Speaking Nonsense In Worship

Paul called speaking in tongues a sign. A sign always signifies something. In this case, speaking without understanding or communication (speaking in tongues, speaking in a way that people don't know what you are talking about) signifies that the speaker is an unbeliever. And speaking with understanding (prophesying) signifies that the speaker is a believer. If I tell you a bunch of wrong things about the gospel, and you are a believer, you will know I'm not a believer because I've got the gospel wrong. If that's what I believe, then I can't yet believe the true gospel because I don't understand it. It's not that belief follows understanding, but that understanding follows belief. This is both hugely important and widely misunderstood.

Whatever unbelievers say about the gospel will always be nonsense. Because they speak ignorantly of what they do not know. And conversely, prophecy defined as making sense of Scripture is a sign of belief because only believers can make sense of the gospel. Believers speak knowledgeably about the gospel because they are instructed by the Holy Spirit through regeneration.

1 Corinthians 14:23-25 serves as a kind of case study of how this works. Suppose, said Paul, that an unbeliever comes into a worship service and people are all speaking foreign languages (tongues), the poor unbeliever will have no idea about what's going on. He won't understand what is being said, and will think that the people are crazy. At best he won't have any understanding of what they are saying or doing.

But, on the other hand, if an unbeliever comes into a worship service where people are all talking intelligently and making sense of the Bible through prophecy in a language he understands, he will be edified. Suppose he is then called to say something himself, and in the process the secrets of his heart are exposed in a meaningful way, he will fall on his face in worship of God and will declare God's reality and presence. The differences between these two scenarios are stark, and Paul's meaning is absolutely plain and simple. Making sense makes sense.

However, because the gospel was in the process of being translated into foreign languages as Paul was writing, because the gospel had just broken out of the limitations of the Hebrew language and culture (Acts 2), people from many different countries and regions were gathering together, learning and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. In every church and gathering of Christians there were people of foreign heritage (non-Jewish people) who probably spoke a smattering of Greek because Greek was the International language of the day. Greek was a common language for many Christians, but as the gospel spread it was not the mother tongue of many converts. Several languages were undoubtedly spoken at every gathering as the gospel moved into the Gentile world.

Paul reproved the Corinthians for their pride and selfishness in wanting to show off when they came together for worship. Paul was not here suggesting that everyone should have something to share at worship, whether a "hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation" (v. 26). Rather, he was chastising them for their disorderliness. Too many of them had been vying for a place in the proverbial sun during worship and babbling nonsense of various kinds, in various languages. Paul was still contrasting their desire for self-service with Christ's call to Christian leadership, "whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave" (Matthew 20:27).

Paul was calling them to the practice of discipline and order in worship, in their understanding and in their personal lives in their practice of the faith. It wasn't that Paul didn't want people to participate in worship. He did! But more important than individual participation was the purpose and order of worship. Worship is service to God. It is to be God-directed and God-centered, and when worship is God-centered it will provide edification for God's people. In contrast, the people are not the subject of worship. Worship is not to be directed at the people. Worship is not for the people. It is not about the people. Worship is for God. It is about God.

There is a very interesting dynamic at work in worship. When worship is directed at the people, the quality of the worship suffers because it is not what it could be, not what it should be. It falls short of giving God the glory that is His alone because it is intentionally crafted to conform to the understanding of the people, of dumb sheep. When the people are the subject of worship, when worship is directed to the people, God's Word gets twisted and watered down in order to make it palpable to those who are gathered. When we aim worship at the gathered congregation we tend to aim at the lowest common denominator in an effort to be inclusive and relevant. The result is that the quality of worship is degraded by the effort to be inclusive and relevant to the people who are gathered.

But when we aim worship at God we tend to give our best effort. We are not trying to dumb down the explanation of God's Word for the guy in the fourth row who only has an eighth grade education. Rather, we are making every effort to reflect the actual meaning of God's Word back to God, who is infinitely intelligent and perfect in every way. Rather than trying to make the gospel fit the understanding of the people who are gathered in worship, we need to reflect the actual meaning of God's Word accurately, to speak God's Word as God intended it to be heard, not as we think it can best be heard by some subgroup of Christians (a particular gathering, congregation or denomination, church, youth, women, men whatever). Paul's call for unity is a call to abandon all appeal to Christian subgroups.

Understanding the gospel is not a function of intelligence, education, experience or relevance. It is an function of regeneration. Understanding the gospel is a gift. The best thing that we can do to help people understand God's Word is not to try to make it relevant to this or that person (church, denomination, etc.), but to get it right from God's perspective. We must understand it correctly ourselves from God's perspective, from a regenerate perspective and communicate it accurately so that people can hear what God actually says and not what we think about what God says.