Charismatic Chaos (A Return To Babel) Series

1 Corinthians chapter number 14 starts out with these words Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy. For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him.

The title of this mornings message is Charismatic Chaos, A Return to Babel.

In the Scripture reading this morning we read the account of the Tower of Babel from Genesis 11 where the people of the earth all spoke one language, they were united, but because they disobeyed the commandment of the Lord to be fruitful and multiply and to spread out and fill the whole earth, the Lord came down and confused their language.

In Acts chapter 2 we see a type of reversal of this when on the Day of Pentecost the apostles spoke with tongues, and the people gathered there in Jerusalem the Scripture says were from every nation under heaven and they heard the apostles speak each one in his own language. But unfortunately here in 1 Corinthians 14 which was around 25 years after the day of Pentecost we see what is in a sense a return to Babel where some in the Corinthian church were speaking in what the Bible calls an unknown tongue, a type of Babbling sound that no man understood. So…..

Paul begins chapter 14 by saying follow after charity, this is his conclusion from chapter 13, to pursue love. The conclusion of this chapter, chapter 14 is found at the end, in verse 40 where Paul says “let all things be done decently and in order”. So what does that tell you? It tells you there was disorder in the church.

So, some of the church members along with lacking love, they were abusing the gifts, especially speaking with tongues and this led to chaos in the church, so much so that Paul says in verse 23

If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad? Because of your behavior people are going to get the idea that Christians are out of their mind! So it was a chaotic scene to be sure.

So verse 1 sets the tone, follow after charity, desire the spiritual gifts (the spiritual gifts are good, it’s just the abuse of them that’s the problem) so pursue love, desire the gifts but especially prophesy.

When we hear the word prophesy we often think of a prophet who receives direct revelation from God as he predicts future events so prophesy while it can be foretelling, prophecy can also be forthtelling or preaching.

The prophets of the Old Testament after all were preachers! So why does Paul tell them to desire preaching over tongues? The answer is found in verses 2 and 3.

2 For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.

3 But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort.

Now at this point some of you have noticed that I am preaching from the King James Version of the Bible. The King James translators seemed to recognize something here that is easy to miss.

We’ve already established that the gifts, especially the gift of tongues was being abused and if you look closely, in this chapter (generally speaking) when you see tongues plural with an “S” Paul speaks about it in a positive way, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit after all, but when he speaks about a tongue singular he appears to speak about it in a negative way.

The King James Version picks up on this and whenever the singular use of tongue is mentioned the KJV calls it an unknown tongue - Nobody understood what was being said, most likely because nothing was being said, it was gibberish or maybe what people call an ecstatic utterance. Many religions have their own version of speaking in an unknown tongue. We talked about this back in the first sermon from chapter 12, how Paul talks about pagans being carried away to these dumb idols. They worked themselves up and supposedly were being controlled by spirits and in that altered state of consciousness would make ecstatic utterances and or speak gibberish.

Do you remember what Jesus said in Matthew 6? He told his disciples “when you pray, do not use vain repetitions like the heathen do.” The fact is sometimes Christians whether it’s intentional or unintentional pick up on pagan practices. Take Yoga for example, now on the one hand there is nothing wrong with, stretching, breathing, doing certain exercises etc but if you put those things together just right it can become a gateway into Eastern Pagan Religion. Repeating words over and over again, there are churches today that have monks who practice chanting, or they repeat a particular phrase over and over again sometimes for hours ---- and listen!