Confusion in the order of worship

1 Corinthians 14:33-40

Verse 33 addresses a problem that was taking place in the church in Corinth, confusion in the order of worship.  Paul under the leadership of the Holy Spirit addresses the issue.  Most preachers like to ignore verses 34-35 as if they are not in the Bible.  And I’m sure that many a man who has not established his home under the authority of Scripture and has no understanding of how to love his wife, wants to add an at home also, but that is very wrong.

Often, males who are insecure, I was one and did not understand the difference between being the boss, and being the head of my wife.  I’ve had some hard lessons and have come a long way about learning what Love is, you know God is Love, and what love was teaching about loving your wife as Christ loves the Church, and gave Himself for it.  Guys, it is a long way from being the boss, but it is being a leader in the home, spiritual and otherwise, always looking after you wife.

I often look to wise men like Gene A. Getz who addresses verses 34-36, “As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.  Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached?”

Gene Getz, thoughts taken from the Life Essentials Study Bible on page1588 #30.  “Here Paul was still addressing their dysfunctional use of spiritual gifts, particularly the way they should have been using their language gifts and their prophetic gifts.  Regarding Paul’s instructions to woman (vv.34-36), he may have been addressing the same issue he referred to earlier (11:2-16).  Some of these women evidently were using their true oneness in the body of Christ to ignore not only their husbands’ God-ordained leadership roles but also the appointed leaders in the household of God.  Obviously, Paul was not forbidding women to communicate at all when the church met since that would have contradicted what he had written earlier (11:4-5).  Apparently, he was dealing with a specific issue in the Corinthian church related to using their prophetic gifts.  Whatever they were doing was so inappropriate that Paul described it as disgraceful.”

I’ve been blessed to be part of small groups where what I had planned God changed in such a way that my plans were no longer relevant, but there was no confusion, those times are special.  I’ve been in services where the preacher began in one direction and stopped, telling the people in the audience, this is what I prepared but that is not what God had planned.  I’ve also seen God’s Spirit move in the music service and the pastor stand and tell the crowd we should have a prayer and go home, but I prepared a message and you are going to hear it.  And it was clear we should have prayed and gone home.  As we allow the Spirit’s leading, we will be blessed.

From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice