“God is really here among you.”
…As they listen, their secret thoughts will be laid bare, and they will fall down on their knees and worship God, declaring, “God is really here among you.”
With this statement, Paul is revealing a couple of truths that I want to draw our attention to:
The normal reality for the Church is that the KNOWN, EXPRESSED Presence of God is to be found when she gathers.
He wants to be known and experienced in our gatherings.
We are looking at this reality that it is Our Father’s desire to be known in our gatherings.
The word known is a word that indicates His desire to be experienced.
What I want to draw our attention to is HOW His presence is known and experienced in our gatherings.
What are the things we can do to foster and partner with Him to create an environment for His presence?
What can we do, personally and as a culture to Host His Presence?
Dear brothers and sisters, don’t be childish in your understanding of these things. Be innocent as babies when it comes to evil,
We looked at the first idea…
As we live individually in intentional innocence, when we gather, we are creating an environment for His manifest Presence.
We simplified this aspect of the verse to understand it as having no experience with evil. Today, I want to consider the second half of this verse.
but be mature and wise in understanding matters of this kind.
A. Let’s parse some Greek…v20
Dear brothers and sisters, don’t be childish in your understanding of these things. Be innocent as babies when it comes to evil, but be mature and wise in understanding matters of this kind.
1 Corinthians 14v20 has 3 parts and sections to consider. The word, “be,” shows up in every phrase.
a. Dear brothers and sisters, don’t be childish in your understanding of these things.
mE (no or not)
paidia (little child)
ginesthe (be-becoming)
tais (to the or in the or in your)
phresin (disposition or minds or thinking).
b. Be innocent as babies when it comes to evil,
tE (to the or in the regard to)
Kakia (Evil),
nEpiazete (be-being-babes or be being infants).
c. but be mature and wise in understanding matters of this kind.
Tais (to the or in the or in your),
de (however),
phresin (disposition or minds)
teleioi (full grown or mature or ready to apprehend divine things)
ginesthe (be-ye-becoming)
From this simple exercise we learn a couple very important things. Note the tense and conjugation:
“Be becoming” is actually an implication of striving toward a future state.
-“Do not strive toward thinking in the manner of children”.
-“However, in your thinking, strive toward being ready to apprehend Divine things (becoming mature)”.
“Be-being” is an immediate state of being…. Right now, BE!….
-“But in the regard to Evil, right now, be infants (implying innocence or a complete lack of familiarity)”.
The extrapolation is in the command to be innocent.
The other two phrase are trajectory phrases. We are to aim our trajectory away from evil and towards the things of Heaven.
If we consider our former analysis, that innocence is, “to have no experience with something,” then we can counter that maturity is to have great experience with something.
From this, we simply understand Paul is creating a line in the sand moment:
Spend your lives developing experience with the works and person of the Ho
