Pursue love, yet earnestly desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. 2 For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries. 3 But one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and encouragement. 4 One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself; but one who prophesies edifies the church. 5 But I wish that you all spoke in tongues, but even more that you would prophesy. And greater is one who prophesies than one who speaks in tongues, unless he translates, so that the church may receive edification. 1 Corinthians 14: 1-5 LSB
1 Corinthians 14: 2
Warning - To hopefully avoid some confusion here, let it be understood that these posts are part of an ongoing conversation between me and a friend, who is Pentecostal but who I also believe to be a brother in Christ. There is no disrespect of people intended. This will include posts #1511 to #1515.
For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God - I am going to include an excerpt from a J Mac sermon on this passage below the other quotes, one that use to make me angry, but taken in light of the correction that is taking place here, and the culture, I think in view of the whole counsel of God what MacArthur points out holds much merit. Staton's quote below even allows that it is a known language, but unknown to the hearers, which brings it to the question of edification and order. This the Apostle has dealt with in the prior chapters, but continues in verses 3-12 here, with a summation in verse 12 that reads: So also you, since you are zealous for [g]spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church. Another thing to consider here is Utley's comment below, being that whatever God does Satan tries to counterfeit, just like Pharaoh's magicians, using trickery and the occult, were able to counterfeit the miracles that the Holy Spirit performed through Moses. I think as we go through the chapter we will be able to identify many instances where the Holy Spirit is actually slandered by assigning to Him works that are not His own ie disorderly, done for self edification (ego). Utley sights Delphi which was a place of worship in the Greco/Roman world, a place with practices very well known to the Corinthians. People would go there to inquire of an oracle, a woman would speak in tongue, singular, because all babbling, gibberish, falls under the same vain repetition, undiscernible. She would mumble or babble and then another would interpret, in other words, supposedly take her baby talk and put it into tongues, a known, discernable language. The more I read this the more it reminds me of other vestiges, pagan practices that have entered the church from the mystery religions. I will give you an example. The practice of goddess worship is discussed in the OT in Jeremiah, and it has infiltrated the Roman Catholic Church to where it is a major part of her identity and traditions. The pope that was shot some years back even cried out, Mother Mary, save me. She is seen as a co-redeemer. When I discuss this with Catholics they refer me not to the word of God but to their dogma and traditions, much like the Pharisees held up the writings of the scribes. Another example is having such a practice, like many even in reformed circles, holding to infant baptism. It is an old vestige of Roman Catholicism, a church that is now firmly a cult, but a tradition that some of my brothers still try to hold. You see we have this thing we do in our denomination, and they will say, "don't throw the baby out with the bath water", so I will say, "show me the baby." So now they believe this thing because they practice it, and it is a seemingly good experience, it doesn't feel bad, yet they are reformers who also say they believe in Sola Scriptura, so in order to show me the baby they have to go back to the Scriptures to find support for something that they want to believe, and they select this:
…33At that hour of the night, the jailer took them and washed their wounds. And without delay, he and all his household were baptized. 34Then he brought them into his home and set a meal before them. So he and all his household rejoiced that they had come to believe in God. 35When daylight came, the magistrates sent their officers with the order: “Release those men.”… Acts 16: 33-35
From that they insist that all his household must include that there were infants. Well, no, it doesn't have to mean that, and I don't think that my opinion or anyone else's matters, only God's intent. If we followed their logic in verse 33 where I still can't see the baby, then I guess we must for the sake of consistency apply this same reasoning to verse 34, and so the baby had come to believe in God. Their proof of argument becomes a proof for believer's baptism. It is all like Tootsie roll theology, where whatever it is I think I see becomes a Tootsie roll to me. I think the danger here is people trying to use this passage to support a form of tongues which is really a tongue, akin to pagan babbling ecstatic speech, when this is actually written as a correction for those doing so but also for those who were putting too high of an emphasis on the actual gift. I will stop here and leave some quotes and the excerpt from MacArthur.
Bell - Language is an agreement between people that certain sounds have certain meanings.
