>> Jen: Good morning, faithful listeners, and welcome to the Bible Explained podcast. On this cold Tuesday morning, at least it's very cold for me. So make sure to grab a nice hot beverage this morning. And we're going to be reading First uh, Corinthians, chapter 14, uh, 26 - 40 today, and we'll be talking about how to speak in tongues at the church, how to prophesy at the church, and also this interesting verse about women remaining silent in the church and what that might mean.
All right, so this is the, uh, third snowstorm we've had since Thursday. I want to say I have about, uh, man, three feet of snow out there at this point. Yeah. Yep. My, uh, patio furniture is pretty much completely covered. You can't see it at this point. And my poor car is sitting out there in the snow. But thankfully my husband is doing a great job plowing the driveway for me so that I do not have to do it, because we have, like a thousand foot long driveway. It's a very long
driveway. And so my husband does it, thank God, uh, because I'd have to get the tractor out and put the plow on it, and I just don't know how to do it, quite honestly. My husband's supposed to teach me. He kind of taught me when we first got the tractor, but I don't really know how to do it. So tell me, did you get snow? I'd love to hear about it. How are you doing if you got a bunch of snow? And also, how many inches did you
get? I'd like to hear about it, because I know Buffalo got like five and a half feet of snow since Thursday, and I'm just like, oh, man. And they're supposed to get more, I guess. There's another storm coming in a few days, I heard. So the winter season is starting out real good. This is not the worst snowstorm I remember, though I do remember some worse snowstorms than this one, if I'm being honest. All right, guys, let's read First uh, Corinthians 14:26 through 40.
I'm looking forward to talking about this portion. Not just to talk about prior prophecy and speaking in tongues, but also this verse about women remaining silent in the churches. And, uh, I will break it down for you guys and discuss what I think Paul is saying here. But faithful listeners, I'll be reading this out of the NIV version this morning, but make sure to grab your favorite version of the Bible,
whatever that might be. And let's read first uh, Corinthians 14:26 to the end of the Chapter. What then shall we say? Brothers and sisters, when you come together, each of you has a hymn or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. If anyone speaks in a tongue, two or at the most, three should speak one at a time, and someone must
interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God, uh. Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop, for you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. The spirits of the prophets are subject to the control of the prophets. For God, uh is not a God, uh of,
uh, disorder, but of peace. As in all the congregations of the Lord's people, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home. For it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. Or did the word of God, uh originate with you? Are you the
only people it has reached? If anyone thinks they are a prophet or otherwise gifted by the Spirit, let them acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. But if anyone ignores this, they themselves will be ignored. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues. But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way. So m this entire chapter so far has talked about speaking in tongues the
wrong way and the right way to do it. And apparently the Corinthian church was doing it the wrong way. So now Paul is about to go into how to correctly speak in tongues at a church service. Because the way the uh, Corinthians were doing it, it seemed very disordered. Everybody was speaking all at the same time. There was no interpreter. It was just chaos in the church services with everybody talking over each other. And so
Paul says, it has to be done correctly. If you want to speak in tongues at the church, that's fine, but here's how to do it. So to start out, he addresses the entire church. He says, what shall we say? Brothers and sisters? Brothers and sisters means the entire congregation of the Corinthian Church, men and women included. And by the way, this was a little bit different than how worship services would have gone in, let's say, a Jewish temple.
Typically, in a Jewish temple, the men and the women would have been segregated into different sections. So the fact that the uh, Corinthians are coming together and worshiping men and women in the same space is kind of different than how other religions would have handled, uh, men and women being in the same space together. So in this first paragraph, Paul is including both men and
women. He says, when you all come together, each of you has a hymn or a word of instruction, a, ah, revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. And that phrase right there is the bread and butter of what this entire portion is about, everything being done so that the church can be built up the best possible way. So Paul says, you know what's not good for the church is everybody talking over each other, everybody being loud, having no
interpreter. When you guys are speaking in tongues, not prophesying the right way, none of these things are building up the church. In fact, it's kind of throwing the church into chaos. He says, so if anybody speaks in a tongue, two or three at the most should speak. And one at a time, not everybody. All at the same time, which is actually how Pentecostal churches to this day, uh, handle the tongues. They all just speak out. They start speaking in tongues, there's no interpreter.
