Decently and in Order
The chaos in the Corinthian church was not caused by wicked people. It was caused by spiritually enthusiastic people whose gifts had become a matter of personal prestige rather than communal service.
Isaac Newton once said, “Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.” How I resonate with that.
I will never forget the story of a woman from the developing world who visited the United States for the first time and was taken to an American grocery store.
This precious woman broke down in tears, not at the abundance, but at the overwhelming assault on her senses of color, variety, and choice. She said to her hostess, “This is too much freedom.”
We live in a complex, nuanced, and profoundly confusing world. That is our reality, and there is no good in pretending otherwise. At the same time, we Orthodox Christians are called away from chaos, confusion, and divided living.
We are called to peace, simplicity, and joy.
“God is not a God of confusion but of peace.”
Our current civil strife, political chaos, and cultural fracturing make this truth all the more urgent. How do we get from the chaos of the grocery store to the peace God intends for His people? St. Paul gives the Corinthians, and us, a very practical answer.
Today’s Lesson: 1 Corinthians 14:6-40
Brethren, when you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn; and let one interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each one of them keep silence in church and speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another by sitting by, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged; and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. But God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. What! Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only one it has reached? If any one thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord. If any one does not recognize this, he is not recognized. So, my brethren, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues; but all things should be done decently and in order.
The Corinthian church was chaotic.
Everyone wanted their gift celebrated. Everyone wanted to speak. Everyone wanted their question answered right now. The result was a worship gathering that sounded more like a marketplace than a community gathered before God.
St. Paul steps in and applies a very simple diagnostic. Is this producing edification, or confusion?
And his conclusion is clear. God is not the author of what is happening in Corinth.
What Can We Take From This?
First, the enemy of simplicity and peace in any community is self-centeredness dressed up as spiritual enthusiasm.
“Let all things be done for edification.”
This single sentence is the key to the entire passage. Every gift, every spiritual experience, every contribution to the community, is to be evaluated by one question. Does this build up the Body, or does it primarily serve the person exercising the gift?
The Corinthians had fallen into the trap of spiritual giftedness becoming a matter of personal prestige. The person who spoke in tongues was elevated. The prophet who received a revelation was honored. And the desire to be seen and celebrated was feeding chaos, because everyone was trying to be the most visibly gifted person in the room at the same time.
This is spiritual immaturity in a religious costume.
It looks like zeal. It sounds like devotion. But its actual motivation is the same ego-driven hunger for recognition that drives all the other forms of pride. And its fruit is the chaos that the Corinthians were producing.
The mature Orthodox life moves in the opposite direction. Every gift I have been given, my voice, my intellect, my resources, my time, my spiritual insight, exists to serve the community, not to feed my ego. The measure of my spiritual maturity is not how impressively I exercise my gifts but whether the community is genuinely built up when I do.
Next, the “us versus them” mentality is the enemy of peace, disguising itself as principle.
Reading this passage, certain phrases will generate immediate reactions. “Women should keep silence in the churches.” I can already see the comments coming in. (Forgive me if I roll my eyes)
And that reaction, the immediate sorting into sides, is precisely the pattern St. Paul is warning against throughout this letter.
The men against the women. The prophets against the priests. The charismatics against the traditionalists. The progressives against the conservatives.
All of these false dichotomies war against the peace and simplicity Paul is calling the Corinthians toward.
We are not at war with one another! Even when it looks like we are!
The evil one makes it seem so because division weakens every community and confusion blinds us to what God is actually doing.
When we fall into “us versus them” thinking and begin treating every theological or practical difference as a battle to be won, we become co-creators of the chaos that destroys rather than the center of sobriety and peace that saves.
The Church is not a debate society where the best argument wins!
It is a community of persons in communion, doing the hard and holy work of being together in humility and love.
This does not mean every question has no answer or that every position is equally valid. It means that the way we hold our convictions and treat those who disagree reveals whether we are operating from the peace of God or the anxiety of the age.
Finally, God’s order is not bureaucratic management. It is the natural expression of a community shaped by genuine love for one another.
“All things should be done decently and in order.”
This is St. Paul’s concluding word. Not a long list of rules and regulations to memorize and enforce.
A single principle. Decently and in order.
Order in a community shaped by love does not require external coercion. It emerges naturally when every member is genuinely more concerned with the flourishing of the Body than with the recognition of their own gifts.
When no one needs to be the loudest voice in the room because they are not there to be heard but to serve. When the gift of silence is as valued as the gift of prophecy, because both, exercised in love at the right moment, build up the community.
This is the simplicity St. Paul is calling for. Not the simplicity of the grocery store reduced to only one product on every shelf.
The simplicity of a community so thoroughly ordered around love and the flourishing of one another that the chaos of competing egos simply has no room to grow.
It is a revolution in thinking and living. And it is what Normal Orthodoxy looks like when it is actually working.
St. Joseph the Righteous of Arimathea
Today we commemorate St. Joseph of Arimathea, the wealthy member of the Sanhedrin who had become a secret disciple of the Lord Jesus. When the Lord was crucified, and the other disciples had scattered, St. Joseph went boldly to Pontius Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. He took it down from the Cross with his own hands, wrapped it in fine linen, anointed it with spices, and placed it in his own new tomb.
Here is a man who understood completely what it meant to act for the edification of the community rather than for his own prestige. He risked his position in the Sanhedrin, his reputation, and potentially his safety by associating himself publicly with the executed Lord. He used his wealth and his access not for personal gain but for the most selfless act of service when the moment required it.
St. Joseph of Arimathea is the antidote to the Corinthian problem. Where the Corinthians were using their gifts to be seen and celebrated, St. Joseph used his gifts and his position at the moment of maximum personal risk, when no one was celebrating anything, to serve the Body of Christ in its most vulnerable hour.
He shows us what decent and ordered love looks like when it is mature.
Your Response Today
Today, ask yourself honestly: what are the enemies of peace and simplicity in your own life? By the way, there is no way to overemphasize this!
Where is self-centered thinking creating chaos in a community you belong to? Where have you sorted yourself into an “us versus them” position that is feeding division rather than healing it? Where are you using your gifts to be seen rather than to serve?
Then bring those places honestly to the God who is not a God of confusion but of peace, and ask Him to order them.
Pray simply:
“Lord Jesus Christ, You are not a God of confusion but of peace. Reveal to me the places where my self-centeredness is feeding chaos rather than building up the Body. Let my gifts serve rather than perform, and let Your peace, which passes understanding, guard my heart and mind in You.”
Being Orthodox on Purpose means doing everything decently and in order, with the simplicity of genuine love for the community, so that the peace of God has room to grow where chaos would otherwise reign!
P.S. The noble Joseph, when he had taken down Your most pure Body from the tree, wrapped it in fine linen, anointed it with spices, and placed it in a new tomb. But You rose on the third day, O Lord, granting the world great mercy.
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Thanks
Fr. Barnabas Powell is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA. He is also the founder of Faith Encouraged Ministries and produces the Faith Encouraged Daily Devotional on Substack. Watch the Faith Encouraged YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@FaithEncouragedTV
Thank you! This has always been a passage that has confused me. This helped me to put this into perspective/context along with how it applies to us as the Church today.
Father, this message is brilliantly written and so true in so many communities. It’s definitely a topic that needs to be addressed and given much thought and prayer. Thank you!