An Early Directory for Public Worship (1 Cor 14:26-40)

May 3, 2023 at 10:00 am (1 Corinthians, Church, Instructing the Body, Worship)

posted by R. Fowler White

As we come to 1 Cor 14:26-40, we arrive at the close of our brief series on 1 Corinthians 12-14. Paul has covered certain fundamental truths regarding the Spirit and His gifts. It is the Spirit, he declares, who brings unity to the church’s confession of Christ, its gifts for ministry, and its members (12:1-31). Moreover, he maintains, it is not any one gift of the Spirit that is indispensable to seeing our ministries thrive; rather, it is the Spirit’s fruit of love (13:1-13). If we wonder how indispensable love is to ministry, the Apostle would have us compare the greater gift of prophetic speech to the lesser gift of untranslated tongue-speech. In light of that comparison, we’re to see that the former benefits others; the latter does not and cannot benefit others unless it is translated (14:1-25). With those fundamentals as background, Paul will now sum up the regulations that will result in the edification of others during the ministry of God’s word in congregational worship. In the content of his summary, we see what amounts to evidence of an early apostolic directory for congregational worship.

Paul begins his directives with a regulation in 14:26b that applies to all ministries of God’s word in public worship: let all things be done for edification—or as the preceding context puts it: edify others, not oneself alone (14:4-5, 12). No one who delivers God’s word should hinder the instruction and exhortation of God’s people through the public ministry of that word (cf. 14:31). Whether the form of that ministry was a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, a translation (14:26b), all who would minister God’s word were to subject themselves to the Apostle’s directions regarding when to speak and when to be silent (14:27-35). Consequently, he directs the ministry of God’s word to be delivered only by qualified men, by up to three in number, in an orderly fashion, and with testing to ensure the edification of those assembled. Just how firm the Apostle was on these regulations is clear from his declaration that only those who complied with the Lord’s directives through him were to be recognized as those who have the Spirit and His gifts, and those who would not comply should expect divine discipline (14:36-38).

As we consider Paul’s instructions, it is vital to notice where he anchors these regulations. They are rooted in the very character of God (14:33a; the God who distributes gifts for ministry is the God of peace [i.e., harmony], not disorder), in the practice binding on all the churches (14:33b; 11:16), and in the Law (14:34b; likely referring to Genesis 1-3 to which Paul had already alluded in 11:7-9, 11-12). Together, these three anchors tell us that there was more at stake in Paul’s directives than a special rule for a special situation in a specific local church like the one in Corinth. What was at stake was the standing rules that Paul instituted in all the churches over the entire course of his ministry, rules that governed the elements of public worship, including the ministry of God’s word. In fact, as we observed above, we see in 14:26-40 and their context (1 Corinthians 10-14) not a few of the elements of an early ‘directory of public worship,’ the latest presentation of which are arguably apparent in 1 Timothy 2–5.

The sum of Paul’s regulations for public worship here in 1 Cor 14:26-40 is that during the ministry of God’s word, the churches were to prefer the greater gifts without prohibiting the lesser ones and to do so by following the regulations laid down by the Apostle to ensure that the ministry of God’s word was done in that fitting and orderly way that instructed and exhorted His people (14:39-40). Interestingly, insofar as Paul seems to bring into view the broad spectrum of speaking gifts in 14:26b, we find here regulations that have present-day application to the ministry of God’s word through the gift of teacher, a gift less than those of apostles and prophets but greater than that of tongue-speaking (12:28; 1 Tim 4:13; 2 Tim 2:2; 4:1-4; 1 Tim 3:2; Titus 1:9).

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Self-Edification Is Not Enough (1 Cor 14:1-25)

April 26, 2023 at 9:00 am (1 Corinthians, Church, Holy Spirit, Worship)

posted by R. Fowler White

Having established love as the precondition for fruitful ministry through the Spirit’s gifts, the Apostle’s attention in 1 Cor 14:1ff. turns back to two of those gifts, one greater, one lesser: respectively, that of prophecy and that of tongue-speaking. His treatment of these gifts is crucial for our understanding of the purpose for which all gifts are given to Christ’s church.

For what follows, we’ll understand that both tongue-speaking and prophecy have ceased (a point raised and discussed elsewhere on this blog), but when they operated, they involved the God-given ability and aspiration to minister to His people by communicating His inerrant word to them. The two gifts differed, however, in that tongue-speech was spoken in a language understood by the speakers themselves but not by their hearers, while prophecies were spoken in the language of both speakers and their hearers.

Two additional observations may also help us. First, let’s note that the phenomenon of tongue-speaking is not unique to Christ’s church. For instance, tongues-speech, dreams and visions, and other extraordinary experiences took place in Corinth’s temples to Apollo and in Egypt’s palaces. Even today, tongue-speaking can be heard among certain Muslims. We should not think, then, that tongue-speaking has its source always and only in the Holy Spirit. Scripture is clear that such occurrences may have their source in ‘the flesh’ (i.e., sinful human nature) or even in servants of Satan disguised as apostles or prophets of Christ (e.g., Acts 16:16-18; 2 Cor 11:13-15). Second, let’s remind ourselves that by the Spirit and His gifts Christ is building His people as His ‘sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true.’ (This divine building project is a topic about which Paul, Peter, and John wrote.) For that work to be done, our gifts must be used not merely to build up ourselves, but to build up others too. In 1 Cor 14:1ff., Paul’s concern about that project focuses on the Spirit’s gifts of prophecy and tongue-speaking. His remarks are blunt: the lesser gift—tongue-speaking without translation—had no place in public worship because such tongue-speaking built up only the speakers themselves, not other believers also. Let’s take a look at the particulars of those remarks.

Paul launches his argument in chapter 14 by restating in 14:1 God’s order of priorities for fruitful ministry in congregational worship. Priority #1 is to pursue love for others, because love is the precondition to a congregation becoming a sanctuary pleasing to God. Priority #2 is to maintain an eagerness for spiritual gifts, for by them God makes the many members one body. Priority #3 is to edify others in public worship. It is Priority #3 that is in focus in 14:2ff. as Paul contrasts prophecy and untranslated tongues-speech. The basis of his preference for prophecy reduces to this: self-edification by any gift may be beneficial, but it is not enough. In fact, the gifts have never been given to edify oneself alone. They are given to edify all (14:4, 18-19). As for tongue-speakers, Paul says, unless their speech was translated, they built up only themselves, not others too. As a result, untranslated tongue-speech had no place in public worship.

