William S. Barker

Imagine how it must have appeared from heaven. Members of the congregation seemed to be competing with one another when one had a hymn to sing, another a word of instruction, another a revelation, another a tongue or an interpretation. In his first letter to these Corinthian Christians, Paul rebuked them: "God is not a God of disorder but of peace" (1 Corinthians 14:33). Spontaneity had apparently brought chaos to these worship services in Corinth.