Grow Up

DEVOTION

1 CORINTHIANS

GROW UP

1 Cor 14:18-21

18 I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. 19 But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue. 20 Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. 21 In the Law it is written:

"Through men of strange tongues and through the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me," says the Lord.

NIV

Well we are still looking at these instructions about the specific gifts of tongues and prophecy. Although this speaking in a language that we have not learned is a gift, and again we must see those Corinthians most have been really carried away using it, we are also seeing there is too much of a good thing and a special reason for it. But yet if this is a gift of the Spirit and it is given as determined by God, it would also appear by these instructions that these people were trying to manufacture the gift themselves, or at least pretending to have this gift, when in fact they did not. In either case it is a great thing to speak to each other in a manner so that the other can understand what we are saying as to instructions. Ah, that might be the rub. We should be instructing each other, not just spending time with millions of words of small talk. Who really cares about the weather, the traffic, the Buckeyes, the Reds, the Browns, or whatever other team? Who really cares about hair styles, clothes, cars, markup, or my cousin’s friend who has an uncle whose mother’s sister’s friend is whatever? Should we really be discussing someone else’s problem, which is gossip, trying our best to disguise it as a prayer request. The reality here is that we should be instructing each other in the truth of God’s Word. Maybe small talk is fine for people who do not believe, but for us that profess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we do not have time for small talk, we need to be about our father’s business. We need to be loving each other, teaching each other, helping each other grow in Christ, building each other up, strengthening, encouraging, and comforting each other with words from God, that each other understands. We should not be babbling about that which does not matter. Sure we should seek all the gifts, eagerly seek them, even this gift of tongues, but we should also be concerned and seek the common good of other believers. Have we been thinking like little children? Maybe it is time we really grow up.