INTELLIGIBLE WORSHIP

18I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. 19But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.

20Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. 21In the Law it is written: “With other tongues and through the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.” 

Thoughts: Paul is saying that being articulate and intelligible are more important in church than the emotion of a gift that is unintelligible.  Worship should be in a language we can understand.  For years (until 1962 in many Roman Catholic churches) worship in the West was in Latin, even though most did not speak Latin or understand much of it.  Luther translated the Bible into German, Calvin into English.  The risk is, that if you understand it you can misunderstand it.  But Paul is clearly taking a positive route and saying it is important to understand worship.  The mature way of looking at things is not to be enthralled or simply seek a wow factor but to grow in our understanding and nurture our soul.
     Paul says almost in passing something profound.  "In regards to evil be infants but in your thinking be adults."  This is a great principle.  We do not need to know all the ins and outs of evil.  We do not need to go to an X rated movie to know that we shouldn't go in there.  We do not need to know all the specifics of how people do wrong to know how to resist wrong.  As the FBI tries to train for finding counterfeit money, they examine the good bills more than they examine the false ones.
     Let us focus and listen to the Lord- with our hearts and our minds.  Let us not forget to worship the Lord wherever we are this summer. 

Prayer: Lord, let my worship of you be thoughtful and focused.