Speaking In Tongues (part 23)

Paul then makes his now rather familiar point by writing “Otherwise, if you are praising God with your spirit, how can someone without the gift say ‘Amen’ to your thanksgiving, since he does not know what you are saying?  For you are certainly giving thanks well, but the other person is not strengthened” (1 Corinthians 14:16-17).  It returns to this.  Paul wants to see the church strengthened through every activity that is said to be rooted in the gifting of the Spirit of the Creator God. 

Paul wants every member (taking up and employing his language from chapter twelve) to be able to participate equally, on equal footing, with nobody feeling like a foreigner, with nobody marginalized as second-class spiritual citizens of the kingdom of the covenant God, and certainly nobody being held up or looked to as a superior within the body of the Christ simply because they engage in one or more particular activities that have been honorifically pre-designated by that body as gifts of the Spirit. 

Time and again, Paul, as he deals with what is happening in this church body because of the glossolalia that is occurring there, refocuses his audience on the strengthening of the church (which can also be seen in his dealings with the problems at the church meal and the Lord’s Supper in chapter eleven).  It is the strengthening of the entire body that should be the motivation and the result of speaking in tongues.  If that motivation and result is not achieved, regardless of the gift under consideration (with this going beyond speaking in tongues), then it’s place in the assembly needs to be reconsidered and carefully examined.  To circle back around to the issue of honor, it can easily be said that if one is concerned with accumulation of honor through the exercise of what are considered to be the gifts of the Spirit, then the strengthening of the church is probably not going to be in sight. 

Bringing honor back into consideration at this point allows what comes next to dovetail quite nicely, as Paul writes “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you, but in the church I want to speak five words with my mind to instruct others, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue” (14:18-19).  Paul knew that speaking in tongues would gain him honor, but this he did not seek, so he did not engage in this publicly, which his hearers would probably think quite odd.  If there was no public display and no witnesses, then what would be the point?  Paul did not want to limit his impact within the church to only those gifted with the ability to interpret or understand, thus contributing to a division and a spiritual hierarchy of elevation and exclusion (based on honor accumulation).  If he spoke plainly in church, then no matter how much or how little he spoke, all could share equally in the instruction.     

...Like A Gentile Or Tax Collector (part 13 of 13)

However, something disturbing happens.  “After he went out, that same slave found one of his fellow slaves who owed him one hundred silver coins.  So he grabbed him by the throat and started to choke him, saying ‘Pay back what you owe me!’” (Matthew 18:28).  Applying this parable to Israel’s historical narrative, Israel, forgiven by their God and restored to their land and supposedly re-committed to their role to be the Creator God’s light-bearer to the nations, once again closed ranks.  Gentiles, who had certainly been tools in the hands of Israel’s God to chastise Israel, but who had also been used by that same God to restore Israel to its land and to rebuild its Temple, were again looked up as enemies by the covenant people.  

By Jesus’ day, the barriers of exclusion had again been raised, and Israel was concerned only with their position as their God’s covenant people and with their God acting on their behalf to establish His kingdom for them and set them above all nations.  Gentiles were not only not their concern of course, but they were widely understood to be a source and locus of defilement.  At the time of Matthew’s composition, the ongoing battle within the church was whether or not Gentiles had to accede to the ancient covenant markers of Judaism (circumcision, dietary laws, and Sabbath keeping) in order to fully participate in the covenant.  That, presumably, and playing off the parable, was the debt that they owed to the Jews.  They had failed to understand that they were the slaves that had been forgiven a great debt, and now they carried an obligation to extend that forgiveness to their fellow slaves, the Gentiles. 

Predictably and not unlike the first slave had done when confronted with his debt and its consequences, “his fellow slave threw himself down and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will repay you.’  But he refused.  Instead, he went out and threw him in prison until he repaid the debt” (18:29-30).  Continuing to draw the analogy then, while Gentiles had been locked away from participation in the covenant, Jesus goes to them (metaphorically---they generally came to Him) and brings them within its fold.    