Paul becomes even more insistent in 14:6-19. In the interest of edification, the Apostle lays out regulations that tongue-speakers should obey. His general rule is straightforward: benefit (i.e., profit, help) others (14:6). He illustrates the rule as we see it in music (14:7), in the military (14:8), and in human communication (14:10-11). Without distinct tones, instrumentalists keep others from recognizing and enjoying the song being played. Without distinct sounds, a military bugler keeps others from preparing for battle. Without translation, a foreigner’s language remains, well, foreign. Applied to tongues-speech, the Apostle’s general rule means that, when left untranslated, it keeps others from participating (14:9) and from being built up (14:12). Given that reality, Paul goes on to set down a specific rule for tongue-speakers: they should pray to translate for others (14:13-19). Why? Because otherwise, tongue-speakers don’t communicate with others as they should in public worship. Only with translation would tongue-speech be good for others in public worship. To illustrate his point, Paul appeals to his own experience in 14:14-15: ‘Look at what happened when I prayed in tongues without translation: my praying bore no fruit for others. In that light, I should pray and sing only with translation so that I speak both to God and to others, thus building up both myself and others.’ He goes on in 14:16-19 to apply his point: ‘Look at what happens when you and I don’t do what I just described. Without translation, tongue-speakers keep others from participating in public worship. Only with translation are others able to join tongue-speakers in prayer or praise’ (14:16-17). ‘Further, without translation, tongue-speakers keep others from learning in public worship. Only with translation will others be able to learn from tongue-speakers’ (14:18-19). ‘Let no believer, then, be like that bugler who can’t play “Reveille.” Let’s use our gifts to build up all members of Christ’s body, not just ourselves.’ In light of all this, Paul insists that tongue-speaking was not to be part of congregational worship unless it was translated.

Closing his case against untranslated tongue-speaking in public worship, Paul urges, ‘Let’s be grownups about tongue-speaking’ (14:20). ‘Recognize that the statements I’ve made here about tongue-speaking are consistent with what OT prophecy says about it, specifically in Isa 28:11’ (14:21). Turning back to Isa 28 we read there that Judah’s hearing of speech they did not understand was a sign that God was judging them as unbelievers (Deut 28:49; cf. Isa 33:19). In fact, He was rebuking Judah for their unbelief at His new temple building work (Isa 28:16). The same was true in the Apostle’s day. Paul himself was doing foundation-laying in God’s new temple building project (1 Cor 3:9b-11), and his ministry was a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles (1:23; 14:21-24). Paul’s point in 14:20-25, then, is that ‘grownups’ will recognize untranslated tongue-speaking for what it is: it is a sign of God’s judgment against unbelievers (14.22a), be they Jews (this people, 14:21) or Gentiles. Indeed, when believers spoke in a foreign tongue in the presence of unbelievers, such tongue-speech only antagonized them and hardened them against the gospel (14:23; cf. Acts 2:13). By contrast, when believers prophesied in the presence of unbelievers in their own tongue, prophetic speech convicted and even converted them (14:24-25). It was prophecy, then, that was a sign of God’s blessing on believers (14:22b) and a means of evangelism for those outsiders who might have entered the setting of the church’s public worship. Paul’s conclusion is clear: in the church’s public worship, tongue-speaking without translation benefited neither other believers nor outsiders.

In 1 Cor 14:1-25, Paul gives us a grownup church’s perspective on tongue-speaking: unless it was translated, tongue-speech had no place in public worship. Because it built up only the tongue-speakers themselves, not other believers also … because other believers could not understand it … because it antagonized and hardened unbelievers against Christ’s gospel, untranslated tongue-speech was not to be part of the church’s worship. With all this in mind, a key enduring takeaway for us from Paul’s instruction in 1 Cor 14:1-25 would be that, as God’s temple building project continues, we must be careful to use our gifts not merely to edify ourselves, but to edify others also. Self-edification is just not enough.

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Love and the Spirit’s Gifts (1 Cor 12:31b–13:13)

April 19, 2023 at 8:00 am (1 Corinthians, Church, Holy Spirit)

posted by R. Fowler White

As we’ve said in two previous posts, the Holy Spirit unifies the church’s ministry-gifts and members as well as its message. Through Paul, God requires us to continue to be zealous for the Spirit’s gifts, especially His greater gifts (1 Cor 12:31a; cf. 14:1, 12). Zealous as we may be, we’re also to keep the Spirit’s gifts in proper perspective with God’s priority for fruitful church ministry.

Somewhat unexpectedly, the gifts of the Spirit are not God’s priority. Instead, the fruit of the Spirit, especially love, is His priority (12:31b). Love is His priority because, as Paul will say, it is the precondition for the effective use of the Spirit’s gifts in ministry. No matter how great the Spirit’s gifts may be, then, a congregation’s pursuit of love must be a higher priority than its pursuit of spiritual gifts. Yes, eagerness for spiritual gifts should be a trait of a congregation, but Paul would have us understand that its zeal for gifts must be subordinate to its zeal for love. Indeed, there is a way of congregational life that is more excellent than gifts or the status that may be associated with them. That way is expressed in none other than the Second Great Commandment: love of neighbor, that benevolent attitude and activity of placing ourselves at the service of others, not to improve our status with them, but to promote the common good in which together we are all built into a site of sacrifice pleasing to our God.

We might ask: what proof does Paul offer that love is God’s priority over gifts? He answers in 13:1-3: “Just look at what happens if love is absent when our gifts and our acts of self-denial are manifested at their highest level: those gifts and acts amount to nothing. There’s no benefit, no fruit, no witness to others when love is absent from the exercise of our gifts.” Love of neighbor is indispensable to our ministries because its presence in our lives is the precondition of fruitful ministry.

We might press the issue once more: what is it that makes love so indispensable? Paul argues: the indispensability of love comes from its properties, from its nature and actions (13:4-7). As he spells out what love does and does not do, Paul personifies it. No doubt, there’s a reason why he personifies love here: it’s because love is to be lived out; it is to be incarnated. It was gloriously lived out and incarnated in Christ our Lord. But there is even more here: the love Paul describes also becomes incarnated in the members of Christ’s body as the Spirit of Christ regenerates us and begins His work of forming Christ in us and conforming us to His image. To apply 13:4-7 to ourselves, we need only insert the pronoun I wherever Paul uses the word love. (Paul points us in this direction by putting himself before us in 13:1-3: if I speak … And if I have …  If I give away … and if I deliver up … .) By doing so, we’ll find out the degree to which God’s priority and love’s nature and actions are ours. Comparing ourselves to God’s standard, we see why love is so indispensable: it’s because love, in a word, is selfless. When love is present in us, we selflessly place ourselves at the service of others, not to improve our status with them, but to promote the common good in which we’re all being built together as a site of sacrifice pleasing to God.

