I Thessalonians 5:19-22
If you or I were to walk
into the average Christian congregation of the first century, we would probably
find it to be a very different place than our church or most other churches we
might visit today. To begin with, we would
probably be meeting in someone’s home; church buildings weren’t being built
yet, although as early as the end of the first-century some homes appear to
have been modified to accommodate meetings.
There would be no piano—it hadn’t been invented yet. No one would be carrying a Bible—what we call
the New Testament was still being written and what we call the Old Testament
was not readily available. The meeting
itself might be taking place either very late in the evening or very early in
the morning to allow slaves an opportunity to attend and still do their
required labor for their masters. And,
depending on the background of the congregation’s members, the men and the
women might sit apart form each other.
Of course, some things would be the same. There would be singing. There would be prayer. There would be exposition of the Word of God;
messages would focus on Christ, with some of those around us hearing for the
first time, stories we’ve heard since childhood. There would be a yearning to discover how to
be God’s people in their world.
As we sat among these
Christians, we would observe some things that might be strange to us. We might see a woman carry a feverish child
to the front of the assembly where a small group of leaders would pour what appeared
to be oil on the child and pray for its recovery.
After this, the leader
asks if any of the “prophets” has a word of encouragement from the Lord. A man, then a woman, stand and await
recognition. After being acknowledged,
the woman tells the congregation that God will not forget them in the hard
times which are about to befall the church.
She quotes a couple psalms that echo her message. Then, the man speaks. While we don’t understand the background of
what he says, it’s evident he is offering specific directions for a unique
problem facing this church.
As soon as he is
finished, the believers around you begin to weigh his words, obviously trying
to decide whether or not they should act on them.
I don’t want to let my
imagination run away with me. We don’t
know all that might have happened in a typical service among early
Christians. But we do know that the
Spirit was almost always an invited guest.
When we think of the
Spirit’s activity in the early church, we almost always think of the Corinthian
church. That church had several
problems, including disorder caused by misuse of spiritual gifts like speaking
in tongues. We have the impression that
their services were almost chaotic. Not
only were their services of no use to the Christians themselves, they seemed to
put off any seekers who might have come to discover more about the gospel. As Paul tersely says, “if unbelievers or
people who don't understand these things come into your meeting and hear
everyone talking in an unknown language, they will think you are crazy.”
Maybe, it would help to
do a bit of review here. I’ll just touch
on the basics.
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The New Testament teaches that Jesus has
given the church as a whole and each Christian individually the Holy Spirit, as
a constant Helper and Guide.
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The Holy Spirit has given
each Christian a particular gift or gifts (charisma) to enable that Christian
to enhance the life of the church and aid it in advancing the gospel.
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These gifts take a variety of forms. While no one gift was given to every
Christian, every Christian was given some gift.
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The Corinthians were particularly fascinated
with the gift of “speaking in tongues.”
Speaking in tongues is usually described as the capacity to speak in a
language unknown by the speaker.
According to Paul, this gift was not to be exercised in church unless
someone possessed the complementary gift of interpretation.
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In many, if not all, congregations there
appears to have been those with “the gift of prophecy.” Gordon Fee (cited by Holmes) suggests a
definition of prophecy: “it consisted of
spontaneous, Spirit-inspired, intelligible messages, orally delivered in the
gathered assembly, intended for the edification or encouragement of the
people,” by men or women, who remained “in control” of the activity.”
Ö
While Paul does not denigrate “tongues,” he
clearly seems to believe that prophecy has the greater potential for benefiting
the church.
If some Christians
became obsessed with spiritual gifts, particularly gifts like speaking in
tongues, an obsession that might be described as “the Corinthian syndrome,”
isn’t it possible that a very different problem might develop among those
Christians who were afraid that these behaviors would infect their
churches? At the same time, some
leaders may have feared the exercise of these gifts—particularly the gift of
prophecy—would threaten their authority and influence. These fears and concerns may have spawned
what I’m calling “the Thessalonian syndrome.”
We can only guess at the
precise situation that prompted Paul to write these words to the
Thessalonians. Perhaps it grew out of
the Thessalonian Christians’ disappointment with what they felt was a failure
of Christ's promised return to have taken place. Maybe their “prophets” had predicted that
return was just around the corner and those predictions had been uncritically
accepted. In response they may have
begun to reject or suppress all “charismatic” activity in the congregation.
To counter this, Paul
lays down some basic principles. Keeping
these principles in mind will help us when God wants to lead our church in a
particular direction or help us deal with a particular challenge.
The Principle of Openness.
The language recalls the imagery of the
Spirit as fire. Paul tells his readers
that they must not douse the Spirit's fire.
The idea is
amazing. It suggests that somehow our
response might prevent the Holy Spirit from doing something in or through our
church.
How might the Spirit be quenched?
Through indifference—not caring about the things God cares about. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade,
regularly prayed, “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of
God.”
Through doubt—the refusal to believe that God can do something
significant through some individual or some church.
Through ridicule—mocking the simple faith of those who believe God will
honor his word or keep his promises.
