This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgements about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgement...
Paul is making a very important teaching
point here, the spiritual man can make judgements about all
things, specially about spiritual things, but an unspiritual man
cannot judge the spiritual, they are foolish to him.
We can make a simple extension to that
thought, any man who is spiritual will judge spiritual things by
the spirit, if he can judge all things, then he can judge
spiritual things, and he does it by the holy spirit that is
within him. We are, after all given the Holy spirit to be our
teacher
when he, the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.
So a spiritual man generally will not judge
spiritual things with his natural mind. But a man without the
spirit, or one that is not listening to the spirit will be
offended by the spiritual, because he views it as foolish.
Is worship spiritual or is it natural? well
Jesus says
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers MUST worship in spirit and in truth.
MUST worship in spirit - that's a
commandment. And the corollary is that you cannot worship in the
flesh, ie, if you are not in the spirit. Many have been criticised
for the way that they worship, but if you are judging by the
spirit then you will be able to recognise that they are
worshiping in the spirit. If it offends you, if it is foolishness
to you then I suggest that you are not judging in the spirit but
in the flesh. It is the flesh that is offended, not the spirit.
What is worship? It is an expression of
your love for God, nothing more and nothing less.
Have you seen young couples in the park,
sitting on a bench, oblivious to the world, totally in love, with
attention only for each other, I'm not so old that I don't
remember the feeling. When you are worshipping God that's how you
should be, attention only on God, not caring about what others do,
or what they think about you, you should be expressing your love
as quietly, loudly, in stillness or in action, as you want, and
not be watching others.
Now in a service, the worship time is
designed to bring you to that place were you and everyone else
can be in agreement and worship together in good order. Obviously
we don't want people suddenly jumping up in the middle of the
sermon, but the worship time is for you to freely worship in the
spirit.
Last Modified: 24th November 2003