Do we need more proof that love is God’s priority? The Apostle goes on to contrast the temporariness of gifts to the permanence of love (13:8-13). He reminds us that there’s a time coming when the partial, fragmentary state of the knowledge of divine things that we now gain through God’s gifts will pass away (13:9-11). As true as the present state of our knowledge may be, God’s gifts don’t provide us the full and final state of knowledge that will be ours when we see Him face to face (13:12). No, gifts and the knowledge we receive through them, though given by God, will be done away and are thus only provisional. Even faith and hope will give way to sight (Rom 8:24; 2 Cor 5:6-7). It is love that is forever; it is love that never fails. It is thus love that is greater than all gifts and even greater than faith and hope (13:13). Understandably, then, love is God’s priority, His way of congregational life, the very precondition for fruitful ministry with God’s gifts in this world.

Would we be fruitful in ministry as individual believers and as congregations? According to the Apostle, there is a path more excellent than even a zealous pursuit of the Spirit’s gifts. That path, that priority, that precondition is love of neighbor. Unlike the Spirit’s gifts, it is love that is indispensable, selfless, and everlasting. It’s indispensable in that we know what happens when love is absent: we amount to nothing spiritually. It’s selfless in that we know what happens when love is present: we place ourselves at the service of others to promote that common good in which together we’re built as a site of sacrifice pleasing to our God. It’s everlasting in that we know that, though gifts, faith, and hope are ours in this age, love is ours both in this age and in the age to come. No wonder, then, that the Apostle would have us affirm that the Spirit’s fruit of love is greater than His gifts.

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The Spirit Unifies Our Ministries and Members (1 Cor 12:4-31a)

April 12, 2023 at 11:00 am (1 Corinthians, Church, Holy Spirit)

posted by R. Fowler White

In an earlier post on 1 Cor 12:1-3, we discussed the truth that the Holy Spirit of Christ brings unity to His church’s confession (i.e., message). It’s only by the work of the Spirit that the church makes a common confession with heart and mouth. It’s only by the work of the Spirit that the church proclaims with one voice that the once crucified Christ is now the resurrected and ascended Lord of all. Yet the Apostle Paul would have us understand that the Holy Spirit brings unity to the church’s ministries and members as well as to the church’s message. That truth comes into view in 1 Cor 12:4-31a.

In what ways does the Spirit unite the church’s ministries? Paul tells us that He unifies the church’s ministries by being the one Source common to all the gifts and by distributing them for one common purpose. The details in 12:4-11 elaborate the point. Three times Paul states that though the ministry-gifts are many and different, they have a common Originator. That Originator is none other than the Spirit (12:4), the Lord (12:5), God (12:6). He is the One who imparts His gifts-ministries-workings to each believer in the church. More than that, He makes it so that the gifts aren’t meant to give advantages to ostensibly ‘elite’ individuals endued for ostensibly ‘elite’ ministries. Instead, they contribute to the ‘common good’ of Christ’s whole body (12:7). The workings of the one Spirit are meant to edify, exhort, and encourage not the gifted individual alone, but all others in the church too (14:12, 26). This is the case if the Spirit’s manifestation takes the form of wisdom and knowledge (12:8), or of prophecy and discerning spirits (12:10b), or of tongues and their translation (12:10c). This is the case too if the Spirit’s manifestation takes the form of faith, or healing, or miracles (12:9, 10a). One and the same Source—the Spirit (12:11)—disperses all these diverse gifts. Contrary to views sometimes heard in certain church circles, we’re not to imagine that the Spirit divides Christ’s church by distinguishing ‘those who have’ from ‘those who have not.’ No, the church is brought together and held together by one Spirit who distributes gifts to each believer for ministry to all others with whom He has joined them.

Shifting his focus on ministries in 12:4-11, Paul stresses that the Holy Spirit brings unity to the church’s members in 12:12-20. In truth, he argues that Christ (yes, Christ) is like the human body (12:12). The human body has many different organs and limbs that together form a unit. So it is with Christ. If we ask how the church-body’s unity comes about, the Apostle again emphasizes that the one Spirit brings it about by baptizing and filling all diverse nationalities (Jews or Greeks) and social classes (slaves or free) that make up the church (12:13). Pentecost illustrates the point. As Christ builds His living sanctuary (Acts 4:11; 1 Pet 2:4-6), He does so by making the many categories of the human race (2:17-18; 1 Cor 12:13b; cf. 6:17) one in the Spirit and repentance (Acts 2:17, 21, 38-39). This is not to say that the body’s parts lose their individual identity (cf. 1 Cor 12:15-17). Nor is it to say that as God forms the body, He makes it of a single organ or limb (12:18-20). Think of it this way: we’re not literally ‘all ears’! So, what difference does this make to church-body members? It means that no member should say, “I don’t belong to the church-body because my gifts are different from others.” Nor should any member envy others or pity others. No, we’re to remember Paul’s teaching in 12:18: each different body part is in its place by the choice of the wise and sovereign Creator of the church. To think too highly (Rom 12:3)—or even too lowly (1 Cor 12:15-16)—of ourselves is to insult Him who makes the body. Through the one Spirit who distributes His diverse gifts, we who believe, each and all, belong to Christ’s church-body.

To unpack still further the unity of the church’s members, the Apostle argues in 12:21-26 that the body’s members are not only all different; they are also all necessary. This truth applies not just to those parts regarded as the most presentable. It applies to the least presentable also. All of the body’s diverse parts are required. No limb is self-sufficient or all-important. No organ should question the value of others to its own well-being or to the body’s overall well-being. When it comes to the church-body, no member should say of another, “I have no need of her” or “He’s of no use to me.” Even to think such things is to deny the truth that Paul asserts in 12:24b: our Savior has so combined the body’s different parts that He has made them all necessary. None other than our God has determined the place that each part has (12:28). Just as we’re Christ’s one body when taken as a unit, so when taken as individuals we’re parts necessary to that body’s composition (12:27). Therefore, every member, whether suffering or celebrating, is due the same care and attention (12:25-26).

So, what’s the payoff from all this? We’re to remember that the Spirit and His gifts unify the ministries and members of Christ’s church-body. No gift entitles its possessor to a higher, more exclusive status than others—even if, by divine arrangement, some gifts are granted more honor and some less (12:28; Rom 12:3-5; cf. 1 Pet 4:10). No member is any less a part of the body than any other (12:15-16). No member defines the body on its own: no one gift is meant for each of us (including tongues) (12:29-30). No gift makes its possessor self-sufficient: no member, whom God has placed in Christ’s church-body, is dispensable or nonessential (12:21). Rather, God designs the body so that each of its parts contributes to the good of the whole. In this light, our duty is to put to death the self-pity that moans, “I don’t belong to the body.” We’re to mortify the arrogance that declares, “I don’t need you.” Instead, we’re to stand firm in the truth that the Holy Spirit unifies our ministries and our members just as He unifies our message.

