1 Corinthians 14:13-18

Speaking in tongues is a gift of the Holy Spirit that edifies our Father but without an interpretation it does not edify others. 

It is a beautiful expression of our love for God.

1 Corinthians 14:13-18

¹³ Therefore let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret. ¹⁴ For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. ¹⁵ What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding. ¹⁶ Otherwise, if you bless with the spirit, how will he who occupies the place of the uninformed say “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not understand what you say? ¹⁷ For you indeed give thanks well, but the other is not edified.

¹⁸ I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all; ¹⁹ yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I may teach others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue.

¹⁰ to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 

1 Corinthians 12:10

¹⁷ For you indeed give thanks well, but the other is not edified. 

1 Corinthians 14:17

¹⁷ And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; 

Mark 16:17

¹³ Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.” 

Acts 2:13

Jeremiah 51:58

Man cannot erect walls broad enough to protect themselves. In the end, all of the walls the Israelites built would be destroyed. But He will keep in perfect peace those who trust in Him. He is our wall of defense! Trust Him with all that you have within you until He comes whose right it is to judge. Without God’s protection we fail. 

The fruit of the Spirit…is love.

Within Him peace is found. Without Him there is no peace.

For those removed from a sense of the Lord in their lives. The food that should give them strength for life and a zest for living only maintains them in their miserable state.

Jeremiah 51:58

⁵⁸ Thus says the Lord of hosts:

“The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, 

And her high gates shall be burned with fire;

The people will labor in vain,

And the nations, because of the fire;

And they shall be weary.”

Habakkuk 2:13

¹³ Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts

That the peoples labor to feed the fire,

And nations weary themselves in vain?

Psalm 127:1

 ¹Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman stays awake in vain. 

Psalm 127:2 

² It is vain for you to rise up early, To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep. 

Acts 9:31

Gathered together in love and in the unity of the Holy Spirit grace abounds and lives are changed!

This peace was not due solely to Saul’s conversion. Tiberius, the emperor of Rome, died around this time. He was replaced by Caligula, who wanted to erect a statue of himself in the temple at Jerusalem. Thus Jewish energy was directed away from persecuting Christians and toward Caligula. Here we see God’s sovereign hand at work, giving the early church a short season of respite.

The character and nature of love as a moral category is defined particularly by the way that God the Father has loved the world and has shown a willingness to sacrifice what was most precious to Him: His beloved Son. 

The supreme attitude and action of Jesus Himself is the ideal expression of self-sacrificial love. He bore the shame and horror of the cross in order to bring healing and restoration to the world. 

“We love because he first loved us”

Acts 9:31

³¹ Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied

⁵ So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and increased in number daily. 

Acts 16:5

¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. 

Ephesians 4:16

²⁹ Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. 

Ephesians 4:29

⁹ Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. 

Psalm 34:9

¹⁶ And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—

John 14:16

Romans 3:9-18

Our only hope is in Christ. When the world seems out of control, know that He is in total control. We can trust Abba with our life no matter the circumstance. He is kind to the just and the unjust and wants no one to perish. Who are we to judge? Judgement is His right alone. We are saved only by the blood of the Lamb. It is all about Him not us.

Pray for peace.

In other words, “Is there anything we can cling to for protection?” The answer is no, since all are under sin.

The collection of citations can be divided into two parts. The first half is made up of negative statements emphasizing humanity’s deficiencies; the second half mainly exposes human depravity.

Romans 3:9-18

⁹ What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.

¹⁰ As it is written:

“There is none righteous, no, not one;

¹¹ There is none who understands;

There is none who seeks after God.

¹² They have all turned aside;

They have together become unprofitable;

There is none who does good, no, not one.”

¹³ “Their throat is an open tomb;

With their tongues they have practiced deceit”;

“The poison of asps is under their lips”;

¹⁴ “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”

¹⁵ “Their feet are swift to shed blood;

¹⁶ Destruction and misery are in their ways;

¹⁷ And the way of peace they have not known.”

¹⁸ “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 

Romans 3:19

²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 

Romans 3:23

³² For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all. 

Romans 11:32

²² But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 

Galatians 3:22

³ They sharpen their tongues like a serpent; The poison of asps is under their lips. Selah 

Psalm 140:3

⁷ His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression; Under his tongue is trouble and iniquity. 

Psalm 10:7

¹⁶ For their feet run to evil, And they make haste to shed blood. 

Proverbs 1:16

⁸ The way of peace they have not known, And there is no justice in their ways; They have made themselves crooked paths; Whoever takes that way shall not know peace. 

Isaiah 59:8

1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Without love behind our actions we are just an irritating noise…this is eerily the atmosphere in the United States today. We call each other to hatred under the guise of Conservative Christians.

Hate is not from God but from the Evil One.

The church at Corinth was a seriously troubled church. Infected with sexual immorality, split by factions that dragged each other into court, and crippled by abuse of the spiritual gifts, this church was in need of radical spiritual surgery. Though true believers, the Corinthians had a lot of growing up to do. They had to stop following the immoral, selfish, and contentious ways of their pagan neighbors in Corinth, the notoriously immoral city of that day. One can sense the disappointment of a hurt father in Paul’s stern words for the Corinthians. Yet Paul, like a surgeon, diagnosed the problem and aimed his efforts straight at the source: pride and a lack of true love in the church.

1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. ¹⁴ Let all that you do be done with love.

⁸ And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.” 

1 Peter 4:8

³ But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 

2 Corinthians 11:3

Daniel 3:16-18

The quest for power and control does not come from God. With it mankind erects idols taking the gifts they were given by Him using them for evil and not for good. Faith in God, in all circumstances, results in actions of obedience regardless of the cost…and this kind of faith pleases Him.

