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For the past two months we have been studying the very practical subject of love. Today as we move into chapter 14 we move to the subject of tongues. Now if you were with us when we studied chapter 12 you are aware that my position is that the gift of tongues was a temporary sign gift that ceased with the NT church. Now if I am correct and this gift has ceased why even bother studying chapter 14; why not just skip it and move on to chapter 15? Why should we study this chapter?
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NKJV) All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Alright, but how can it be profitable to us when tongues are no longer an issue? Are tongues no longer an issue? No, they are a major issue today. Surely this subject of tongues is one of the most, if not the most, controversial and divisive issue in the church today. Without a doubt it is one of the major eyebrow-raisers of modern times. Many are asking questions about it, and there is much that is written in this area. This is due to the charismatic movement which is known for emphasizing the value of speaking in tongues. For that reason It is often called the "tongues movement."
The modern tongues movement can be traced back to 312 Azusa street, Los Angeles CA. in 1906. It was that year that W.J. Semore arrived in the city of Los Angeles, gathered together a group of black believers, and began to pray for a reoccurrence of the apostolic signs. After some time it happened; and many signs, wonders, and manifestations heralded the coming of the Holy Spirit. For days the believers continued to shout and speak in tongues, unbelievers were apparently healed and converted. The continuous revival was flashed across the country by the news media and brought an amazing response. In kind of a desegregation white believers converged upon 312 Azusa street seeking the same experience and searching for the significance of what had happened. They also experienced the phenomenon. Both black and white Pentecostalism have their origin in this experience in Los Angeles.
Every branch of the Christian church and of Christendom at large has been affected by the charismatic movement and, yet we here at Faith Bible Church stand outside that movement and are generally opposed to it. We are not opposed to the people in it but to the doctrine that is taught. We do not major in this opposition nor do we go out of our way to attack it. However, when we come to a passage like this one that is abused and misinterpreted by those in the charismatic movement we are compelled to deal with this issue.
I am going to share with you my convictions on this passage and issue. I am not questioning the experience of those who say that they speak in tongues; every experience is genuine. However, the test of what is biblical is never experience, but Scripture. Some people say. "This happened to me, therefore. I know it must be of the Lord." I wouldn't question their experience but I would question if their experience was the Biblical gift of tongues. I have some strong convictions on this subject because I was at one time involved in this movement. I would ask that you evaluate my convictions comparing them with the Word of God.
In these first five verses in 1 Corinthians 14 Paul is telling us that the gift of prophesy is superior to the gift of tongues. The reason for its superiority is because prophesy edifies the church. Edification is a major concern in this chapter as the repeated use of the verb edify and the noun edification verify.
The first verse is a transition between what he has been teaching us in chapter 13 and what he is going to teach us in chapter 14.
1 Corinthians 14:1-5 (NKJV) Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
He starts by telling them to "pursue love." That ties this back to the "love" chapter, and it is good to remind ourselves that this is the essence of the exercise of any spiritual gift. Love is to be the basic, biblical reason for exercising a spiritual gift. Love, as we have already seen, is the sacrificial giving of ourselves for someone else's benefit. That is to be the controlling theme throughout this whole chapter in both the discussion of tongues and of prophesying. Love, edification, building up of someone else are the issue.
So Paul is again reminding the Corinthians of the priority of love. Love is to be their highest priority. They are to pursue it. The word he uses here for pursue is dioko, (dee-o'-ko) which means to press forward, to run swiftly in order to catch, to chase after with intensity, and is sometimes translated "persecute," as in 1 Corinthians 4:12. It is a strong expression for active and earnest endeavor. It is to run after something with all your might. I have a personal illustration of this verb dioko. When I was in youth work the teenagers used to like to T.P. my house. At first it was funny and cute but after a while it got quite old. I was sick of getting up at 5:00AM and spending an hour cleaning up my yard. One evening at about 11:00 o'clock I got a phone call from a lady warning me that the teens planned to T.P. my house that night. I was so excited, I thought I would finally be able to catch them. I waited up all night for nothing. The next day we had a youth activity and as one of the teens was boarding the bus he said to me "did you get a good night's sleep last night?" They knew how bad I wanted to catch them. Then it happened. One night at about 1:00 AM Cathy woke me up and said "I think I hear someone outside". I got up and peeked out of the window and to my great joy there were three guys TP'ing my house. I ran out the front door and around the house catching them in the act. All three of them took off running. I chased one of them through several yards, and over several fences. As he was hurdling over a fence I dove over the fence and tackled him. I went after him with everything I had, nothing mattered except catching him. That is dioko. And that is how we are to go after love. We must pursue love with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love is to be pursued above everything else. Love is eternal and is to have priority in our lives above all else.