Everybody is just kind of talking over each other. But scripture says, no, don't do that. Instead of everybody speaking all at the same time, there must be an interpreter, and everybody must speak one at a time. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God, uh. Now, just to point out, this is a verse showing that God, uh can read your thoughts. And if you are praying just to God, uh in your head, He can read every single one
of those thoughts. In case anybody was wondering about that, two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to somebody who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. So now, prophecy. If a few people have some prophecies they want to share, two to three people can speak, but they have
to speak one at a time. They can't just be talking over each other, because who's going to be benefited from a prophecy when two people are giving a different prophecy at the same time, nobody would be benefited by that. Same goes for somebody speaking in tongues. If there's a billion people speaking in tongues and there's no interpreter, nobody's going to be benefited by that because nobody's going to know what is being
said. So that's why Paul says here, when we come to church, it has to Be done decently and in order. If a revelation comes to somebody who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. So say somebody is prophesying and somebody else in the congregation who is sitting down suddenly gets a prophecy. That speaker who was first speaking should
stop speaking. Not just keep on going, not plow ahead over the next person who has a prophecy, but should stop speaking and let this next person who has a new prophecy get up and start speaking. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. So it has to be in turn. The spirits of the prophets are subject to the control of the prophets. And actually, let me read that verse out of the AMP
version. It says, for the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, the prophecy is under the speaker's control and he can stop speaking. In other words, the Holy Spirit doesn't just take control of somebody's body, and that person doesn't have any control of their faculties after that. So somebody's like, writhing on the floor of your church and they're being like, oh, the Holy Spirit is just totally taking control of my body. I can't stop myself.
No, it says right here in First uh, Corinthians 14:32, that the speaker is still under control and he can in fact stop speaking. But moving forward and going back to the NIV version, verse 33, for God, uh is not a God, uh of disorder, but of peace, as in all the congregations of the Lord's people. I actually did a YouTube episode about this verse that God, uh is not the author of confusion. Because I think a lot of people take this verse and apply it to basically anything in the Bible that
they're confused about. And they'll be like, well, you know, this part's very confusing in Scripture, and it says that God, uh is not the author of confusion. So because this part's confusing, that means that the Bible is contradicting itself, since God, uh is not the author of confusion. Oh, well, you know, God's not the author of confusion. And what you're teaching me out of the Bible right now seems very confusing. And so you must not be speaking the
truth. And yes, depending on the person you're listening to, they might not be speaking the truth. But just because something is confusing to you doesn't mean that it's not the truth. It also doesn't mean that the Bible is contradicting itself or that God, uh is purposefully trying to confuse you on something. Then I actually linked that YouTube video down below so you can watch it. But notice what Paul says here. God, uh is not a God, uh of disorder or of confusion, but of peace.
So the one thing I said in the YouTube video is if you are feeling particularly confused about a passage of Scripture, then it's very possible that you're not feeling God's peace in your life. And I know for me that that's been true multiple times. For example, we're about to talk about women being silent in the church. That's the next verse. And I used to get real irritated at, uh, verses like that in the Bible. And they were very confusing to me. And I'd be like, this seems so confusing.
And I can't stand the fact that God, uh is saying this about women. So I didn't have God's peace in my life during that time. I had more bitterness than anything else. And once I got past that bitterness and stopped thinking of the Bible as sexist, a lot of these passages about women actually started making sense to me, and I didn't have the confusion as much anymore.
So if we don't have peace, sometimes the Bible will seem very confusing to you, especially if you are bringing your own preconceived notions into the reading of Scripture. Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. Now, I know that this verse is very offensive to a lot of people. And like I said, this verse was once very offensive to me because I was like, what do you mean I have to be silent in the church?
