Immature worship

Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.

1 Corinthians 14:20

Paul told the Corinthian church to grow up. There was a lot of unchecked immaturity in the church and it showed in numerous ways. One way it was destructive to the church was in the rampant uncontrolled disorderly abuse of spiritual gifts in their worship gatherings. The use of “tongues speaking” among the Corinthians had gotten so out of hand that the gift no longer functioned as God had designed it. In fact, I think they actually had gone beyond the spiritual gift and created a totally new experience of their own design. There were no interpretations given when people wildly jabbered, just lots of loud, cacophonous expressions that distracted from God’s Word.

The apostle Paul instructed them to return prophecy (the gift that helped the church hear from God as His Word was proclaimed to them) to the central focus of their worship. The childish abuse of the other gifts needed to be ended. Maturity demanded centering their gatherings around hearing from God and His Word. 

Sadly, such abuse of worship forms can still be found when our thinking today is not mature. I’m not even referring to charismatic misdirection. There are many non-charismatic churches that miss the point and fall into immaturity if they aren’t careful. I think focusing solely on music is immature, or bragging about the use of technology, and certainly the rampant focus on Christian celebrity or political positioning is aweful. All these abuses becoming the focus of worship is extreme spiritual childishness. Mature worship in the life of the church is bible saturated, Christ focused, gospel centered, Spirit empowered, and God glorifying!