How Should You Behave During Worship?

1 Cor 11:2-10

Anyone who has been raised going to church has a similar story to mine. We are taught what is proper behavior in church and what isn’t. I found that if you shoot spitwads during worship services, your mother will take you out by the ear and beat you until you don’t want to ever sit down again. I found that even though you are sitting on the back row and don’t think your dad can see you from the pulpit, that you can’t write notes or talk continually to your friends. If you do, your dad stops the sermon and your mom drags you out by the ear and beats you until you never want to sit down again. Only until a few years ago, did the sound of a woman clearing her thought not create a guilty jump in me during worship.

These next chapters aren’t quite dealing with that kind of behavior, but they are dealing with proper behavior during worship. We’ll probably spend a couple of weeks dealing with the various behavior problems that were going on in Corinth and what Paul has to say about them.

PRAYER

I. Women In Worship

A. Definite hot topic

1. In the words of someone famous, “the world’s a changing”

2. The question we have to ask ourselves as individuals and this congregation, is how much are we to change with it.

3. This is a topic in which I have very mixed emotions.

4. The elders and I discussed this issue a little recently when we received a flyer from a local congregation promoting a Saturday study of Ephesians by a woman professor from one of our Christian colleges. What caught me very off guard was in talking about this to some of our ladies, they saw the issue very differently than the elders did. Both raised very good and valid arguments based on Biblical evidence for their position.

5. To be fair, this topics requires much more study than what we can give it today to get a true picture of the woman’s role in the church.

6. Today, I only want to look at what Paul says about the woman’s role in the worship service.

7. You probably won’t agree with everything I have to say.

B. Culture vs. Doctrine

1. When Paul first addresses the role of women here, it is dealing with head coverings.

2. Jewish and far eastern religions practiced women covering their heads and faces in public or around strangers. The Greeks did not use that practice.

3. Evidently, there was a disruption of the worship service as the two cultures collided about women’s head coverings and submission to authority or lack there of.

4. The women who traditionally wore veils were casting them off as open rebellion to the authority to their husbands.

5. Then there was the whole issue of men with long hair and women with short hair.

6. From what I understand from my readings, Paul isn’t insisting on a doctrine of women covering their heads and men uncovering theirs, but a doctrine of women are to be in submission to the authority of their husbands as God as always taught throughout history.

C. Authority

1. So what does it mean to be in authority?

2. Paul begins that part of discussion by talking about who is in submission to who. It would make logical sense to start with women to men, men to Christ, Christ to God, but Paul doesn’t do that.

a) He starts out with the fact that the head of every man is Christ.

b) He is making the statement that men had better not get into their heads a dictatorial stance by reminding them they are under Christ and remember how they would like Christ to deal with them as they deal with their wives on this issue.

c) I knew a man who would always point to this verse and others like it to tell his wife that she was to do everything he demanded and never question him. Shortly before their divorce, he even demanded his wife call him lord because Sarah called Abraham lord.

d) When a man make it a point to demand his way, he is in just as rebellious a state as the woman who refuses to acknowledge the authority of her husband.

3. Having said that, he goes into a discussion that women were to be in submission to their husbands.

4. Those that were rebelling by uncovering their head while praying or prophesying were going against God.

5. Paul ends this part of his letter with a very in your face statement of authority.

6. READ vs 16

a) That WE is the we of apostleship

b) It indicates an authority set by God through the apostles.

c) And then she shows that this was something done in all churches, not Just Paul for just Corinth.

D. Silence

1. Skipping over to 14:33-35 we see another discussion on women in worship

a) Everything indicates that there were a group of women who were bound and determined to take over the worship services.

b) The Greek word for Silence used here isn’t the word for no sound. There are 4 words in Greek for various silence each with a unique meaning.

c) Here the word “Sigao” is used which means to quiet down.

d) In other words Paul is telling the women they were not to be disruptive in worship by speaking out. Wait until they got home and discuss the issue they have with their husbands.

e) This is supported by 1 Tim 2:12 and other verses.

2. Again, remember the main principle Paul is driving home in these chapters.

a) Improper disruption of the worship service whether done by men or women is wrong.

b) And, because men are to be the head of women, their speaking out in worship creates even more disruption both culturally and spiritually.

II. Lord’s Supper vs 17 - 34

A. Lord’s Supper Abused

1. the early church apparently had a practice called “love feasts” or a common meal they shared together before taking the Lord’s Supper.

2. The Corinthians had fallen back into the pagan practice of making this meal a total party experience.

3. The rich members brought in their steaks and wine and feasted away while the poorer brethren sat there watching them eat.

4. Paul tells them that if this was the way they were going to treat each other when they came together for this meal and the Lord’s Supper, then just eat at home.

5. If believers cannot love and care for each other, then they cannot eat of the Lord’s Supper and be blessed.

B. Unworthy

1. There has been many definitions of what it means to take of the Lord’s Supper unworthily.

a) Some say it not having your mind focused on what is being symbolized by this communion.

b) Others argue that if you have sin in your life that hasn’t been dealt with, then you are unworthy.

c) In Britain, when we lived there, they would refuse to serve non Christians the Lord’s Supper because they were unworthy to take of it.

2. My understanding is that Paul was saying that they weren’t focused on what was being symbolized by the Communion and by trivializing the Lord’s Supper they were also trivializing the Lord.

C. We need to examine ourselves

1. In vs 28 Paul says we need to examine ourselves

2. I don’t know if we really understand what this means.

a) It’s not deciding whether or not we are worthy to take the Lord’s Supper. None of us are.

b) What it means is that we reflect on the fact that we are lost without the sacrifice of Christ for our sins.

c) Not just man’s sin in general, but the sin I committed today.

D. Invitation on need to examine ourselves