And especially growing up in the IFB church that I did, where women basically can't do anything at church, it's taken to the extreme where the only roles women can really have is they can sing in the choir, they can play the piano, they can teach Sunday school for the children. They can maybe do hospitality like serve food, but they can't do much else other than that. And quite honestly, someone like me, I don't thrive in that kind of environment. I love music. I love being
in a worship band and a worship team. And so I just don't thrive in the whole mindset of the only thing women can do is teach children's classes. So that was a problem that I had growing up in the IFB church. So m then when I read this verse, I was like, you know, this is so restrictive to women. How dare Paul say this? Once again, I didn't have that peace of God, uh in my life. And I was
confused about this portion of Scripture. But when I was researching this, the first thing I did was I went back to the Greek to Look up what the word silent meant in the Greek, and also to look up what the word speak meant in the Greek. And honestly, when I looked up the Greek, the word silent meant to honestly just be silent. And the Greek word for speak, which is means basically any form of speech
whatsoever. Talking, whispering, chattering, muttering, babbling, any form of speech you can think of. li-leo pretty much covers it. So because the Greek for this passage was inconclusive, I next went to other portions of scripture that talk about women speaking in the church. And we actually just covered one recently. And this is First uh, Corinthians 11, which talks about the head coverings. Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head
uncovered dishonors her head. It is the same as having her head shaved, that is talking about a church setting where a woman would be praying or prophesying. And yes, we can pray in our hearts, as we discovered in the portion we just read today, actually, we can pray in our hearts. So that doesn't necessarily have to be a public thing, but prophesying is pretty much always a public thing. You don't keep a prophecy to yourself. You have to speak a prophecy
out. If you've been given one, you are to declare it for the most part, unless God, uh gives you just like, a personal prophecy that you don't necessarily have to declare. But otherwise, prophecy is for the edifying of other people, as we have learned in first uh, 1 Corinthians 14. So prophecy is not to be kept to oneself. So based upon that passage, women have some role in talking in the churches, because if they're being given prophecies, then they have to declare those
prophecies to other people. But there's another passage that talks about women speaking in the church, and that's actually in First uh, Corinthians 14, what we just read, verse 26. What shall we say then, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn or word of instruction, a revelation, a
tongue, or an interpretation. In other words, according to Paul himself, in first uh, 1 Corinthians 14, what we just read, women do have a role in speaking in the church, whether it's singing a hymn or having a tongue or an interpretation or a revelation or a prophecy of some sort, women have a role in speaking in the church, which means that the word li-leo or speaking must be a specific type of speech that a woman should not
do in the church. But then also, if we look at the context of first uh, 1 Corinthians 14, and everything that Paul is talking about here, he's talking about an orderly church service. Remember what the uh, Corinthians were doing? They were talking over each other. They were all giving prophecies at the same time. They were all speaking in tongues at the same time. There were no interpreters
to interpret the tongues. M Everything was like chaos, and the women were adding to that chaos once again, the bread and butter of this entire passage. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. Women have a tendency to be chatterboxes, and they have a tendency to be chatterboxes at the expense of other people. And I honestly say that women are more at fault with this than, uh, men are.
Women, if they have something that they want to say, they're just going to say it, even if somebody is talking. Women just talk over each other all the time, and they have a harder time being quiet. In fact, I can even say that on Wednesday nights when my husband and I lead youth group, I am constantly telling the girls specifically to be quiet because they're
constantly just jibber jabbering at each other. Now, don't get me wrong, boys also have a problem in youth group, but it's less talking with the boys and more just like they're messing with their friends or doing something stupid or making a dumb noise or just being generally disruptive. But the girls just talk and whisper nonstop, even during the lesson in youth group. So overall, women have a harder time just being quiet in the church. So we already talked about how women are to be
in submission at the church. And this is not to put women down in any way, shape, or form, because Jesus was in submission to the Father. And so women should also be in submission at the church in respect of God, uh and in respect of the authority at the church. So women should be quiet in the church, not chattering constantly, not gossiping especially, but just being respectful to the church in general. And that often means just being quiet and letting other people speak. So Paul
says women should be in submission. They should be quiet and allowing other people to speak. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home. For it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. So say a woman is sitting next to her husband in church. And by the way, church services would have been done very, very different in Paul's day. Nowadays we pretty much just go to the church, we sing a couple songs, we listen to the sermon, we might,
you know, do a prayer, and then we just go home. That's the typical church service. But if you look at the way church was done in Paul's day, it was a lot more dynamic. There was a lot more moving pieces. More people were speaking. There was more ability to use each and every different spiritual gift. So church was done very differently.
And say somebody is standing up to give a prophecy, and a woman a couple rows back is questioning the prophecy, or, you know, unsure of what the teaching means, and she asks her husband next to her to explain it to her, and the husband explains it to her. Now you're disrupting the people in the rows right next to you because they can hear everything you guys are saying. Pretty much everything in the context of what Paul is saying here boils down to respecting the people who are speaking.
