Useful Bible Studies > 1 Corinthians Commentary > chapter 14
Often Christians do not realise the importance of their own meetings at church. Perhaps they hope to find entertainment, education or friendship there. Perhaps they only attend church because they usually go there on Sundays. However, the real purpose of those meetings is so that people can meet with God.
That is a very serious matter, especially for someone who does not yet know God. For such a person, the meeting may be their only opportunity ever to trust God to save them. They may only attend a single meeting; they may never get that opportunity again.
Today, Christians are God’s servants on earth. They have the responsibility to tell people about God. When someone visits a church meeting, that person needs to learn from them how to trust God.
At the first church in Corinth, the Christians were not behaving in a responsible manner. They cared much more about their own experiences with God than they cared about anyone else. They all wanted to speak in tongues (unknown languages) at church, by the power of the Holy Spirit. They were not thinking about the reaction of visitors who had not yet trusted God to save them.
The reaction of visitors to this strange experience was to say that the Christians were mad. That is a terrible thing to say about God’s servants (see 2 Kings 2:23-24 and John 10:20). When people say such things, they can bring about the judgement of God against them.
Here, it was the Christians themselves who had caused the visitors to have this wrong reaction. That is very sad. Christians should never be selfish. They should recognise the importance of their meetings and they should use those meetings to declare God’s good news clearly.
Next part: How God can save visitors at a church meeting (1 Corinthians 14:24-25)
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© 2014, Keith Simons.