers, every time a woman preaches a sermon it’s “disorder.” If they don’t like tongues, any time someone speaks in tongues—whether to pray, or whether as prophecy that needs interpreting—you guessed it, “disorder.” Disorder, to them, goes against how they’d arrange things.
I’ve taken such people to churches where the Christians are allowed freedom of expression. Some of the worshipers were off in one section, waving flags. Others were using tambourines. Others were in another section, painting on canvas. The bulk of the people were singing with the worship band. The anti-charismatics’ response: This was chaos. But they weren’t interfering with one another, I pointed out, so why did they call it chaos? Because not everyone was worshiping precisely the same way. And if they had their druthers, everyone would. Conformity, you see, was what they expected. Not harmony.
Personally, I think conformity is what hell looks like. It’s an overreaction to the very real problem of real disorder. When people aren’t working together, the solution isn’t to make them all do exactly the same thing. God didn’t make us the same. He distributed his gifts in different ways to different people (1Co 12.11) for the purpose of helping one another.
What Paul wrote about here was the Corinthians using these gifts, not to help one another, but to show off their own individual gifting. That’s disorder. When tongues-speakers and prophets are shouting over one another, or shouting one another down, that’s disorder. When musicians form a clique, and let nobody else into it, or don’t encourage those who want to perform, and help them get better, that’s disorder. When those who earnestly want to teach—not to proclaim their own gospel, or some wild heresies, but to actually share Jesus—aren’t given any outlet, that’s disorder. It’s up to the pastors, and the leaders of the church, to figure out how to utilize all this talent. Not let it run wild as the Corinthians did; nor quench it as the anti-charismatics will.
Two or three.
The usual anti-charismatic complaint is that tongues-speaking churches allow way more than three people to speak in tongues—and Paul wrote, “two, three at most, and one at a time” (1Co 14.27 KWL) —and that while Paul mandated an interpretation, they never heard any interpretation. People were just speaking in tongues, willy-nilly, and not a bit of it was interpreted.
Naturally this is the result of confusing the different types of tongues, (1Co 12.10) and confusing prayer-tongues with prophecy-tongues. When tongues are done for the purpose of prayer and worship, they don’t require interpretation, because they’re spoken to no one but God. If you overhear them, it’s as if you overheard a private prayer—it needs no interpretation, because it’s none of your business. (Unless, of course, the Holy Spirit personally tells you what it means.) But since it needs no interpretation, Paul wrote these folks need to be quiet. They shouldn’t be praying so loud that people get mixed up, and think they are prophesying. The anti-charismatics are entirely right to complain about this.
Here Paul wrote about prophecy-tongues. Those are our business. This is when a prophet—who, instead of prophesying in English, is doing so in a tongue—gets up and gives a message. And, so that everyone can hear it, it needs to be done decently and in order.
When a message is given in tongues, someone must interpret the message into English. Ideally this would be another prophet. Usually another prophet (often, several other prophets) have been given an interpretation. But either that prophet doesn’t have the nerve to speak up, or the tongues-speaker doesn’t have the patience to wait for it—so they interpret themselves. Now, anti-charismatics, for some reason, believe this to be wrong: They take “one must interpret them” (1Co 14.27 KWL) to always mean someone else must interpret them. But that’s not what Paul wrote. “One” means one—anyone. I can interpret myself; so can you. As I said, ideally someone else would: When another prophet interprets, it confirms that more than one person heard from God. The more prophets in a church, and the more each of them has the courage to stand up and proclaim what God tells them, the better. People need to see this demonstrated, and be encouraged to do likewise. (1Co 14.31)
What about when a person gets up, loudly speaks in tongues, sits down, and waits… and nobody steps up to interpret? Two possibilities. The usual is when tongues-speakers think they have a message in tongues, but don’t. Their emotions got mixed up: They got too over-enthusiastic or excited. They prayed instead of prophesied. Some tongues-speakers really do believe that all tongues are the same, and all they have to do to provoke prophecy is just pray louder than usual. But since they can’t interpret, they can’t do anything with their own “messages.”
The other, of course, is that there are prophets in the room who can interpret—many of whom were given an interpretation—but again, they lack courage. Sometimes the tongues-speakers are among them—they can only get loud when it’s tongues, but are too afraid of being wrong, or judged, to say a thing in English. A fearful prophet lacks faith, and is as good as no prophet at all. Because ultimately that’s what you have: A room of cowards, and a displeased God whose people are left discouraged instead of encouraged.
All these rules for tongues-speakers apply equally to prophets who forego the tongues and prophesy directly in the common language. Two or three—probably because God doesn’t want to overwhelm us with revelation, and most of us can handle only two or three new ideas at a time. One prophet at a time. They must be distinct (Greek i álli dia-krinétosan, “separate from one another”), not working in a group so as to overwhelm the church into believing they’re valid because of their impressive display of unity. They mustn’t talk over one another, or seize the floor and refuse to give it up. No sections of the room with one prophet holding sway over one group, and another prophet commandeering another (unless, of course, the church has deliberately divided into small groups so as to better minister to one another).
“I couldn’t control myself.”
The most common excuse for disorder is that people were so caught up in the Spirit, so overwhelmed by their gift, they couldn’t stop themselves or control themselves. They simply had to do as they did. They burst into song, or burst into tongues, or burst into tears, or burst into prophecy. They felt a fire burning within them, and couldn’t be silent.
Which is a load of crap. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is self-control. He’s not gonna develop this fruit in you, then throw it out the instant it becomes inconvenient. That’s the sort of inconsistency we find in fake gods, in false prophets, or in immature Christians—who might be legitimate prophets, but who don’t yet pass the test of character, and should be ignored until they grow up.
“The Spirit of prophets submits to prophets,” Paul wrote. (1Co 14.32 KWL) This is kind of a mind-boggling idea. God submit to humans? Yet that’s precisely what he does when it comes to prophecy: He doesn’t proclaim things directly, but indirectly, through a fallible human. He tells me something, then trusts me to share it with others, even though there’s every chance I might flub the job—or pull a Jonah, and freak out and run away.
The Greek gods—the demons that served as their gods, anyway—would possess their prophets, work them like puppets, and force them to say exactly as they wanted. God doesn’t do that. He’s not about control, but cooperation. He wants willing subjects, not robots. He gives me the message, and trusts me to do the job properly… not lose my head, be drunk with power, and run around in a prophetic frenzy.
Any time you see a prophet act like a freak, that’s not God, and has nothing to do with God. Those are the quirks of those particular humans. We shouldn’t mind quirks, ’cause one of the signs that a Christian is comfortable with one’s fellow Christians is when those odd behaviors finally come out and stop hiding. We should mind them, though, when Christians won’t rein them in when they’re not appropriate, and blame their lack of self-control on the Holy Spirit. The Spirit does the exact opposite: He makes us able to control ourselves. He doesn’t do disorder. He does peace.