Then Paul tells the Corinthians to desire spiritual gifts. On a second level of priority they are to desire spiritual gifts. And they are to especially desire the gift of prophecy. There is a great deal of disagreement on what exactly is this gift. As I have stated in our study of spiritual gifts in chapter 12 I believe that prophecy was also a temporary gift that is no longer needed today. I believe that this is the same gift as we saw in the OT and in the Gospels. A prophet , when the office was instituted, is by definition a man who receives direct revelation from God and speaks forth that revelation.
Deuteronomy 18:18-19 (NKJV) 'I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. 19 'And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.
He may speak concerning the distant future or the present; in either case what he speaks is direct revelation from God . Are there men like this today who speak God's words and must be obeyed? That is what an OT prophet was and I believe that that is also true of the gift spoken of in 1 Corinthians 14. Just to back that up look with me at:
1 Corinthians 13:2 (NKJV) And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
That second phrase explains the first phrase, a prophet understands the mysteries of God. A mystery is a secret that is made known by direct revelation from God. So a prophet is a person who receives direct revelation from God. Look at:
1 Corinthians 14:29-30 (NKJV) Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge. 30 But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent.
Again the prophet is a man who is receiving direct revelation from God. Many commentators believe that the gift of prophecy is active today but they water down its meaning. One man says, "The gift of prophesying is not predicting the future. That may be an element occasionally in it, but it is basically the explanation of the present in the light of the revelation of God. The closest term we would call it by today is "expository preaching," unfolding the mind of God and applying it to the daily struggles of life." What gift would you say someone had who was an expository preacher? Teaching! The prophet was a man who had the capacity to receive direct revelation from God and communicate it . This was the most important gift in the early Christian Church. The early Christians had no written revelation from God for the NT church; all they had was the OT Scripture. They needed this gift that they might learn from God what they were to believe and how they were to live. The revelation of the NT prophets has been recorded for us in the NT. Today the person with the gift of teaching can expound to you what God gave by direct revelation to a man with the gift of prophecy. I am sure you can understand the importance of the gift of prophecy in the NT times when there was no written revelation. Because we have the written word of God we no longer need the gift of prophesy and I would say that the gift of teaching is for us what the gift of prophecy was for them in terms of importance. So Paul tells them to covet the gift of prophecy that they may know the mind of God. I believe that Paul would say to us today "covet the gift of teaching."
When Paul tells the Corinthians to covet the gift of prophesy I believe that he is addressing the church not individuals. When he says desire spiritual gifts he uses in the Greek text a second person plural, not second singular, but second plural. So he is not telling individuals that they should seek the gift of prophecy but that the church should covet that gift among all other gifts. To support this turn to:
1 Corinthians 14:39 (NKJV) Therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues.
That is again second person plural. And then he goes on and says, "and do not forbid to speak with tongues." That also is second person plural. It is obvious from the second phrase that he is addressing the church. The church was not to forbid people who had the gift of tongues from using their gift. So we could conclude that the first phrase is also addressed to the church. The church was to covet the prophesy gift. They are to desire that the better spiritual gifts will be exercised among them to help them grow in spiritual power and effectiveness and influence in the city. Clearly, therefore, the one spiritual gift that is most effective in that direction is prophesying.
They were to desire to have those in their midst who had the gift of prophesy that they might learn the will of God.
The problem in Corinth was that the believers there were placing their priority on the gift of tongues. It was the gift of choice. So Paul tells them that they are to place prophesy first and then he goes on to tell them why. In verses 2-5 he give us three contrasts between the gift of prophesy and tongues.
2 For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries.
This verse is misused and abused by the Charismatic movement. It has been said that a text out of context becomes a pretext. If you take verses out of context you can make the Bible say anything that you want it to say. That is what I believe is happening today; these verses are taken out of their context and they therefore become a pretext. It is suggested by the Charismatic movement that the gift of tongues is ecstatic utterances.