Several years ago, a
former Southern Baptist Convention president said that if the Holy Spirit were
suddenly removed from our churches, in 90% of them business would go on as
usual, with no one noticing any difference.
The Principle of Appreciation.
The International
English translation, "Don't think prophecy is unimportant," is
appropriate. The word exoutheneo means "make of no
account." In fact, the word has
even a stronger sense: "to regard
as nothing, to despise utterly, to treat with contempt."
It’s likely that Paul’s
involvement in the missionary work of the church was due, in part, to a message
given by one of the prophets at the church in Antioch. There, while the church was concertedly
praying, “…the Holy Spirit said, ‘Dedicate Barnabas and Saul for the special
work I have for them.’" That
“special work” was carrying the gospel to the larger world. That a group of people who had benefited so
much from that missionary impulse would “despise” the vehicle by which it came
into being seemed incredible.
God's direct word to the
churches was to be treasured, not despised.
It is to be appreciated as part of the grace of God to the church.
Before we go on, we need
to make a few matters clear.
1. The notion that “prophecy” was some kind of
ecstatic speech, gibberish that made no sense, is unfounded.
In fact, in First
Corinthians 14, Paul seems to argue the very opposite position: The content of the prophet’s message was
something anyone hearing it could understand.
The form “prophecy”—the
Spirit speaking encouragement and direction—took in the first century church
might not be the form it took later in Christian history. But whatever form it might take, its message
will be clear and relevant.
2. There is no evidence suggesting Paul or any
other New Testament writer expected “spiritual gifts” to cease with the end of
the apostolic age.
The
idea that the gifts of the Spirit were to end with the death of the last
apostle or at the completion of the New Testament seems to have had a variety
of sources.
--A
desire to defend the miraculous elements in Christianity. By limiting genuine miracles to those
recorded in the Bible, the defender had only to demonstrate their reliability,
and not the miracles associated with icons or saints’ bones.
--A
reaction to the Pentecostal movement which emerged in the early 20th
century. In the end both factions, the
Pentecostals and the non-Pentecostals, came to narrowly define what God could
and couldn’t do in the life of a believer.
The verses that are
often used to prove spiritual gifts were to end really seem to suggest that the
gifts will cease when Christ returns.
Logically, this makes sense because the church still needs the Spirit’s
help in doing its work in the world, still needs direction and encouragement
when facing challenges.
3. The popular interpretation equating prophecy
with preaching doesn’t stand up under scrutiny.
Preaching and teaching,
regular features of the church, had predictable content and appear to have been
carefully structured to ground believers in the universal, unchanging truths
about what God was doing in Christ. Prophecy
was spontaneous. Its content seemed to
fit more limited circumstances, often relating to an individual or a particular
period of time.
While preaching and New
Testament prophecy are probably not the same phenomenon, some attitudes toward
the exposition and teaching of God's Word are the same. Some won’t hear either. Yet, sometimes, a word given in preaching or
even during a time of mutual sharing or witness can break through the hardest
heart or cheer the most discouraged believer.
4. It’s
a mistake to limit the Spirit’s special gifts to the church to only those
specifically named in the New Testament.
What may be true is that
the lists Paul offers are broad categories describing the ways in which the
Spirit gifts the church.
The Principle of Assessment.
Although they were to
take prophecy seriously, they were, by no means, to suspend their judgment of
the prophetic utterances. Knox and
Conybeare express this in their translations, "and yet you must scrutinize
it all carefully" and "try all (which the prophets utter)."
Certainly this testing would be in light of
the gospel which Paul and others had taught.
Perhaps the test which John proposed had also been taught here and
elsewhere:
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but
test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have
gone out into the world. [2] By this you
know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come
in the flesh is from God, [3] and every
spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the
antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. (I John 4:1-3).
Israel had been taught to test the words of
their prophets to determine their validity;
nothing else could be expected of the Christian church.
At the same time the prophecy
was to be tested to see if it was “good” for the church. This means that it would be good for the
church to follow the counsel given in the prophecy. The church would be stronger because it had
acted on what was said.
The Principle of Acceptance.
Once it had been
determined that something was true, it was to be embraced by the
community. They were to “hold on to the
good.” Not only were they to believe it,
they were to act on it.
Perhaps the prophecy
came in the form of a word of encouragement or a directive about a specific
course of action.
In light of that, they
were to make the congregation a place where the weary could find
encouragement. Where they could be
bolstered in their spirits, strengthened to go on. In some cases, these communications might
lead the church to take a specific course of action.
For example, Acts 11
tells of this incident which took place while Saul and Barnabus were preaching
in Antioch:
While they were there
some prophets came down to Antioch from Jerusalem, and one of them whose name was Agabus, seized
by the Spirit, stood up and predicted that a severe and universal famine was
going to happen.
The church in Antioch responded by sending relief to their
fellow-Christians in Judea.
At no time did the church as a whole give these prophetic messages the
authority of Scripture. Some heretical
groups did and, more recently, some charismatic groups have done so. The had failed to observe ….
The Principle of Avoidance.
“Avoid every appearance
of evil.”
