1 CORINTHIANS 14
Having said what he has said about love being the driving force in the church, Paul returns to the matter of spirituality in what he considered to be the immature attitude amongst the leaders of the church in Corinth. His instruction was to “follow the way of love” (v1) since they had been following the way of showing off and claiming to be superior to others in much the same way as the followers of pagan religions did.
Paul concentrates on the more supernatural spiritual gifts of speaking in tongues and prophecy, which these Corinthians rated above what we might call the more ‘mundane’ gifts. Throughout his letters Paul lists a variety of spiritual gifts and earlier in Chapter 12 he included such gifts as helping, teaching, administration (1 Corinthians 12:28-30) as being on a par with prophecy and speaking in tongues. In Romans Paul mentions other gifts such as encouraging, serving, contributing to the needs of others, showing mercy (Romans 12:6-8). He made the point that not all have all the gifts, but all the gifts are needed to make up the body of the church.
Sadly, even today, there are some who consider the supernatural gifts to be a mark of maturity or even of ‘real’ Christianity. This is exactly what was going on in the church at Corinth and was causing divisions, and this is what Paul wanted to stop.
Paul spends quite a lot of time discussing speaking in tongues and prophecy as these were the gifts that were being misused in the church to claim that certain people who had these gifts were somehow ‘better’ than those who did not. This discussion may not seem particularly relevant in our own situation, but the point that Paul is making is that these gifts are given to all. They are different gifts; not all are leaders, but equally not all are given the gift of hospitality. This variety of gifts is given by God the Holy Spirit to enable the church to function. They are for the benefit of the church as a whole and not for the gratification or pride of individuals.
Paul finishes the section with some comments about how worship should be conducted, “everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way” (v40). Some people take exception to Paul’s comment, “women should remain silent in church” or take it as an instruction for the church today. But we need to remember that in this letter and in this chapter, Paul is dealing with specific issues in this particular church in Corinth. It may be that, just like the self-important in the church are disrupting the church with their views on spiritual gifts, so a group of women may have been disrupting worship by using that time for their own business. We cannot say for sure but given the context of Paul’s letter, and this chapter in particular, that would seem to be a reasonable explanation for his comments. They are for a particular place, time and group of people.