Church in the Wild

Week 13: Be Silent
Pastor Rick Henderson            March 28-28, 2026

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Note: This manuscript isn’t a transcript of the sermon, but a planning guide showing what the speaker intends to say.

 

Intro comments from baptism…and talk to people on screen

1 CORINTHIANS 14

Will you grab a Bible or use your phone to find this passage? We are continuing in our series on 1 Corinthians. If you’re still getting used to how the Bible is laid out, it’s in the second half, called the New Testament. And it’s the seventh book: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, then 1 Corinthians. Even though we call it a book, 1 Corinthians was a letter from the Apostle Paul to the church in the city of Corinth. They didn’t gather in one large group, like we’re doing now. That just wasn’t possible. They would have thought of themselves as one church, but they gathered in homes, scattered across the city. The size of those gatherings ranged anywhere from about 20 to maybe 50 people.

If you’ve been tracking with us during this series, you know that this church was on the struggle bus. They had issues. If you’re not up to speed on their struggles, here’s a quick rundown.

BACKSTORY OF CORINTHIANS

• Tribalized around personalities
• Sexual misconduct: incest, prostitution, celibate marriages
• Divorce
• Performative spirituality
• Chaotic worship services
• Tensions between men and women in leadership
• Wealth-based discrimination
• Competition for status
• Legal Disputes
• Pseudo-Intellectualism

Naturally, if you’re going to read a letter that was originally written to a church with those problems, there are going to be spicy passages to get through. We shouldn’t be surprised to find material that strikes us as odd or confusing. Adding to the confusion is the fact that this is at least the third letter in a series sent back and forth. And we are only getting one half of the conversation.

That doesn’t mean that clarity and understanding are impossible. But it does mean that clarity and understanding don’t come immediately. We must put in a little effort. I need to give you a heads up. Not only are there parts to what we’re going to read that will be confusing. There are parts that you may feel are little cooky, and one part for sure that lots of people think is misogynistic.

So, if you’re going to let me be your tour guide through a dense passage that has a reputation for being confusing, strange, and maybe misogynistic, not only will it take effort, it’s going to require guts. Do you remember our theme verses for this series?

1 CORINTHIANS 16:13-14 Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.

We’re summarizing it like this.

SERIES THESIS: Stand FIRM and FEARLESS, but let LOVE lead.

Let’s plant our feet and be brave. We don’t have to hide from or ignore passages that are hard. And let’s remember the point of it all is love. Before we read the whole chapter, I want to put the first and last verses on the screen.

1 CORINTHIANS 14:1,40 Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy… But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.

What comes in between these two verses may feel unclear, strike you as weird, even offensive. Before we jump into it, let these verses serve as guardrails. Whatever we read in between them, the point of all it is to love, that everyone has important part to play, and everything we do should be peaceful and ordered, not chaotic.

There are many factors that can make a passage feel confusing. A major one is failing to read it in context. That’s not just a Bible thing. If you want to understand a writing, if you want to understand a person, you must understand the context. What have we learned so far?

1 CORINTHIANS 11:1-16

• Men and women are interdependent on each other, fully dependent on God, and both get to lead when the church gathers for worship.

This is going to be so important to remember when we get to the verse that reads, “Women should be quiet in the church.”

1 CORINTHIANS 11:17-34

• Gospel-shaped unity isn’t diverse people around each other; it’s diverse people bound to each other.

1 CORINTHIANS 12

• If you follow Jesus, you are gifted by the Holy Spirit to express God’s love to others, not for you to impress others.

1 CORINTHIANS 13

• Spiritual maturity isn’t about how talented you are, how much you know, or what you do. It’s about love.

That’s the context for what’s coming. A correct understanding of 1 CORINTHIANS 14 must fit the context.

1 CORINTHIANS 14:1-40 Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy. ² For anyone who speaks in a tongue ^r does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. ³ But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort. ⁴ Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves, but the one who prophesies edifies the church. ⁵ I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be edified.