This verse has been used
and, perhaps, abused to dictate appropriate fashions, leisure activities, and
mores for the Christian, usually by those who consider themselves to be
reliable judges of that which has "the appearance of evil." The verse has often been taken to mean that
Christians must avoid what "appears" to be evil, whether it is evil
or not. Others insist the verse is
simply saying "avoid evil every time it appears."
If the verse stands alone, it probably does
retain the notion of avoiding evil in all its forms. There should be nothing surprising
there. At the same time, if Paul is
telling his readers to avoid what might merely be mistaken for evil, he is
inviting legalism and censoriousness into the community of grace. (I was once told that Christians ought not to
drink root beer out of brown bottles because someone seeing them might think
they were drinking genuine beer.)
However, if the verse is part of the
discussion of the Spirit's manifestations, it takes on a whole new
meaning. If the Thessalonians were to
embrace what was good and worthwhile, they were to utterly eschew those
utterances that were invalid, treating them as potentially hazardous to the
church.
Peterson’s The Message seems to underscore this
meaning and application. He paraphrases
verses 21-22: “On the other hand, don’t be gullible. Check out everything, and keep
only what’s good. Throw out anything
tainted with evil.”
If Paul saw “good” as
whatever squares with the Scripture and is beneficial to the church, “evil”
would be whatever is contrary to the Scripture or would be detrimental to the
church. If a member of a church like
ours said, “I think the Lord would have us engage in witness and evangelism,”
we could agree that such counsel squares with Scripture and might be a valid
challenge from God to us. But, what if
that member said, “I think the Lord would have us engage in witness and
evangelism by pooling all of our resources to buy a television station.” For a church like our to assume such a debt
would be foolish and harmful.
Acting on this principle
might not be as easy as it would seem.
After all, Paul is asking the church to disregard what someone has
claimed to be “a word from the Lord.”
What if that “word” came
from a respected leader? What if it came
from the biggest contributor to the church?
It would have taken
courage for the Thessalonian leaders to say no to some of what was purported to
be prophecy. It takes the same courage
today.
Observations
What does this all
mean? Let me offer some observations.
If we take the New
Testament seriously, every church is a charismatic church. That is, it is graced by God with those who
aid it in doing the work God has for it in its particular time and place. Of course, the term has been co-opted by
groups that have sometimes tolerated practices which most of us would reject as
unbiblical, it’s unlikely we’ll ever apply “charismatic” to our churches
without those quotation marks.
Having said that, how
does a non-charismatic church handle these passages?
1. We must not allow fear or a ill-founded sense
of self-sufficiency to cause us to “quench the Spirit.” [Sometime after I first preached this message I heard of a
denominational leader who argued that the early church depended so much on the
Holy Spirit because it did not have the modern means of communication and
knowledge of group dynamics we now have; with these we do not need the Spirit’s
help, he argued. Churches depending only
on human effort have quenched the Spirit.]
2. We must recognize that the Spirit is not
limited to only one means of making his will or guidance known to the
church. Nor, is he limited to only a
handful of means for making his help available to that church.
3. We must be ready to receive that guidance
what we determine to be valid.
4. We must be ready to reject what we determine
to be invalid.
We must continually
examine how we do things.
Do we risk quenching the
Spirit by insisting that good ideas can come from only a few people in the
church?
Do we risk quenching the
Spirit by continually allowing tradition to overrule innovation?
Most of us are careful
to measure new ideas and programs against the Scripture, rejecting those that
fail the test. The problem is, we often
demand these ideas and programs also be examined against our traditions, both
denominational and local; and, above
all, against our comfort zones.
When we do so, we risk
quenching the Spirit.
Shortly before moving to
Ohio, I attended a lunch meeting with the pastors of the Amarillo Baptist
Association. The speaker was Dr. Kenneth
Chafin, then pastor of Houston’s South Main Baptist Church.
He talked about a new
program the church had begun. Realizing
there were many people—doctors, nurses, firefighters, police, etc.—who couldn’t
attend church on Sundays, South Main began a Friday evening service, complete
with “Sunday school” for all ages. It
started slowly but soon grew to an average attendance of about 300.
As Dr. Chafin talked, I
heard someone mutter, “Those people are just too lazy to get up on Sunday
morning.” It didn’t fit the traditional
way to do church, so it couldn’t be good.
That was in the early
1990s. Today, thousands of churches
offer some alternative to the traditional Sunday morning service.
That was a fruitful idea
that might have been missed if the leadership of that church had “quenched the
Spirit” as he was leading them to greater ministry.
But that doesn’t mean a
church should jump at every new idea.
Churches have to exercise discernment.
Even if an idea comes down from denominational headquarters, it won’t
necessarily fit every church.
Conclusion
We Baptists [and evangelicals in general] have
largely avoided the Corinthian Syndrome, but I wonder if we’ve been as careful
to avoid the Thessalonian Syndrome.
We seem to have
forgotten that when the church is open to the Spirit, it will know his
encouragement and leadership.
That won’t happen if we
douse the Spirit’s fire to avoid being burned.
With openness balanced
by discernment we can keep the fire burning without getting burned.