Their conclusion of this verse is that because no man understands him and only God understands him he is not speaking in a language. He is speaking in gibberish. If you have the KJV you notice that the word unknown is added in italics. There is no basis for such a position. It is not an unknown tongue that is being spoken but a tongue that is unknown to the hearers. Paul is speaking in this context about a person who speaks in tongues without an interpreter. Look at verse 5 "Unless he interprets." that is a crucial phrase because that explains the entire context. He is talking about someone who speaks in tongues with no interpreter. If you speak in tongues without an interpreter no one will understand what you are saying except God. Verses 2-5a must be understood as Paul's criticism of tongues when they are not interpreted. Every indication in the NT is that the gift of tongues was the ability to speak a known language that was unknown to the speaker. Tongues were actual human languages like Latin, Aramaic, or Persian. To support this view, the Greek word that is translated tongues, glossa, always means language. Gordon Clark says, "It is very difficult, if not impossible, to find an instance in Greek where glossa means gibberish." Also the verb that is used for interpreting in verse 5 is the verb that we use normally for translating. And it is always used for translation from one language into another language. In Acts 2 they spoke in tongues on Pentecost. As they spoke in tongues we are told in verse 6 that all of the people heard them speaking in their own language. The description in Acts should govern the exegesis of 1 Corinthians; the gift of tongues is the same gift: languages! Paul here presupposes that everyone knows what he is talking about.
The gift of tongues was to be a sign in the days of the NT. Tongues being a known language alone explains the significance of it being a sign. Ecstatic utterances were not a sign; they were common, even in the pre-Christian era.
The first known occasion that we have of ecstatic utterance from extra biblical literature dates it back to 1100 BC. More that a 1,000 years before Christ men were speaking in ecstatic languages. Both Plato and Virgil in their writings refer to Greeks who were speaking in ecstatic languages. Ecstatic utterances are also extra-Christian. The Gnostics in the day of the NT spoke in ecstatic utterances. The Muslims and Mormons today speak in ecstatic utterances. There is a group of Eskimos in Greenland who regularly gather together and speak in ecstatic utterances. That is not Christian; it is heathen. Now the gift of tongues was to be a sign in the days of the NT. The only thing that would make it a sign would be if it were different from the ecstatic utterances in which the pagans were involved. The gift of tongues is always a known human language.
The nature of tongues as taught by the Charismatic movement today does not correspond with the nature of tongues in the NT. Most people would have to admit that. The Biblical gift of tongues was the ability to speak in a language one had never learned. The present practice in the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches is to speak ecstatic utterances which are not languages and therefore not the Biblical gift of tongues.
One further thing needs to be said before we move on, and that is that this verse clearly makes apparent the fact that it is the true, Spirit-given, biblical gift of tongues that is being discussed in this chapter. I say that because some commentators today are telling us that what Paul is discussing here is a carry-over from the pagan practices. In the pagan mystery religions there was a kind of ecstatic utterance, a purely psychological phenomenon that was induced by a certain religious excitement. It consisted of a babble of sounds, an incoherent stammering of various syllables and sounds. Because this was exercised in the mystery religions of Corinth, some expositors are telling us that this is the problem here in the church at Corinth.
But I cannot agree with that, and the reason I cannot is this: All through this chapter the Apostle interjects references to his own practice of the gift of tongues, and he makes no distinction whatsoever between the way he spoke in tongues and the way these Corinthians were speaking in tongues. He does not put their gift down, in fact here in this very verse he says it is "in the Spirit," so in no sense is he putting down the exercise of this gift. He himself exercised it, as he tells us very plainly in this chapter. Therefore, it is not the pagan practice that had crept into the church, as some would tell us today. It was the true, biblical gift of tongues as it was manifested also on the day of Pentecost.
Now I would like us to examine the phrase, For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, What does Paul mean by this? One commentator says this, "Tongues are never addressed to men. This is the first great truth to be remembered, that the gift of tongues was for addressing God. Tongues are private worship directed to God. To put it quite simply, in our everyday language, it was given to men that they might praise." My question is why? Why can't I talk to God in the language I know? God knows every language and he even knows my thoughts, so why do I need a different language to talk to him? When Jesus talked to the Father in his high priestly prayer in John 17 he did not use some special language. Why should we?
What Paul is saying here is that when a person speaks in tongues and there is no interpreter present he is not speaking to men because they don't understand him only God understands what he says. The text goes on to say, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries. Now obviously the reason for that was not that he was speaking things that nobody had ever heard before; he was simply speaking in a language that they did not understand. That would, therefore, appear to be something mysterious. In the church at Corinth people would stand up and speak in these languages, perhaps recognizable as being languages used somewhere nearby (as on the day of Pentecost), but the people there did not understand the language, and so they could not know what the speaker was saying. He was uttering, therefore, "mysteries [to them] in the Spirit." [Monsita stands and speaks in Spanish] What did she say? If you don't know Spanish then you don't know what she said, and to you it is a mystery, but God understood it.
