April 13

1 Corinthians 14:39 (NIV)
39 Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues.

There are two distinct commands in this verse. The first one is be eager to prophesy. The therefore is there because Paul by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit has given a wonderful portion of his letter to the reason we get together as Christians – to encourage and edify one another. Prophesy accomplishes this task so it is to be sought after. That all sounds good until we begin to personalize it. The word for be eager is zeloo, we get the word zealous from this word. It means to set your heart on something or to be deeply committed to something. So let’s put that in our context – be deeply committed or set your heart to prophesy to other people when you get together. Prophesy most of the time is a forth-telling rather than a fore-telling. Church, set your heart on encouraging people by saying what God wants to say. Of course that will take investment by us to seek the Lord. Imagine a church where people go and most of them are ready to give a word of encouragement from the Lord to others – YEA!!

The other part of this verse is a missing part in the theology of many. Simply put, you are not to restrain, hinder or stop people from speaking in tongues and the context of this verse is when you are gathered together! WOW. That just blew a theological lid off of people’s philosophy of what church is supposed to be like. Although tongues should not dominate a gathering, it looks to me like it shouldn’t be missing either. Hmmm…