Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20060423.htm

CHRIST'S PROPHETIC INSTRUCTION ON THE KIND OF MINISTRY HE BLESSES TODAY
Part I: Christ's Call To Communicate Scripture's Statements Logically To The Human Mind
(1 Corinthians 14:15-16 with Revelation 3:14b(a))
  1. Introduction
    1. We hear "much talk among evangelicals today concerning revival": many are aware of the spiritual needs in Christendom and the world, J. H. Armstrong, gen. ed., The Coming Evangelical Crisis (1996), p. 24.
    2. However, "The nineteenth-century Roman Catholic convert Louis Bouyer once said that he welcomed evangelical revivalism precisely because it would bring us back to Rome . . . [for] revivalism stresses inner feelings and subjective experience, the stuff of Roman Catholicism . . . " (Ibid., p. 25, brackets ours).
    3. Thus, we need a Word from God on how to meet our spiritual needs today, and, thankfully, we have it:
  2. Christ's Call To Communicate Scripture's Statements Logically To the Human Mind.
    1. [This present lesson series presupposes that in this year of 2006, we are living in the era of Church History that Christ predicted would occur as the 7th era of Church History, the era of the Laodicean Church (cf. our series on "Christ's Prophetic Message To Contemporary Evangelicals: Part I - Identifying Revelation 3:14-22 As Christ's Message To Contemporary Evangelicals (1950 to now!).")]
    2. In that series, Jesus introduced Himself in Rev. 3:14b(a) as "the Amen" showing "Christ's All-Sufficiency in discipling today's godly believers just opposite the futile attempts by Calvinist and Arminian pastors respectively . . ," Ibid., "Part II: A - Christ's All-Sufficiency For Discipling The Godly," II,B.
    3. Well, the words, "the Amen" appear outside Revelation 3:14b(a) only in two other N. T. passages; we study one of them, 1 Corinthians 14:15-16, in depth in this lesson to find Christ calls us to do our homework in voicing the Bible's truths opposite Evangelical subjectivist ministries:
      1. The context of 1 Corinthians 14:16 deals with the misuse of the true spiritual gift of tongues speaking:
        1. Believers at Corinth used the gift of tongues in foreign human languages (Acts 2:1-11), but since there was no interpreter (1 Cor. 14:13), they communicated unto God and not men (14:2), and so failed to edify one another as was the purpose of the spiritual gifts, cf. 1 Corinthians 12:7!
        2. Today, many Charismatics in particular heed such a practice, with some claiming they speak in an angelic tongue by their efforts of "speaking in tongues," and they cite 1 Corinthians 13:1 as proof. Yet, Paul OPPOSED such a misuse of gifts, claiming that to fail to speak logically knowable facts to the mind meant the speaker was not edifying others as he should, 1 Corinthians 14:5, 13-15, 19.
        3. [Many non-Charismatic Evangelicals also follow the Charismatic practice of mainly aiming to please the emotions in their hearers, Ibid., Armstrong, p. 66; The Berean Call, Jan. 2005, p. 5-6.]
      2. Thus, "the Amen" is given by the godly when they logically understand the Bible truth they are told:
        1. When Paul mentioned "the understanding" in 1 Cor. 14:15, 19 KJV ("mind" NIV, ESV), he used the word, noi that there meant "understanding" in the "intellectual" sense, T.D.N.T., vol. IV, p. 959.
        2. Well, human speech is knowable and agreeable to human reason, being "cognitive and rational like all truth" (cf. Clark H. Pinnock, A Defense of Biblical Infallibility, p. 17); Paul thus upheld the logical use of human language to communicate by involving the human mind's understanding.
      3. So, in contrast to Evangelical subjectivism, CHRIST revealed that the ministry HE will bless TODAY will involve the study and presentation of His Word's LOGICALLY DISCERNIBLE TRUTHS (as follows): the communicator must (1) first study to discern what God's Word logically means; he must do his homework re: the Bible's original manuscripts [and languages] before teaching it; (2) then, when voicing this truth to others, he must give a theologically consistent presentation (3) making it sensibly applicable to life! (4) In doing so, Christ will bless his efforts by causing the godly hearers [whom God controls by the Spirit's filling] to give "the Amen," 1 Corinthians 14:15-16!
Lesson: Opposite Evangelical subjectivism, we teachers (1) must STUDY to know what God's Word logically teaches in the original manuscripts, which study will adhere to literal, grammatical and historical bounds, and then (2) voice that insight with logical and thus theological consistency (3) and a sensible application to life! (4) As we DO this, Christ will cause the godly to give the desired "Amen"!

Application: May we thus minister to the spirit through the mind, not aiming for the emotions, and see the Lord edify His people mentally, spiritually and emotionally as the end result!