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The Spirit and the Gifts are Ours (1 Cor 12:1-3)

March 16, 2023 at 2:00 pm (1 Corinthians, Holy Spirit, Jesus)

posted by R. Fowler White

As Luther put it, the Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him who with us sideth. What a stupendous acclamation this is, especially in these days of increasing declension. Luther’s words provoke us to master and be mastered by Paul’s instruction on the Spirit and the gifts in 1 Corinthians 12–14. He starts his lessons for us in 12:1-3.

We must know who does and does not have the Holy Spirit and His gifts, 12:1-2. The Apostle does not want us to be uninformed or misinformed but to be well informed about who has the Holy Spirit and His gifts. How do we recognize someone who is genuinely “of the Spirit”? So often we hear that they take part in supernatural phenomena, speak in tongues, fall into trances, dreams, and visions. But we should not ignore that such things took place in Corinth’s temples to Apollo and in Egyptian palaces. They even take place in certain Muslim mosques today. We should not make the mistake, then, of thinking that supernatural happenings have their source always and only in the Holy Spirit of Christ. The biblical fact is that manifestations often associated with or attributed to the Spirit may actually have their source in sinful human nature (aka the flesh) or even in servants of Satan who disguise themselves as apostles or prophets of Christ (2 Cor 11:13-15; Acts 16:16-18).

Given the range of supernatural sources, Paul underscores that none of us had the Holy Spirit before we became believers in Christ Jesus, 12:2. To the contrary, he reminds us that before our conversion, we were in captivity to idols (cf. Hab 2:18-19). As idol worshipers, we were like Narcissus in Greek mythology: he fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water. So it was with us: before our conversion we were just in love with an illusion of our own making, a figment of our imagination. Indeed, the Spirit of Christ was not ours, and we were not His.

Yet the Spirit changed us. The Apostle explains. Our captivity notwithstanding, none other than the Holy Spirit ended our bondage to idols and gave us hearts to believe and mouths to confess that Jesus is Lord, 12:3. Paul traces the change in our confession to the enabling power and presence of the Spirit of Christ. Consider this, he says: no confession that Jesus is accursed (i.e., justly condemned) has the Spirit of Christ as its source (12:3a). Only the confession that Jesus is Lord has the Spirit of Christ as its source (12.3b). Still we must be careful and clear: confessing Jesus as Lord is not about saying certain words (as Jesus Himself made clear in Matt 7:21-23). No, in Scripture, confessing Jesus as Lord is the fruit of the work of His Spirit within us so that we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths. To confess Jesus is Lord, then, is to acclaim His majesty and to swear absolute allegiance to Him as our Royal Deity, as our Savior and Judge. To confess Jesus is Lord is to confess that He has claimed us as His own and that we have claimed Him and His yoke as our own. To confess Jesus is Lord is to confess that He, the crucified one, has been, by His resurrection and ascension, publicly declared to be Lord of all, from whom, through whom, and to whom are all things. For many, such a confession is mere foolishness, even blasphemy. Paul would remind us, however, that for them there is no Lord but the idol of their own imagination. To confess Jesus is Lord actually sets believers apart from all others as those who are of the Spirit of Christ.

Knowing these things, how does the truth that the Spirit and His gifts are ours fit into the big picture of what God has been doing throughout history? That big picture is the macro-narrative that God has been following throughout the history of His work to save sinners. That pattern is that He first wins a victory for His chosen people and then celebrates that victory by giving His Spirit to enable His people to build a sanctuary where He dwells with them. We can see this story-line in both the OT and the NT. The two major OT examples are found in the histories of Moses and David-Solomon. In the book of Exodus we read that God through Moses delivered Israel from Egypt and then by His Spirit equipped His people to build the tabernacle as His dwelling place among them. Later, in the narratives about David and Solomon (2 Sam 2–8; 1 Kgs 5–8), God through David delivered Israel from their enemies and then by His Spirit endowed Solomon to construct the first temple as His holy house among His people. Turning to the NT, we see the same narrative, only better: Christ, full of the Spirit, rescues sinners from their sins and then by the Spirit and His gifts enables them to build and to be built as His living sanctuary.

Remarkable, isn’t it? Moses, David, Solomon, and Israel might well have sung Luther’s lyric with us. How so? They would have done so knowing that God was going to do something better through the One who is greater than they were. After all, Jesus is delivering His people from sin and death, the world, the flesh, and the devil. And by the Spirit and His gifts He is preparing not just a place, but His people, to be His sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true. That work goes forward as we learn the lesson that Scripture has for us: the Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him who with us sideth.

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“The Third Day He Rose Again from the Dead”

June 7, 2022 at 10:00 am (1 Corinthians, Apostles' Creed, Christology, Jesus, John, Philippians)

posted by R. Fowler White

As we continue to work our way through the Apostles’ Creed, examining its articles in the light of Scripture, we come now to Article 5: The third day He rose again from the dead.

There is no doubt that this is what Scripture teaches. Moreover, this is what the church of Jesus Christ, following Scripture, has confessed throughout its history. That is, with Scripture, the true church continues to confess that Christ really and truly did rise from the dead, and in rising His soul was really and truly reunited with His body, inasmuch as the two had been separated at death. He really and truly did come out of His tomb in which He had been buried, despite the steps that the Roman guards had taken to make the tomb secure. He rose again the same Person, the same Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man—only now glorified! The same body, the one that had fallen victim to death and burial, rose again—only now it was a glorious body (Phil 3:21).

The particular phrase that the Creed uses to affirm Christ’s resurrection is noteworthy: He rose again. Elsewhere we read that He was raised again. What’s the difference? The Creed’s word choice puts an emphasis on Christ’s power to rise from the dead, to raise His body from the grave. In other words, the Creed bears witness that Christ rose again from the dead because Scripture teaches that, as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself (John 5:26). In this connection, we remember that Jesus had declared, speaking of His body: Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days (John 2:19). He had also proclaimed: I have authority to lay down My life, and I have authority to take it up again (John 10:18).

It’s equally noteworthy that the Creed specifies that Jesus Christ rose again on the third day. The Apostles’ gospel (e.g., 1 Cor 15:4), to which the Creed bears witness, was (and is) not a novelty. The resurrection that they preached and documented was the NT fulfillment of the promises of God in the OT Scriptures. Moses, the Prophets after him, and the Psalms testified that the Christ would suffer and rise again from death on the third day. Strikingly, Scripture provides many pictures (foreshadowings) of resurrection, including birth from barrenness, return from exile, release from a death sentence, release from prison, deliverance from the waters of death, deliverance from thirst, hunger, sickness; deliverance from the sting of the viper, and the raising up of a fallen tabernacle. In the places where we find these themes, we find that life comes from death after three days, on the third day. The Apostles’ gospel, then, was the OT gospel. 