Don’t get thrown off by the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues. Paul is not constructing a hierarchy. Instead, he’s deconstructing the hierarchies they’ve brought into the church. Apparently, some people were speaking in tongues, perhaps pretending to do so as an exhibition to get attention and gain prestige.

If that sounds weird to you, who has ever felt nervous about praying in front of people at church because you didn’t think you could pray as well as someone else? No one should ever feel that way! But if you have felt that way, it exposes that there’s a long history in church culture of attaching prestige to religious performance. Believe it or not, it’s anti-Jesus to attach prestige to religious performance.

Paul wanted to take a sledgehammer to that thinking. And he learned it from Jesus. Do you remember the scene where the companions of Jesus were arguing over who was the greatest? Then Jesus told them that the least was the greatest. The way to greatness was to be a servant. He even went so far as to say, " Be a slave to all.” It’s a punchy, provocative, and effective way to dismantle hierarchy and status seeking altogether.

Now, what exactly was Paul talking about with the word tongues? I don’t think he’s talking about the ability to be understood in a foreign language for the rapid transmission of the gospel. An example of that is Acts 2. People started preaching in the Aramaic language, but everyone heard it in their own language. Wild. Awesome. Supernatural.

A key feature of that Holy Spirit-given ability is that nothing needed to be translated. It happened instantaneously. What Paul writes about here is very different from that. I think Tim Mackie can help us understand. He’s a Bible scholar and cofounder of the Bible Project.

Tongues is a Spirit-given liberty to praise or pray to God with sounds or languages not understood by the speaker. Paul encourages the use of this gift in private and in the Sunday gathering, but only if the prayer is translated into intelligible speech so that it can benefit others. –Tim Mackie

If this feels weird or uncomfortable, let’s lean into that. Does God have the freedom to work in ways that make you uncomfortable? I don’t mind telling you that this is outside of my comfort zone. If one of you stood up and did this [pointing to the screen] and someone stood up and translated, I wouldn’t exactly vibe with that. And yet, if that’s how the Holy Spirit wants to work, I don’t think he needs my permission.

This might help us. I think Paul might be talking about the same kind of thing that he wrote about in Romans 8.

ROMANS 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

Did you know that when you don’t know how to pray, the Holy Spirit prays for you? Sometimes he is praying for you from the depths of who he is, with love for you, and in a way that can’t be contained by words. I can’t explain that. But isn’t it true that verbal communication doesn’t have to be intelligible to be meaningful? If you doubt that, I think I can prove it.

This is from my first ever trip to Africa. The person filming this video is Pastor Otis.

VIDEO: Monkey

That’s not a word in any language. But it communicates. There’s no confusion. Pastor Otis was letting us know that he did not want that monkey jumping on him. Now, I don’t mean to imply he’s not tough. On another trip, I saw stand to-toe-to with baboon who tried to steal our lunch. I even have a pic.

SLIDE: Baboon

Here’s the point. Let me bring this back.

ROMANS 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

You may be comfortable with the Holy Spirit gifting people to pray or praise in verbal ways that are not intelligible; you may not be comfortable with that. The fact remains that verbal communication doesn’t have to be intelligible to be meaningful. And if the Holy Spirit prays that way for us, there’s no reason that he can’t make us able to pray that way, too.

And yet, I’m not sure that Paul is encouraging them, us, or any church to make it part of their public worship gatherings.

⁶ Now, brothers and sisters, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction? ⁷ Even in the case of lifeless things that make sounds, such as the pipe or harp, how will anyone know what tune is being played unless there is a distinction in the notes? ⁸ Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle? ⁹ So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air. ¹⁰ Undoubtedly there are all sorts of languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning. ¹¹ If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker is a foreigner to me. ¹² So it is with you. Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church.

Truth is WASTED if it lands like a FOREIGN language.

This makes sense, right? That’s why Paul elevates prophecy. Whatever spiritual gifts are expressed in the church, whatever is included when we gather should benefit everyone. He may not disallow tongues, but he does discourage it. Prophecy is better because it benefits all of us. To understand what prophecy is, again, I think Tim Mackie can help.

