prophet said:
Walt said:
The Rogue Tomato said:
Walt said:
How about when Paul was preaching to the assembly (the church), and the young men fell asleep and fell out of the window? I believe he was speaking to (encouraging) the believers.
7 On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.
There is no indication here that he was delivering a sermon at all. He was talking with them until midnight, and the text gives no indication that people weren't responding.
One guy fell asleep. Is that evidence it was a sermon because your uninterrupted sermons put people to sleep?

indeed...
Well, it was a Sunday, and the church was meeting, and Paul spoke to them. "Spoke to" seems to imply that Paul was speaking and the others were listening, not interrupting with questions. It would be "speak with" if it was a multi-way conversation.
Since Paul spelled out, in 1Cor. 14, how this ought to proceed, I'm not sure why looking at stories that don't go into that much detail should be considered as evidence to overturn.
True, but even I Cor 14 doesn't seem to cover this area of the topic -- as I recall (and I'm just going by memory and may forget things):
- women were not to speak
- only 2 or 3 (at the most) were to speak; the "others" (church attenders or preachers; I've heard both given) were to "judge" what was said. I assume that this refers to church members, and that they should ensure that the speaker is being Biblical
What is doesn't speak to is whether it is a round-robin discussion (doesn't quite seem to fit), or if people can throw out questions at random -- the latter seems a bit chaotic. If a speaker says something I disagree with, I normally write an email to give him time to consider my points -- usually, if I go person-to-person, the speaker will often get defensive or thinks he must answer right away.
Am I missing something in I Cor 14 that mandates either a lecture or discussion style?