So what difference does Christ’s resurrection make? How does it benefit us? First, by His resurrection He has overcome death, so that believers share in the righteousness that He obtained for them by His death. In other words, through faith, God reckons to sinners Christ’s righteousness in exchange for our sins. By Christ’s resurrection, God our Judge declares: “Debt paid in full!” And not only that. By Christ’s resurrection our Divine Judge declares to us who believe: “Accepted as righteous in Christ; in Him you have all the righteousness I require.” Second, by His power we are raised up to live a new life of obedience to God. United to the resurrected Christ by faith, we have been raised from death in sins to a new life of seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Third, Christ’s bodily resurrection is to us believers God’s sure pledge of our own glorious bodily resurrection. Christ is the firstfruits of those who have died (1 Cor 15:20), the first one to have been raised from the dead to die no more. Christ is God’s down payment in guarantee of more to come, the assurance of a full harvest. For believers, then, their resurrection is as sure as Christ’s resurrection. Particularly as believers get older, the more they appreciate God’s pledge of their own resurrection, a pledge that holds true because Christ is the firstfruits of the full resurrection-harvest to come.

Of course, our pagan culture is flooded with skepticism of the miraculous, particularly about the resurrection of Christ. Yet we forget that the original skeptics of His resurrection were His first disciples. Some folks like to portray them as a gullible, superstitious group that simply took resurrection as a given. But that portrait is fake news. For example, the NT Gospel writers make a considerable effort to show their readers that Jesus’ earliest followers did not go to His tomb believing in His resurrection or presuming His resurrection. No, they went to His tomb with spices because they expected to find a decaying dead body there. There was no hint that they anticipated His resurrection. In fact, it was a surprise to them. Now don’t get me wrong: the resurrection of Jesus should not have been the surprise to His disciples that it was. After all, what they found at His tomb was exactly what He had predicted on at least six different occasions. In fact, what they found at the sepulchre was exactly what they had been told they would find and what they could and should have remembered and expected. But they did neither of these things. In truth, so-called “Doubting Thomas” turned out to represent, to some degree, all of Jesus’ earliest followers when he said: Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.

The point is, Jesus’ initial followers became convinced of His resurrection as God bore witness to them in word and deed and as they saw Him, heard Him, and touched Him (1 John 1:1-3). The first followers of Jesus became what they were not at first. They became eyewitnesses of His resurrection. This is why the message of the Apostles, documented in the Scriptures, is what it is. Of the resurrected Christ, the Apostles all ended up confessing with Thomas, My Lord and my God! Readers and hearers of Scripture, then, are not expected to be gullible. No, they are expected to take seriously what the historic church of Christ persists in confessing forthrightly with the Apostles’ Creed, following the Scriptures of the Prophets and the Apostles: the third day Jesus Christ rose again from the dead.

Our meditations turn to Article 6 of the Creed here.

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Eschatology Outlines: No. 4 The Apostolic Writings

September 27, 2021 at 9:00 am (1 Corinthians, 2 Peter, 2 Thessalonians, Eschatology, Hebrews, Jude, Romans)

Posted by R. Fowler White

Getting Our Bearings on the End from Hebrews

The author’s expectations appear to be shaped by parallels with the days of Noah and Lot and with the Sinai theophany. He anticipates the day of redemptive wrath (10:26) in which God will shake the present heavens and earth in the fury of theophanic fire (12:26-29), after which emerges an unshakable new heavens and new earth. In that day, the adversaries of God, among whom will be apostates and persecutors, will be consumed in the fiery conflagration (10:27, 30-39), and the people of God will receive their eternal inheritance of rest (3:7–4:11) in the lasting city (13:14) of that unshakable kingdom-homeland (11:14) in the world to come (2:5). The macrocosmic scale of the judgment with fire matches the scale of Noah’s flood, and in both cases the delivered remnant enjoys rest from their toilsome labors in a new earth. Also, the deliverance of God’s people into a new Canaan-earth is explicitly compared to the deliverance of Israel into Canaan, while the destruction of God’s enemies in Hebrews is implicitly compared to the fiery destruction of Sodom.

Getting Our Bearings on the End from Paul
(1 Corinthians 15; 2 Thessalonians 1-2; Romans 8)

I. The defeat of the last enemy, death, will mark the culmination of a complex of events (1 Cor 15:22-28), the essentials of which mirror the days of judgment in previous generations. As in the days of Noah and Lot, apostasy from the faith and lawlessness will bring cultural decline, provoking the wrath of Christ (cf. 2 Thess 2:3, 8-12; 1 Tim 4:1-5; 2 Tim 3:1-5 with Gen 4:17-24; 6:1-7, 11-12). Absent the restraint of God’s common grace (cf. 2 Thess 2:6-7 with Gen 6:3), the eschatological counterpart to Cainite Lamech (whether individual or corporate) will appear as a new abomination that brings defilement to and desolation upon the temple of God.

II. Special note on 2 Thess 2:4 and the expression temple of God

A. The phrase temple of God has multiple referents in Scripture: it is applied to the individual believer’s body, to the sanctuary structure in Jerusalem, to the church, and to the cosmos (heaven and earth). The question naturally arises, therefore: which temple, defiled as it is by the abomination of the man of lawlessness, does Paul have in mind in 2 Thess 2:3-12? We can reasonably exclude from consideration the individual temple of the believer’s body. Conceivably, the temple in view here, then, is either the temple at Jerusalem, or the church, or the cosmos. Though it is plausible that Paul, writing as he is before Jerusalem’s fall in AD 70, has that event in mind, the scale and finality of the phenomena mentioned in 2 Thess 1:5–2:12 fit most naturally with Christ’s second coming. Could the temple of God, then, be a reference to a future temple in Jerusalem? There is no basis in the Apostle’s writings for such an expectation. So, we are left to consider the church and the cosmos as the referent(s) of the phrase temple of God. Of these choices, it is reasonable to presume that the first referent in Paul’s mind is the church, that is, the visible church defiled by apostasy and by the man of lawlessness. Yet we are also able to discern a second referent when we consider that, once apostasy obliterates the boundary between the visible church and the unbelieving world, the defilement of the world fills the apostate church too. Furthermore, since it is clear in the context of 2 Thessalonians that the son of perdition fills the world with his lawlessness, we have to say that the cosmos-temple is defiled with lawlessness even as the church-temple is defiled with apostasy. It appears, therefore, best to see a twofold reference to the macrocosmic (world) and microcosmic (church) temples in the expression the temple of God in 2 Thess 2:4.