Prophecy is Spirit-guided speaking that is inspired by God’s word and that makes the message specifically relevant to people’s lives or the life of the church community. –Tim Mackie

Have you ever had the experience of sitting in a larger crowd, but you felt like something in the sermon was specifically just for you? You’re experiencing this [pointing to the screen].

PROPHECY:

• Instructs
• Encourages
• Comforts
• Convicts

By convict we meant that it has the uncanny ability to bring to our attention things about ourselves that we thought were tucked down deep and hidden away. It causes us to realize that we’re not as right as we’d like to think and we need a savior. It points us to Jesus. For that kind of communication to work, we must be able to understand it.

Truth is WASTED if it lands like a FOREIGN language.

¹³ For this reason the one who speaks in a tongue should pray that they may interpret what they say. ¹⁴ For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. ¹⁵ So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding. ¹⁶ Otherwise when you are praising God in the Spirit, how can someone else, who is now put in the position of an inquirer, say “Amen” to your thanksgiving, since they do not know what you are saying? ¹⁷ You are giving thanks well enough, but no one else is edified.

Truth is WASTED if it lands like a FOREIGN language.

¹⁸ I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. ¹⁹ But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.

Truth is WASTED if it lands like a FOREIGN language.

²⁰ Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. ²¹ In the Law it is written:

“With other tongues
and through the lips of foreigners
I will speak to this people,
but even then they will not listen to me,
says the Lord.”

This is where we need to put in a little work. He’s quoting Isaiah 28. Go back and read it this week. This was the context. Old Testament prophets and priests were getting drunk. It was like a frat house kegger. Lots of vomit and messes. And the prophets and priests were giving sermons to people while intoxicated.

As a result, God brought judgment. His point was, if you’re not going to trust me and listen to me, I’m going to bring in foreign armies and you’re going to get my message through them. And Paul connects that to speaking in tongues in a church service.

²² Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is not for unbelievers but for believers.

Not a positive sign, but a negative sign. It signals that something is going on I don’t understand, but it’s not helpful.

²³ So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? ²⁴ But if an unbeliever or an inquirer comes in while everyone is prophesying, they are convicted of sin and are brought under judgment by all, ²⁵ as the secrets of their hearts are laid bare. So they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!”

Do you know what this means? Every time we get together, every church service should be considerate of and consider the experience of folks who don’t follow Jesus. The expectation of the Apostle Paul is that church is a place that curious and skeptical people love to attend. So don’t be weird. Don’t be confusing.

Don’t use Christianese. Do you know what Christianese is? It’s using insider words and expressions that’s only understood by people who already understand church culture. Phrases like:

• Pray for traveling mercies.
• Hedge of protection.

In all that we do, our music, our preaching, everything about our gatherings should be clear and communicated in a way that someone who is at church for the first time in their life can understand it. As followers of Jesus, that’s our responsibility.

Good Order in Worship

²⁶ 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. ²⁷ If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. ²⁸ If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.

²⁹ Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. ³⁰ And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. ³¹ For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. ³² The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. ³³ For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.

It all comes down to this, however you construct your worship gathering, if it’s a big crowd or something more intimate—it should be well organized, exude peace, and it should benefit everyone. I hope you’re asking this question.

QUESTION: If Paul allowed speaking in tongues at a worship gathering, are we free to do so at Autumn Ridge?

Before I answer that question, I think we need to first work through two other questions.

QUESTION: If you want to speak in tongues, how will you know if there will be an interpreter?

(You don’t.)

QUESTION: How do you guard against fraudulent expressions or manipulative and deceptive tactics?
(You can’t.)

I don’t think Paul is necessarily writing an instruction manual. For sure, there are instructions here. What he’s written is richer than that. It’s truth and wisdom that is immediately practical. And yet, it’s the sort of thing that deserves to be meditated on for a long time. If we engage what’s he’s written from that perspective, I think it will lead us to a place where tongues are not included in our worship gatherings.

