This past week I learned from a brother of this Twitter thread by Mike Leake challenging preaching and the pulpit as the center of church gatherings:
This thread and the conversation it triggered with this brother reminded me of the following letter I wrote a couple of years ago to the home church I was gathering with at the time. In the letter, using 1 Corinthians 14 as my main frame of reference, I push back (similar to Leake in the Twitter thread above) on our traditional evangelical tendency to center our gatherings on teaching.I’ve often heard something akin to this: “preaching is the most important thing that happens on a Sunday morning. That is why the pulpit is guarded, that is why it is central in our architecture, etc.” I’m not convinced of this… + https://t.co/CrlK2dtSol
— Mike Leake (@mikeleake) August 25, 2021
The bottom line is this: while our modern evangelical expectation of a church gathering is more akin to going to a sit-down restaurant where a professional chef has prepared an exquisite meal that tastes good and is healthy for the body; the gathering that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 14 is more akin to a potluck in which everyone has prepared something for others to be substantively nourished (edified) by.
Formal has to do with "form" whether that means "sermons" as we're used to them, something that's scheduled, or working verse by verse and chapter by chapter through a book of the Bible. The word "formal" in and of itself isn't negative or positive. It's just a neutral adjective.
For the longest time, I was the biggest champion of formal teaching being central to the whole church gathered. Not only did I believe that you shouldn't have a gathering without formal teaching, but I believed that the biblical, most God- glorifying way this could be done was to teach verse by verse through entire books of the Bible. Part of the reason for this is that I've been privileged to teach in gatherings of believers regularly in the past, and this method of teaching has always been my preference.
And then one day, it occurred to me that I couldn't support this way of doing things from the New Testament. And I realized it was more a tradition I inherited than the teaching of Scripture. And, while it wasn't easy initially, God helped me to let it go.
My biggest motivation to turn away from that paradigm of thinking (teaching- focused gatherings) has without a doubt been 1 Corinthians 14. While it isn't the only passage in Scripture that speaks to church gatherings, I don't think there is a more extensive treatment of church gatherings in the New Testament so it should be at the forefront of shaping how we gather.
So I just want to offer some reflections from 1 Corinthians 14 regarding the why and how of our gatherings in relationship to teaching with the prayer that this would add to the conversation from Sunday and that the Holy Spirit would truly bring about unity of mind and heart for us all on this topic:
- What is the purpose of our gatherings? The goal of our time together is to build each other up. Notice how much this idea of "upbuilding" or "building up" is repeated in the chapter: 1 Corinthians 14:3, 4, 5, 12, 17, 26.
- In 1 Corinthians 14:12, Paul commands all the believers at Corinth to "strive" or "seek" to excel in building up the church. This is in the context of his instructions for the gathering. It's not primarily a teacher who is instructed to build others up during the gathering time, it's all present who are instructed to build others up (confirmed in places like Hebrews 10:24-25 which speak of gatherings as a context for "one another" ministry).
- It isn't just teaching that builds up the church. In 1 Corinthians 14:17, Paul implies that giving thanks to God in prayer should have the effect of building others up. The problem with uninterpreted tongues, Paul tells us, is that if I don't understand what someone is saying, I can't be built up by it. So when Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:15 that he will pray and sing with his mind in addition to his spirit, the clear implication is that prayer and singing are designed to build up the church, not just teaching.
- Notice in 1 Corinthians 14:26 that when Paul speaks of the elements he might expect to be present at a church gathering, teaching is indeed present (some translations use the term "lesson" or "word of instruction"). But it's simply one in a list of five activities that might take place to build up the believers who have gathered. I don't think Paul means that these five activities are the only ones that might take place (he's mentioned prayer in 1 Corinthians 14:14-17, for example, as an activity that can build up the body but doesn’t appear in this list in 1 Corinthians 14:26) or that these five activities will always be present in a gathering. So just as much as we shouldn't be surprised if we experience a gathering in which there is no singing, we shouldn't be surprised if we experience a gathering in which there is no teaching.
- When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:26 that "when you come together, each one has..." it seems that an important approach we should take to our gathering times together is "what am I coming to bring?" not "what am I coming to experience?" The latter ends up subtly promoting a form of consumerism, which is the kind of culture the world promotes, not the kingdom of God. It's the difference between coming to serve and coming to be served. And the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve (Mark 10:45). I love the analogy Megan shared of a potluck. It's a spiritual potluck where if everyone comes focused on giving a lot (serving), in the counterintuitive wisdom of God everyone ends up receiving a lot (being served). I think often times our disappointment with what we experience in our gathering times (wanting gatherings to happen a certain way, for example, to be centered on teaching) reveals that deep down we are coming primarily to receive (be served), even if we aren't conscious of it. If you want to experience singing in our gathering, bring a song. If you want to experience teaching in our gathering, bring a teaching/lesson. Otherwise beware coming focused on what someone else is going to bring (to be served) rather than what God would have you bring (to serve). And please don't misunderstand me. Sometimes all you have to bring is a burden or a need or a sin to confess. I believe that in this act of humble transparency it's something God uses to minister to and build up the entire group because a) you are modeling the humility of Christ which we all need to see and grow into and b) if one suffers, we all suffer together so that when the rejoicing comes, we will all rejoice together (1 Corinthians 12:26).
- If there were any activities that took center stage when the believers gathered at Corinth, it seems to clearly have been prophecy and tongues based on the amount of time Paul devotes to these two in chapter 14, not teaching. But I think one of the main points of chapters 12-14 is that to focus on any one gift—whether that's prophecy or tongues in the context of first century Corinth or teaching in our modern Protestant context—is by implication to elevate that gift above the other gifts, which God does not want us to do because every gift is important the way every part of the body is important (ch. 12). We should conduct our meetings in a way that doesn't exalt any one gift but gives all gifts an equal platform as the Spirit would lead.
- The Word of God should always be central in our gatherings because this is how God has most clearly revealed Himself to us and how the church comes into being in the first place, by receiving God's Word (1 Corinthians 14:36). But I believe we confuse categories when we think that making the Word of God central primarily or only happens by making teaching central. What do I mean by this? Our songs should be an expression of the truth we find in God's Word. Our prophecies should be in line with the truth revealed in God's Word. Our teachings should be based on God's Word. Any tongues spoken should be in line with God's Word. Our prayers should be in line with truth revealed in God's Word. God's Word is the foundation upon which all of the activities for building up the church are built (none of the activities would happen apart from the church receiving God's Word!). It's not just the focus of one activity (teaching) in particular. God desires the truth of His Word to be communicated to us in multiple ways (in Colossians 3:16-17, notice that the word of Christ dwelling in the hearts of God's people is the source not just of our teaching one another but our admonishing one another and our singing and praying too!). And remember, the goal is to build us up, not just to fill our minds with truth (they aren't the same). If the goal were intellectual in nature, teaching would undeniably be the preferred method. But since the goal isn't primarily intellectual, teaching is simply one method among many that God uses to build us up.
Before the Protestant Reformation happened 500 years ago, the Roman Catholic church had made the mass (Communion/Lord's Supper) the focus of church gatherings. And one of the main things the protestant reformation did was to replace the mass (Communion/Lord's Supper) with the pulpit (formal teaching) as the focus of church gatherings. I think the intention of the reformers was right but that they did what often happens when you are trying to move away from one extreme. They overcompensated and ended up swinging over to an opposite extreme by insisting that the Word be made central by establishing a focus on formal teaching. They got too focused on a form.
May God help us to be a people who walk by the Spirit and thus avoid excesses because we are focused not on a form but on a person: our Lord Jesus Christ.
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