B. If the temple of God is interpreted as we suggest above, then, what Paul describes in 2 Thess 2:3-12 is a diabolical reprise of the idolatrous theocracy from the days of Noah and second temple Jerusalem, when the eschatological counterpart to Cainite Lamech will mock God as he assumes the posture of deity (cf. 2 Thess 2:3-4, 9-10 with Dan 9:26-27). To bring an end to his monstrous delusion, the Judge of Lot’s tormentors will again slay the wicked with fire and with His breath (2 Thess 1:8), sending His enemies to their everlasting destruction while rescuing His people (2 Thess 1:7) and bringing them into the glory of the new creation freed at last from the bondage of corruption and death (Rom 8:18-25).

Getting Our Bearings on the End from Peter and Jude
(2 Peter 2–3; Jude 7)

I. 2 Pet 1:19-2:9; Jude 7: Peter and Jude teach us to compare the coming of Christ in judgment with the judgment of the world of Noah (2 Pet 2:5) and the judgment of the city of Lot (2 Pet 2:6-9; Jude 7).

II. 2 Pet 3:1-7, 10-13: Peter teaches us to compare the coming of Christ to judge by fire with the coming of God to judge by flood.

III. Summary—Clearly, as Peter and Jude read the Bible, they teach us to see recurring patterns in God’s governance of history: the past is repeated in the future. It is remarkable to notice in these texts the traits of the days of Noah and of Lot: the decline of culture, the deliverance of a godly remnant, and the destruction of the ungodly.

Eschatology Outlines: No. 5A Paul on Israel’s Rejection and Salvation

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Jesus, Judas, and Leaven in 1 Cor 5:6-13

December 29, 2020 at 6:30 pm (1 Corinthians, Church, Discipline, John, OT-Exodus, Sacraments)

Posted by R. Fowler White

While reading L. Michael Morales’s terrific new book, Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP, 2020), a few thoughts came to mind in reaction to his discussion of the feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread in Exod 12 and of Paul’s linking of our Passover celebration with “leaven removal” by church discipline in 1 Cor 5:6-13. Specifically, I wondered if we could see in the NT how Jesus complied with the feast regulations given by Moses in Exod 12. In this light, I turned to the accounts of the celebrations of those feasts in the book of Exodus and in the Gospels and then back to 1 Cor 5.

Looking through the regulations for observing those feasts in Exod 12, the Passover feast and the Unleavened Bread feast were scheduled back to back, and they were usually regarded as one. To keep the Passover observance, the people of the OT church were called to remove all traces of leaven from their houses. Then, to keep the Unleavened Bread ordinance, they would eat only unleavened bread. Underlining the gravity of these ordinances, the OT church was also to remove from their midst those who did not remove leavened bread from their houses (12:15, 19). In the latter feast in particular, God signified the new life with Him that His people should live after their exodus from Egypt. As Ryken puts it, “In spiritual terms, the last thing He wanted them to do was to take a lump of dough from Egypt that would eventually fill them with the leaven of idolatry. … God wanted to do something more than get His people out of Egypt; He wanted to get Egypt out of His people.” Thus, they were not just to eat unleavened bread; they were to be an unleavened people.

Understandably, in the Apostle’s eyes, these conjoined feasts prefigured the church’s life: the Christian Passover (1 Cor 5:7) and its recurring celebrations (1 Cor 11:26) were to be matched by ongoing celebration of the new Unleavened Bread feast (1 Cor 5:7-8). In other words, in addition to dining at the Lord’s Table, the NT congregation was to be an unleavened people living an unleavened life of purity and integrity. And, significantly, for the NT church to keep the feasts faithfully, Paul points out that their duty is what the OT church’s duty was: as an unleavened people (5:7), they were to clean out the leaven from their midst (5:7), including those who neglected that duty in their own lives (5:11-13).

Formative as the OT was for the NT church’s life, it stands to reason that Jesus’ own (final) celebration of the Passover/Unleavened Bread feasts was an example for His church. From the Gospel accounts, we’re justified in concluding that the Evangelists wished to document not only the institution of the Lord’s Supper but also how Jesus complied with the feast regulations given by Moses. We’re told, for instance, that as Jesus was preparing for His own exodus (Luke 9:31) to go back to His Father (John 13:1, 3), He had sent Peter and John to prepare the feasts to be celebrated (Matt 26:17-19; Mark 14:12-16; Luke 22:7-13). Since we’re told nothing to the contrary, we rightly suppose that the meal and the house with the Upper Room were both prepared as required. In fact, two Evangelists say that they found the room furnished and ready (Mark 14:15; Luke 22:12), and doubtless readiness would include the removal of all leaven and leavened bread. Yet, as Exod 12:15, 19 had alerted us, cleaning out the leaven for the feast would not and could not stop there, but would extend to the feast participants themselves.

Strikingly, as Jesus cleans the Twelve’s feet, He effectively fences the Table, announcing that one of them is unclean (John 13:6-11; cf. John 18:28). The identity of Judas the betrayer was hidden from all but Jesus. When Jesus disclosed the betrayer’s presence at the Table, none of them so much as looked at Judas, much less said, “Lord, is it Judas?” Like his father the devil, he was a deceiver and an accomplice to murder. Knowing His betrayer’s identity, however, Jesus has to comply with God’s requirements and clean out the leaven of hypocrisy, theft, and greed (Mark 8:15; John 12:4-5) from the house. Having exposed him as unfit for the feast, Jesus tells Judas to leave, and in a tragically ironic replay of the first Passover, he goes out quickly, even immediately (John 13:27, 30; cf. Exod 12:11, 33) into the night (John 13:30; cf. Exod 12:12, 31, 42). Exiting as he does, Judas self-identifies as one who walks by night and stumbles because the light is not in him (John 11:10); he is a child “of the night [and] darkness” (1 Thess 5:5). Be that as it may, what Jesus did at His own final feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread was what His Apostle instructs the church to do in 1 Cor 5:6-13. Having removed the leaven of Judas from the fellowship of His Table, Jesus had acted so as not to associate with any so-called brother if he is a sexually immoral person, or a greedy person, or an idolater, or is verbally abusive, or habitually drunk, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a person. Even on the night in which He was betrayed, Jesus acted so that those who ate at His Table would not just eat unleavened bread, but be an unleavened people.

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Engaging with Aimee Byrd’s Recent Book: Selected Points (#4: Family/Church Analogy)

July 27, 2020 at 7:46 pm (1 Corinthians, 1Timothy, Books (reviews and recommendations), Feminism, Instructing the Body, Women)

Posted by R. Fowler White

From our discussion of selected points in Aimee Byrd’s recent book in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of our review, we are hopefully clarifying the points on which we can agree and disagree about the results that she sees coming from an equal investment in the discipleship of women and men. We have urged that Byrd’s book is strongest when she calls for a reemphasis on Christlikeness and the church’s historic doctrines and practices as the proper goal and focus of discipleship. We do differ with her, however, when she contends that discipleship will produce laywomen and laymen who serve God’s household in the same capacities. Alternatively, we see discipleship producing laywomen and laymen who are indeed coactive and reciprocal in some capacities that are the same, but in others that are different. In other words, we see discipleship producing women and men whose capacities to serve are correlated with the general and special offices and with the elements of worship. Of course, this correlation is precisely the point at which our visions of discipleship and its results may clash. It is also the point at which it was vital for Paul to elaborate on love of others (1 Cor 12:31–14:1) as the standard that should shape relationships and service in God’s household. To his elaboration of this standard we want to call attention in this post.