If the Holy Spirit has given you that gift—awesome!. Express it as much as you want privately. It doesn’t add any value when we gather publicly. If that’s disappointing to you, that’s allowed. If you do feel a little pinched by that, buckle up because it’s about to get worse.

³⁴ Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. ³⁵ 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.

It’s understandable to me that women, and maybe men too, would feel offended by this—IF—if context and key facts were ignored. IF—context and key facts are taken into account, I can’t imagine a single reason why anyone would feel offended by this. First, let’s look at the command to be silent.

BE SILENT:

• Tongue‑speakers without interpretation (v.28).
• Prophets when another receives a revelation (v.30).
• Certain women whose speech was adding to the chaos (vv.34–35).

Same Greek word (sigaw), same controlling concern: order, not permanent gag orders.

I want to be crystal clear. It’s the same word that was used when instructed to stop talking if someone else had a word to share. It doesn’t mean stop talking forever.

We don’t have all the details of what was going on, but we do know that disorder, people interrupting each other, chaos was the theme of their worship gatherings. It reminds me of a clip from the 80s about the stock market.

VIDEO: Stock Market

It shouldn’t be like that. And let’s remember three chapters earlier. Paul 100% affirmed women leading in prayer and prophesying in the worship gathering. Not to mention, there are lots of women leaders in the New Testament.

NT WOMEN LEADERS:

• Mary Magdalene
• Mary (Jesus’ mom)
• The Samaritan Woman
• Daughters of Philip
• Junia
• Priscilla
• Dorcas
• Phoebe
• Nympha
• Chloe
• Lydia

Whatever was going on, it appears that there was a group of women who were adding to the disruption and chaotic nature of the gathering. And to everyone who was guilty of that, they were told to stop talking and to be very intentional about hosting an orderly and peaceful gathering.

Anyone who attempts to use this passage to bar women from leadership in a church service is ignoring the context and the key facts in the chapter.

³⁶ Or did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? ³⁷ 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. ³⁸ But if anyone ignores this, they will themselves be ignored. ³⁹ Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. ⁴⁰ But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.

I think this lands at good news.

GOOD NEWS:

• You don’t have to be embarrassed by or hide from anything in the Bible.
• Jesus is peace; he gives us a life of peace, and by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, we get to express that in how we gather, share our gifts, and worship.

This may not seem like a message you can quickly apply to your life. Maybe we can. I’ve got some next steps I want us to consider.

NEXT STEPS:

• De-Christianize your speech.

Ask yourself, “Could I say this sentence at work or in my neighborhood without cringing?” If not, rephrase it for love’s sake.

• Adopt a First-time Filter.

Imagine one specific friend, neighbor, or coworker. I’m asking you to imagine someone you care about who does not follow Jesus and to mentally bring that person with you each Sunday. What would make them say, ‘You’re out of your mind’?” Then, let’s commit to removing anything that makes it unnecessarily difficult for them to understand and receive what we want to share. Let’s do whatever it takes to intentionally be a church that curious and skeptical people love to attend.

• Ask: What am I contributing, and is it helpful or unhelpful to others?

Let’s end with this.

When truth lands like a foreign language, LOVE gets lost.

Isn’t that what the life of Jesus is all about—closing the gap so love doesn’t get lost? He became one of us. He slowed down. He stepped into a real, messy, up‑close life with people so we wouldn’t miss what God is saying: you are loved, and you are wanted in his family. On the cross, he took all the chaos, guilt, and distance on himself, and in the resurrection, he opened a new life of peace with God.

For those of us who know him, we get to be living, breathing translators of that love—ambassadors who make Jesus clear, not confusing, to the people around us. And if you’re still trying to figure Jesus out, I want you to know he has already moved toward you. Today you can simply tell him, in your own words, “Jesus, I need you. I trust what you did for me. I want the life you give.” You don’t have to have it all worked out to take that step. Our hope is that you would receive this good news, begin trusting him today, and walk out of here knowing that you are loved, more than you realize, by a Savior who speaks your language.