However, this was not a universal situation.  Not all were guilty.  One must continue to recognize the multiple levels on which this is being heard (by Jesus’ original hearers and by the church communities in the late first century), acknowledging that some had understanding and were accepting of the non-exclusive (when it came to who could participate and who could not) kingdom message that Jesus had brought.  Consequently, “When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were very upset and went and told their lord everything that had taken place.  Then his lord called the first slave and said to him, ‘Evil slave!  I forgave you all that debt because you begged me!  Should you not have shown mercy to your fellow slave, just as I showed it to you?’” (18:31-33) 

Now, this is not a judgment against the Jews, but rather an illustration of the historical situation, while also being an illustrated sermon of what Jesus has said is demanded of His people.  With the final words of this parable it is made clear what is the response of the God of Israel to those that fail to treat an offending brother as a Gentile or tax collector (according to what has been seen as the way that Jesus treats them), or if one fails to offer unending forgiveness to their covenant brethren.  Matthew writes: “And in anger his lord turned him over to the prison guards to torture him until he repaid all he owed.  So also my heavenly Father will do to you, if each of you does not forgive your brother from your heart” (18:34-35).  As forgiveness and love form the functional basis for relationships within the body that calls Jesus Lord, all believers do well to consider themselves fortunate enough to be considered as Gentiles and tax collectors, while also having the opportunity to consider others as Gentiles and tax collectors as well.        

Law To Become Void (part 3)

Again, this law of the Creator God, delivered to Israel, represented a rich heritage for the people of that God.  However, the guardians of the law in Jesus’ day, as far as He was concerned, were not handling it adequately.  Jesus observed that the law, rather than serving its intended purpose, had been used as a means to draw boundary lines and erect walls around the blessings that were associated with living according to the revealed covenant of the Creator God.  It had been used for purposes of exclusion and isolation, thus denying the idea that their God could bless anybody but those that were marked off as Israel---those that were properly ascribing to the works of the law. 

At the same time, the Pharisees and the experts in the law were eagerly awaiting and expecting the promised messiah to come forth, so as to establish the kingdom of God on earth and to elevate His covenant people above all nations.  The kingdom of the their God, which represented the Creator God’s realm of existence (heaven) breaking in to the realm of existence understood to be occupied by those that were created as the image of the Creator God (earth), was what was looked forward to as the true riches that were going to be experienced by God’s covenant people.  Here, one can think of Jesus’ prayer that the will of His God be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Jesus, much like those with whom He lived, expected heaven to come to earth through the Creator God abiding with and among His people.  

It was the true riches of that coming kingdom of God, as these Pharisees and experts in the law understood them, that caused them to be so rigid and vigilant in their application of the required works of the law and the traditions associated with those works.  As they looked upon Israel’s history, with the idolatry (and associated problems) and its results (judgment and repeated subjugations) that seemed to stem from inappropriate contact with surrounding nations, their efforts were somewhat understandable, and can even be looked upon as noble in some respects.  Jesus however, as He seems to consider the way that these individuals understood the kingdom of God, with their purposeful and strident exclusion of the Gentile nations and all that did not perform according to the law and the traditions of the elders, disagrees with their program and informs them that they cannot be entrusted with the true riches. 

This established, Jesus can be heard to continue His dissertation against the presumption and what He apparently saw as the kingdom-of-God-denying high-mindedness of the Pharisees and the experts in the law.  With the words that followed His telling of the story of the irresponsible and dishonest manager, He can be understood to be clearly painting these people in that role.  This will have the effect of winning Jesus additional supporters amongst the “commoners”, but it will certainly gain Him little to no favor with those who fancied themselves as the guardians of the covenant. 

Jesus makes the connection between the dishonest-though-hopefully-relying-on-his-master’s-honor-standing manager and the Pharisees and experts in the law even more clear, as He continues on to say, “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and money” (Luke 16:13).  Luke reinforces the connection in the very next verse, writing that “The Pharisees (who love money) heard all this and ridiculed Him” (16:14).  The connection appears to be rather clear.