Prophets Two or Three

I Corinthians 14 contains instructions on how a church service is to be administered, it limits the number of speakers per service and limits women speakers, etc. Other parts of I Corinthians give instructions on payment of teachers. One group of the COC, known as the non-institutional, have long divided away from other COC with claims that they started acting outside the instructions of I Corinthians. Is it true other COC acted outside the instructions of Paul?

First, it does matter since we are to follow apostolic commands. Peter gives the instruction in his writings. So, if an apostle gives instructions we should follow them. Im not arguing that such are no longer necessary. I believe they are and we need to understand them and practice them. We should seek understanding without bias however.

The arguments began in Chilicothe Missouri where a young baptist was corrected by COC preachers for having an incomplete baptism, and the COC ministers explained some unbiblical practices of the baptist churches. The young man spent the rest of his life trying to prove the COC was itself unscriptural and he succeeded in turning some his way, but he was never right. He argued from bias and not a clear perspective. Some of his arguments were over.

1. speakers per assembly

2. Paid preachers, Paid elders, Paid deacons, Paid teachers, etc

3. Starting or giving to orphanages by the congregation

4. Joint congregational works between congregations, using money joined for the projects.

5. Eating food at the church building.

6. Some judged Sunday Schools invalid.

7. Two services on Sunday and mid-week services.

In other words every thing the church did was judged according to their criteria and understanding. They made themselves judges and blacklisted any congregation or person that didn't do exactly as they wanted. All of their arguments can be summarily disproven, but the damage was done and splits happened. I could go through each of these to show biblical support for each. Realize they may be the ones needing blacklisting according to I Corinthians 5:9, :Not to eat with a reviler", that is someone who talks bad about something or someone that is ok. They do a lot of that. 

Realize im not saying all COC have practiced what is right, they are made up of humans, i'm not unity in diversity where we all do what we feel like. I do believe there is room to let people mature. There is room for differences of opinion in study that are not so bad it disrupts fellowship. So lets take some of these and see if they are correct.

1. They claim we should have two or three speakers and we have a paid preacher that does it all, keeping everyone else from voicing their knowledge. They are similar to quakers who had open pulpits where all could speak, but they limit to three per meeting. This is biblical and I believe in allowing two or three. So, what is the problem? They do not accept what constitutes speaking. We have someone give a lesson and we have someone give a message during the Lord's Supper, they call one speaking but not the other. A short message of the death of Jesus isn't accepted as speaking. The Greek word is prophesy, which is a topic we could write a pamphlet on.  The point is we do have two or three speakers they just dont recognize all of them. There are other times speaking takes place such as short messages before prayer, announcements, giving sermonettes before giving to projects, and others like a call to worship by a song leader. All of these could fall under prophesying if honest about it. Realize the verses in question are limiting the number, not saying there must be more than one. The second speaker was conditional, "if something comes to another sitting by", it was conditional and not a command to do it every time.

2. Some allow all men to speak and look down on churches that don't. This isn't biblical. The verses in question, "let two or three prophets speak", are for prophets and not all men in the congregation. "You may all prophesy one by one", this is the prophets. The antecedent in Greek for all is the prophets mentioned just prior.  They chose spiritually mature men. This is consistent with the giftedness concepts of I Corinthians 12, where gifted teachers were used. "Are all teachers". Having men who have natural talents and some education is the way the early church chose speakers. Having a paid preacher or a set of paid preachers doesn't