3 But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men.
The contrast between tongues speaking and prophesy is obvious: the tongues speaker fails to communicate because there is no interpreter, but the person who prophesies addresses people with a message they can understand. The person who prophesies builds up and comforts the church. First, prophesy builds people up. The word is oikodomen. In the Greek, oiko means "house," and domen means "to build." The idea is -to build a house on a solid foundation; the work of prophesying then gives people a foundation. The second thing prophesying does is strengthen people. This is the word from which we get the word paraclete, one of the titles of the Holy Spirit. He is the strengthener of God's people. It means to support and encourage; the literal meaning of the term is "one called alongside" to support, steady, and strengthen you.
The third ministry of prophesying is that of comforting; the Greek word used here is, paramuthian, which means, basically, to empathize, to put yourself in the place of others, to understand the pressures they are under. It means to be able to feel with them and be able, then, to encourage them with the fact that you know how they feel. You have been there, but God is working it out with them as he worked it out with you. That is what the word of prophesying is inclined to do. Obviously the gift of prophesy is much better for the church when there is no interpreter present.
In verse 4 he gives us his next contrast.
4 He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.
Without an interpreter he is the only one edified. But the person who prophesies benefits the whole church. Those in the Charismatic movement use this verse to say that the purpose of tongues is for self-edification. They are taking the text out of context. In its context it is saying something quite different. Paul is not talking about the purpose of tongues in this verse he does that in verse 22. What he is saying is that as a person exercises his gift of tongues if there is no interpreter to explain what he said then all that happens is that he himself is edified. He is edified not because he understands what is said, if that were the case then he could interpret, but because he is used of God. That is true of the exercise of any gift. When I teach the Word of God my purpose is to edify you, but I also am edified because God is using me. That is not the purpose for my teaching, it is a byproduct of it. The people will not be edified if you speak in a language they do not understand but as a by product you will be. The purpose of spiritual gifts is not self-edification but to profit the body.
1 Corinthians 12:7 (NKJV) But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all:
Self-edification is never a valid Christian objective! Love seeketh not its own. Verse21 gives us the purpose of tongues.
1 Corinthians 14:20-22 (NKJV) Brethren, do not be children in understanding; however, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature.
He is saying, "Grow, up! Be mature in your understanding of the purpose of tongues." What is the purpose?
21 In the law it is written: "With men of other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people; And yet, for all that, they will not hear Me," says the Lord. 22 Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophesying is not for unbelievers but for those who believe.
That is the purpose of tongues; it is a sign to them who do not believe. In the context it is a sign to "this people," meaning Jews who do not believe. The purpose of tongues is a sign to unbelieving Israel, signifying the judgement of God. It is not for self-edification! No gift is given for self-edification. Tongues without interpretation is self-centered; it ignores the needs of others. It is denying this whole appeal of Paul to act in love, and "make love your aim,"i.e. to build up and bless and strengthen others around you. Prophesying, as Paul says, "edifies the church." and, therefore, fulfills the demands of love.
The third contrast is in verse 5.
5 I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you prophesied; for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets, that the church may receive edification.
Does Paul really want everyone to speak in tongues? This is not a command, but a desire as that expressed in 1 Corinthians 7:7 where speaking of celibacy Paul says, "For I would that all men were even as I myself."
Paul states his approval of speaking in tongues because he does not wish to be misunderstood. Languages are a good gift, but there is something better. The scope of this gift is not, as is so often taught in the Charismatic movement, that everyone is to speak in tongues. Not everyone speaks in tongues. Gifts are given sovereignly by the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:30 (NKJV) Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?
Verse 5 says, "Unless he interprets." that is the key crucial phrase because it explains the entire context. He is talking about someone who speaks in tongues with no interpreter. So Paul is speaking about someone who has the gift of tongues and exercises it without an interpreter. On the other hand the person who has the gift of prophesy communicates direct revelation from God to the church. He tells them that the gift of prophesy is superior to the gift of tongues when it is exercised without an interpreter because a person who speaks in tongues without an interpreter is understood only by God and edifies only himself. On the contrary, the person who prophesies is understood by the whole church and brings edification to everyone. The demand of love is that we esteem others better than ourselves. Therefore we are to seek to minister to others, using our gifts to build them up.
What is our responsibility toward those in the charismatic movement? It is not to tell them how wrong they are, or to treat them like lepers. We are responsible to love them. And if we have the opportunity we are to speak the truth in love.
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