And so if a woman has a question about m something that is being said at the church, she should take note of it and then go home and talk to her husband about it. You might be like, well, what if a woman is not married and, uh, she has nobody to talk about it to? Well, then she can go to somebody else and ask about it. In fact, Titus Chapter 2 talks about how the older women are supposed to be mentoring the younger women and teaching them and helping them in their, like, faith journey,
I suppose. So maybe the unmarried women can ask a mentor that they have or can ask their moms or dads, or can ask somebody else influential in their lives. But the other thing I should mention here is another reason why Paul says for the wife to specifically ask her husband when she gets home is to put a boundary in place so that a woman, a married woman, is not going to a pastor or a different man and asking him a whole bunch of questions. Because quite honestly, that could cause some
sexual tension to arise. And it's just better for a wife to go home and talk these things through with her husband instead of going to another man and asking all these questions to a different man and, uh, almost relying on that particular man's authority above your own husband's. Once again, everything should be done so that the church can be built up. So temptation of any kind, especially sexual temptation, should be
avoided. But to tie all of this in a bow about the women, this doesn't mean that women aren't allowed to do anything in the church. In fact, I think the opposite is true. I think women can do a lot more than some really traditional churches say that women can do. But us women must put ourselves in a submissive role in the church. We have to humble ourselves as women. Just allow the men to lead because that is what God, uh has ordained. Now, this doesn't mean you Allow a man to abuse
you in the church? No, you have discernment. God, uh has given you discernment. God, uh has given you spiritual gifts. You can use them. You are a human being and you are equal to men. It's just your role is different. And you should never tolerate abuse in the church because you shouldn't tolerate sin in the church. And
abuse is sin. And I know that a lot of churches out there abuse the authority that God, uh gave men over women, but God, uh is not going to look kindly on the churches who do that. In fact, there's a verse in First Peter that says that men need to be treating their wives with the honor that they are due because. Hm, if the men don't treat their wives with respect, God, uh is not going to hear those men's prayers. Moving forward, though, did the word of God, uh originate
with you? Are you the only people it has reached? If anyone thinks they are a prophet or otherwise gifted by the Spirit, let them acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. So there you go. Paul knew that this was going to be a controversial subject, that the Corinthian Church was not going to want to hear it.
The Corinthian Church was going to want to keep doing their services the way they were being done, with everybody talking over each other and the women not acting appropriately, and they were going to get mad. But Paul says, you know, you guys claim to be prophets, so prophesy and discern if what I am saying to you is the truth. But if anyone ignores this, they themselves will
be ignored. So, women, I know that this is a very hard topic for a lot of you, but you have to be very careful that you do not ignore this and that you do not usurp authority in the church. Because if you do, if you ignore this, you yourself will be ignored by God, uh. And that is not a place you want to be in, Women. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy and
do not forbid speaking in tongues. So, yeah, you can speak in tongues in the church and be eager to prophesy when you have a prophecy. But everything, every single thing, should be done in a fitting and an orderly way. So once again, respect other people in the church. Humble yourself, don't speak over other people, don't be a chatterbox, don't disrupt services, and don't give excuses as to why you're disrupting services like the Holy Spirit took control of my body or something like that.
Do things in a fitting and orderly way so that once again, the bread and butter of all of this, verse 26, so that everything can be done, so that the church will be built up. All right, faithful listeners, I hope that you learned something from today's portion of scripture. And by the way, speaking of women, you might be wondering, well, Jen, are you ignoring scripture by having a biblical podcast and teaching men on your platform when it says that women shouldn't, you know, usurp authority over
men? Well, I will go a lot more in depth with that in First Timothy, chapter two when we get to that chapter, because that is the chapter that talks about women preaching or speaking in the
church setting. But what I want to leave you with is if a woman has her own personal platform and is not affiliated with the church, in m most cases, I don't see a problem with that because the short answer is that when Paul is talking about women usurping authority over men, he's generally talking about a church setting or in a
marriage setting. And I know that my personal platform is neither usurping the authority of my church or of my husband, because my husband likes the fact that I'm doing this podcast and he has no particular problem with it. So that's the short answer. But I will go a lot more in depth with that once we get into first and Second Timothy. Now, of course, if you're a man, and honestly, I'm not trying to be mean with this at all,
I truly believe this. If you are a man and you don't feel comfortable learning scripture from me, I understand that first and foremost, and I think it's probably better that you find a podcast that will teach you scripture the way you feel you need to be taught. But faithful listeners, I hope you enjoyed today's episode and if you did, and if you learned something, share it on your social media platforms and tell people that the Bible Explained
podcast exists. But guys, this is a long episode, so I will see you all tomorrow, 6am or whenever you choose to wake up and listen. Happy listening and God, uh bless.