I trust my Abba.

In the end all men will know that God alone controls the earth. Every knee will bend and every heart confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

To these men the outcome was irrelevant, for what was at stake was not God’s ability or their own lives, but their faith and obedience to serve Him regardless of the cost.

Daniel 3:16-18

¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. ¹⁷ If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. ¹⁸ But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”

¹⁹ He shall deliver you in six troubles, Yes, in seven no evil shall touch you. 

Job 5:19

¹ The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? 

Psalm 27:1

³ You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. 

Isaiah 26:3

⁷ Therefore I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; My God will hear me. 

Micah 7:7

Mark 2:17-22

Precept by precept, as we let go of preconceived ideology, we will be changed becoming the new person that the Holy Spirit desires for us to be. Change is hard but Father knows best and faith alone pleases Him. 

Open the eyes of my heart Lord…I want to see You.

Mark records only four of Jesus’ parables—two of which he includes here. The comparison implies that the newness of His message, and of the new covenant to follow, cannot fit into the old molds of Judaism.

Mark 2:17-22

²¹ No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse. ²² And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”

Galatians 3:19–25 

⁹ What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. ²⁰ Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one. ²¹ Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. ²² But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. ²³ But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. ²⁴ Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵ But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. 

Isaiah 13:11

Isaiah was a man with a mission. The Lord had shown him a glimpse of His glorious throne and placed a call on his life. As a prophet, he spoke God’s words. For the most part, these were words of confrontation, exhortation, and warning—words that made him extremely unpopular. But even when he faced opposition Isaiah continued to stand up for the truth. The Lord had called him to warn the people of their headlong rush into disaster. The Book of Isaiah records these prophetic words of warning, but it also records Isaiah’s words of promise and hope. One day, a Messiah would come who would save, comfort, and bless His people.

God will not be mocked! Injustice of any kind is an affront to God. He will one day execute His righteous judgement on man but until that day comes we are free to choose… good or evil…His way or mans’.

iniquity

noun (pl. iniquities)

immoral or grossly unfair behavior

iniquity … arrogance … proud … haughtiness … terrible: The common element is pride, which brings the nations down.

pride

noun

• the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one's importance: the sin of pride.

Isaiah 13:11

¹¹ “I will punish the world for its evil,

And the wicked for their iniquity;

I will halt the arrogance of the proud,

And will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

Isaiah 2:17 

¹⁷ The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, And the haughtiness of men shall be brought low; The Lord alone will be exalted in that day, 

Isaiah 26:21 

²¹For behold, the Lord comes out of His place To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; The earth will also disclose her blood, And will no more cover her slain.

1 Corinthians 3:18-19

We are all sinners saved by grace. 

The renewing of our mind only comes by the wisdom of God freely given to us by the Holy Spirit. He takes the things of Christ and reveals them to those who humbly ask, in faith believing. We need to exchange the worlds paradigm for His.

paradigm |ˈperəˌdīm|

noun

1 technical a typical example or pattern of something; a model

With the triune Godhead all things are possible!

Paul urges the members of the Corinthian church to humble themselves.The Stoic literature of the time, which the Corinthians would have known, often spoke of the wise man as possessing everything. Everything God has done in the church, and in the entire universe, benefits ALL believers. There is no place for foolish boasting or competition among Christians.

1 Corinthians 3:18-19

¹⁸ Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. ¹⁹ For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.

Proverbs 3:7 

⁷ Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil. 

Psalm 94:11 

¹¹ The Lord knows the thoughts of man, That they are futile. 

Philippians 1:9-11

What would Jesus do? In a world out of control it is comforting to know that in Him and in the power of the Holy Spirit we have direct access to those questions…Just ask Him. 

Our actions should not provoke anger nor hatred. Our actions should introduce Gods’ justice, not mans’. Our actions should show the fruit of the Spirit as children of God. We need to filter every action by His nature…

God is the ultimate gentleman and He shows partiality to no one.

911 of the God kind!

discernment: Found only here in the NT, the Greek word means moral or ethical understanding based on both the intellect and the senses. The word implies perception or insight into social situations.

without offense: Here the phrase means not leading others into sin by one’s own behavior.

fruits of righteousness: is best understood either as “fruit that results from being justified” or “fruit characterized by morally correct conduct.”

Finding contentment  and the peace of Christ are still current issues for today’s Christians. He holds up Jesus’ life as the model for believers.

Philippians 1:9-11

⁹ And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, ¹⁰ that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, ¹¹ being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Philippians 4:13 

¹³ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. 

Philippians 1:11 

¹¹ being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

1 Corinthians 1:4-9

Gods’ desire is for all people to be saved!

He will take the most unlikely, sin enslaved people, and fill them with His Holy Spirit. Precept by precept, as they listen to His prompting, people are changed. All of this is to point to and glorify His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. We are His hands and feet to do good and by our example lead others to His amazing, saving grace.

There is power in His name to save, to change, to overcome this world if we do not give up!

The thanksgiving Paul offers to God for the Corinthians seems odd, considering the many problems the church was experiencing. However, Paul focuses his praise not on the troubled Corinthians but on the eternally faithful God. Paul does not praise the Corinthians for their good works as he does some other churches; instead, he praises God who works in them.

1 Corinthians 1:4-9

⁴ I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, ⁵ that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, ⁶ even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, ⁷ so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁸ who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

⁸ First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. 

Romans 1:8

¹⁰ when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed. 

2 Thessalonians 1:10

⁶ who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, 

1 Timothy 2:6

¹⁹ For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. 

Romans 8:19

¹³ looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 

Titus 2:13

⁶ being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; 

Philippians 1:6

³ But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one. 

2 Thessalonians 3:3

⁴ Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 

John 15:4