As we said in Part 3, according to 1 Cor 14:26-40, love of others requires that during the public ministry of God’s word in its various forms (14:26), those who give and receive that ministry must do all things in a fitting and orderly way, following “the Lord’s command” through the Apostle (14:36-38; 11:16). To get readers to feel the weight of those directives, Paul attaches them to two anchors. One of those anchors is the practices taught and instituted in all the churches (14:33b; 11:2, 16). This connection tells us that, beyond what Byrd and her sources suppose, there is more at stake here than a special rule for a special situation in a specific local church, namely, a rule to stop the disruptive chatting of distracted women during the public ministry of God’s word. No, what is at stake is a standing rule (cf. 7:17b) in all the churches (14:33b), a rule that, during the public ministry of God’s word to His household, the women should not speak but should subject themselves (like the laymen) to those men who aspire to and qualify for service in that special public ministry (14:34; cf. 14:37-38). This is not to say that discipleship between women and men should never be coactive and mutual; it is to say that the appropriate venue for that reciprocal coactivity is the home, not the church’s public meetings (14:35; cf. Acts 18:24-26). The point at stake, then, is that the love of others should constrain a local church not to put its men and women at odds (11:16) with the traditions delivered to all the churches (11:2) when it comes to the public ministry of God’s word.[1]

In addition to those universally binding practices, Paul also appeals in 1 Cor 14:34 to the Law as one of the anchors of his directions. To understand what he means by the Law, it is most helpful to use “the proper hermeneutical lens” through which Byrd, following her sources, wants us to view 1 Corinthians 11–14. With that lens, we see that those four chapters are an essay in which Paul addresses disorders that were occurring when the church came together. Therein, 1 Cor 11:2-16 and 1 Cor 14:33b-40 are bookends that mirror one another, with the intervening sections also mirroring one another in reverse order as they lead to and from the essay’s center point in chapter 13.[2] For our purposes, it is most important to notice that if those bookends do indeed mirror each other, then it is more than reasonable to conclude that the Law in 1 Cor 14:34 is Paul’s shorthand for Genesis 1-3 to which he refers in 1 Cor 11:7-9, 11-12. Seeing, then, this connection between Genesis 1-3 and 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, the chain-link logic in his reasoning comes into view. And, of course, the significance of Genesis 1-3 is that there Paul finds not just the beginnings of man and woman and the family dynamics of their relationship, but also the analogy that those beginnings provide for the relationship between women and men in the church. Thus, we see that, like the apostolic traditions, the Law also forms an anchor for Paul’s explanation of how men and women are to relate and serve in love in God’s household.

Bringing the preceding points together, we see that in 1 Corinthians Paul gets readers to feel the weight of his directives about the public ministry of God’s word from two anchors: the universally binding apostolic traditions and the family-church analogy in Genesis 1-3. But 1 Corinthians is not the only place where the Apostle links his logic to the family-church analogy: we find it again in 1 Timothy. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 11–14 and 1 Timothy 2–5, we have the earliest and latest uses of this reasoning (thus providing us an indication that Paul’s directions for the churches were consistent over the entire course of his ministry). In those chapters, it is really interesting to notice Paul’s recurring interests in the same issues: in gender-appropriate apparel for public worship (1 Cor 11:4-7; 1 Tim 2:9-10), in the elements of public worship (1 Cor 11:4-5; 11:23-26; 14:15-19, 26; 1 Tim 2:1–3:7; 4:13), and in the standards that define and govern relationships between women and men (1 Cor 11:8-9, 11-12, 16; 14:34-38; 1 Tim 2:13-15; 3:4-5, 15; 5:1-2). That Paul repeats himself in these chapters ought to make his reasoning all the more valuable to people struggling to sort out relationships between men and women.

Pointedly, in Paul’s presentation, church standards of relationship and service are a carryover from family standards. As a result, he would have church members, out of love for one another, take into account whether their fellow members are male or female, younger or older (1 Tim 5:1-2). In addition, lest we think that the analogy is only a matter of age and sex, Paul takes it beyond those criteria and applies it to spiritual growth and calling (cf. Eph 4:12-16; Rom 12:2; Eph 5:8-10; Col 1:9-10; see also 2 Pet 3:18; Heb 5:12-14). Thus, he would have men become examples of maturity (cf. 1 Tim 4:12; Titus 2:7), respected as “fathers” in God’s household (cf. 1 Cor 4:15; 11:1; Phlm 10), among whom are some whose calling is to teach and govern God’s household in the special office of elder (Jas 3:1; 1 Tim 3:1-7; cf. 1 Cor 4:15; 11:1; Phlm 10; cf. 1 Pet 5:3). Similarly, he would have women too become examples of maturity, honored as “mothers” in God’s household whose calling is to teach the younger women in God’s household as their “daughters” (Titus 2:3-5; 1 Tim 5:9-10, 14 [with 3:11?]; see also 1 Pet 3:6b; cf. 2 Tim 1:5 with 3:14-15). All things considered, the bottom line of Paul’s family-church analogy is that love of others requires us to oppose any suppositions that a local church is a homogeneous assemblage of interchangeable persons (even siblings) who are to be treated the same and to serve in the same capacities. Instead, Paul bids us to look in love on a local church as a heterogeneous household of fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters who are to be treated with the honor due to them on account of their differences in sex, age, maturity, and calling.[3]

To draw to a close this series of posts on selected points of Aimee Byrd’s new book, we will look in Part 5 at the adage that “a woman may do anything in church that an unordained man may do” in the light of Paul’s family-church analogy.

[i] Cf. A. C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (New International Greek Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 1155.

[ii] The structure of 1 Cor 11:2–14:40 would look approximately like this: A: gender-appropriate apparel in worship, 11:2-16; B: disorder in the ministry of the Lord’s Supper, 11:17-34; C: gifts and the unity of the body, 12:1-30; X: the standard of conduct (love), 12:31-13:13; C´: gifts and the priorities of the body, 14:1-25; B´: disorder in the ministry of God’s word, 14:26-33a; A´: gender-appropriate speech in worship, 14:33b-40.

[iii] The content of this paragraph paraphrases and reapplies observations found in V. S. Poythress, The Church as Family (1990) and in the report submitted by the Committee on Women in Church Office to the Fifty-fifth (1988) General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

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Engaging with Aimee Byrd’s Recent Book: Selected Points (#3: Prophesying)

July 23, 2020 at 6:45 pm (1 Corinthians, 1Timothy, Acts, Books (reviews and recommendations), Feminism, Holy Spirit, Instructing the Body, Women)

Posted by R. Fowler White

In Part 1 and Part 2 of our interaction with selected themes in Aimee Byrd’s new book, we reviewed 1 Tim 2:12 and Acts 18:24-28 and Col 3:16 (with others) as representative passages related to teaching in the special and general offices. From those texts we gleaned that laymen and laywomen were exhorted to be coactive in the general teaching office, but that the special teaching office was limited to qualified men. From our interaction with Byrd to this point, then, we gather that, since reciprocal coactivity in teaching was not a mark of the special office or of the public meetings of the church, the coactive teaching of those in the general office need not diminish or undermine those in the special office.

Along with texts related to teaching, however, there are also texts related to prophesying, and from them Byrd and many others (including denominational study committees) have argued that women were permitted to prophesy in the church’s public assemblies. As plausible and as widely accepted as this view is, it is pertinent to ask this question: how is it that, when the NT churches gathered in their public meetings, only men were teaching but both women and men were prophesying? To answer this question, it is worth asking if the premise of the question was true: were men and women in fact coactive in prophesying in church? Or was it the case that the same standards regulated teaching and prophesying? Before we comment further on the question of standards, let’s examine the observation that both women and men prophesied when the churches came together.

First, to the extent that Scripture speaks of the prophethood of all believers, we should grant that men and women both did prophesy in church. For instance, in Acts 2:17-18 Peter declares that, insofar as Christ pours out His Spirit on all believers, they all share the prophetic anointing and thus all “prophesy.” That being the case, they all occupy the general prophetic office (e.g., 1 Cor 12:13; 1 John 2:20-27). In this light, the focus of our attention has to shift. Now we must ask, what did the activity of the general prophetic office look like?[1] With Peter’s citation of Joel as an interpretive backdrop for his readers, Luke portrays general prophesying throughout his narrative in Acts as a coactivity of household members, regardless of their sex, age, class, or race. But his narrative pushes us to be more specific. Indeed, Luke describes that activity almost exactly as the Chronicler describes the liturgical prophesying of selected male and female Levites under David (e.g., 1 Chron 25:1-7). That is, those Levitical liturgists are said to have “prophesied” according to their assignments in certain (but not all) elements of public worship,[2] namely, as they offered intercession, thanks, or praise (1 Chron 6:31-48; 16:4-7). Interestingly, in Acts we see that under David’s greater Son, male and female believers are said to have “prophesied” as they offered prayer, thanks, or praise. Specifically, as we follow Luke’s narrative, we are struck by the fact that, wherever Christ poured out His Spirit (in Jerusalem [Acts 1:14; 2:11], in Caesarea [Acts 10:44-46], in Ephesus [Acts 19:6], in Corinth [1 Cor 12:13], and beyond), the coactivity of men and women in many acts of public worship bore witness to their fellowship in the prophethood of all believers that the Spirit of Christ was forming.

Second, in addition to the general prophetic anointing of all believers, Scripture describes the special prophetic ministry of some believers (1 Cor 12:28-30; Eph 4:11). Upon closer examination of the prophetic activity in 1 Corinthians 11–14, it becomes clearer that, as they prophesied, men and women were coactive in certain elements of public worship, but not in all elements. For example, remembering that the Chronicler and Luke tell us that men and women “prophesied” as they were offering intercession, thanks, or praise, we need not be surprised when Paul tells us in 1 Cor 11:4-5 and 14:15-19 that men and women “prophesied” in those very same acts of worship. Other elements of worship, however, come into view in 1 Cor 11:2–14:26 (cf. Acts 2:42; 1 Tim 2:1-15; 3:14-15; 4:13). From this wider context, we realize that Paul’s overriding concern is to see all elements of public worship regulated by love of others (1 Cor 12:31–14:1). Strikingly, according to 1 Cor 14:26-40, love requires that during the public ministry of God’s word (14:26), anyone contributing to that ministry must follow the Apostle’s directives (14:36-38) on when to speak and when to be silent (14:27-35). In fact, in light of the question of whether prophesying was regulated by the same standards as teaching, it is critical to notice that the Apostle’s directives applied whether God’s word was brought in the form of “a psalm, … a teaching, … a revelation, … a tongue, … [or] an interpretation” (1 Cor 14:26b NAS95). Clearly, insofar as teaching and prophesying contributed to the public ministry of God’s word, Paul regulated them both by the same standards. Thus, 1 Cor 14:34-35 is an awfully close parallel to 1 Tim 2:11-15 (we will have more to say about this parallel in Part 4). In that light, it is remarkable to notice that, consistent with the distinction we saw between the general and special teaching offices, we also see a distinction between the general prophetic anointing and the special prophetic ministry. By all appearances, when God’s household came together (1 Cor 14:26a), men and women were expected to be coactive in the general prophetic office (e.g., 1 Cor 11:4-5; 14:15-19), but the special prophetic ministry of God’s word, like the special teaching ministry of God’s word, was limited to men (1 Cor 14:34-35). In other words, contrary to what Byrd and many others have argued, the Apostle’s policy on prophesying was, in “all the churches of the saints” (1 Cor 14:33b), coordinated with the general prophetic anointing of all and the special prophetic ministry of some. That is, Paul limited the element of worship devoted to the special prophetic ministry of God’s word to men; and, consistent with the general prophetic anointing of all, he approved of women and men being coactive in prophesying during those other elements of worship not devoted the ministry of God’s word. In short, in all the congregations of Christ’s church, the principles that regulated teaching and prophesying were the same.

In what has preceded, we have sought to show how Paul correlates the coactivity of women and men in prophesying and in teaching with the general and special offices. We have also sought to highlight that the Apostle cites love as the standard that shapes his directives for participation in the elements of public worship. We can understand even better where Paul anchors his policy on women and men in teaching, however, by taking one more step. We’ll take that step in Part 4.

[1] The trajectory of the following comments was first suggested to me by Dr. R. Laird Harris. Recently, essentially the same trajectory has been suggested independently by Iain M. Duguid, “What Kind of Prophecy Continues? Defining the Differences between Continuationism and Cessationism,” in Redeeming the Life of the Mind: Essays in Honor of Vern Poythress, ed. John Frame, Wayne Grudem, and John Hughes (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 112–28.

[2] By “elements of worship” I mean reading and preaching God’s word, singing psalms and hymns, offering prayer, presenting offerings, confessing the faith, and administering Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

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