Staton - A person who speaks in a foreign language cannot communicate to others, for they do not understand him. Only God understands what this person is saying (1 Corinthians)
Some think Paul is referring not to human languages but to "ecstatic utterances," but that does not fit the context for later he states that these tongues can be interpreted (1 Cor 14:27-28+). Paul also states later that the speaker himself may be able to act as an interpreter (1 Cor 12:5, 13)
Utley suggests that "Tongues at Corinth seem to be unknown, articulated sounds. At Delphi one special person (usually a woman) would utter inarticulate sounds, then another would interpret these for the ones present. This procedure seems to parallel the experience of “tongues” at Corinth. - Precept Austin
Listen. It’s amazing to me that the modern Charismatic Movement falls short at this very point. They repeat the Corinthian error, and they teach that the essential use of tongues is as a private prayer language to God. That is just what Paul is condemning here. He is saying, “You have missed the point. The point is that gifts are to speak to men. But yours are some kind of communion with a god, and nobody knows what you’re saying, and you’re speaking in pagan mysteries.”
God doesn’t want to be talked to like that. It was never God’s intention to be addressed in some speech incomprehensible to the speaker. Go through the Epistles and take out every prayer prayed in the Epistles. And then when you’re done, check every single prayer in the entire Bible, and then check every prayer that Jesus ever prayed, and then check every single thing Jesus ever said about prayer and see if you find any word, anywhere, anytime that suggests that it ever should be unintelligible. You’ll never find it.
In fact, Jesus said the exact opposite. Matthew chapter 6 and verse 7. Listen to this: “When you pray, use not meaningless repetitions,” – watch this – “as the pagans do.” And you know what the phrase there, the word is? Meaningless repetition, battalogeō. Logeō is the word “to speak,” from which we get the word logos, which means word. And the prefix is batta. And batta is not even a word, it is what we call in English – some of you English people remember this – onomatopoeia, remember that?
Do you know what an onomatopoeiatic thing is? Like we say a bee goes “bzzz,” or a zipper goes “zip,” or the plane goes “whoosh.” That’s not a word, that’s what’s called onomatopoeia. It’s kind of a figure of speech.
Well, battah isn’t a word either. What He’s really saying – the literal Greek is, “When you pray,” – He says – “when you pray” – in Matthew 6:7 – “don’t say, ‘Battah, battah, battah,’ – or – “don’t go to God with ‘whoosh, bzzz, zip.’” That’s the whole idea. That is not the kind of communication that God is interested in, that is what the pagans do. In other words, even in Jesus’ time, Jesus recognized a sort of stammering, stuttering gibberish being offered by pagans to their gods, and He says, “That is exactly what I do not wish you to do when you pray to the Father.”
“Always we are to pray intelligibly. Always we are to pray with the understanding,” says Paul. “Always, we are to understand what we say and to speak clearly to God.”
When Jesus went into the garden to pray to the Father, He didn’t talk in some heavenly language. Why should you? When Deity communed with Deity, it was spoken in a language that was clear. When Jesus stood by the grave of Lazarus about to raise him from the dead, He prayed; and John heard every word he prayed and wrote it down in just the way He said it; it was clear. You study John 17, you listen to the private prayer between Jesus and the Father, it’s all very clear, translated beautifully into English from the original language.
The carnal Corinthians, however, like current Charismatics, I’m afraid, with their desire for the showy, and the attention-getting, and the ego-building, and the emotionalistic gift of tongues were using it as a badge of spirituality, and they were saying, “Oh, I have reached such a spiritual plateau. I can now talk to the eternal God in my own private language.”
Beloved, that is pure paganism, pure paganism. And so he says, “You have missed the whole point. You don’t speak to men with the true gift, you’re speaking to a god in some kind of mystery.” And the mysteries that they believed were some secrets, some little hidden secrets that only the initiated would know. And you only got those when you got into your ecstasy, and you went out of your body and you connected up with your god, and then you got these secrets, see.
Beloved, you know something? Everybody in the church is initiated. Everybody in the church has all the mysteries – right? – no secrets. “So” – he says – “you missed the point. Tongues don’t minister to people, not the way you do it – not your tongues, not your languages – because no one even knows what you’re saying. But” – verse 3 – “he that prophesies speaks to men.” You see?
“That’s what I want you to do, because you’ll speak to men; and three things will happen: edification, exhortation, and consolation. You will speak the word of God. And you know what’ll happen? Boy, things will take place in their lives. They will be built up, first of all. Secondly, they will be encouraged to a new kind of behavior; and, thirdly, people will be comforted in their agonies and their hurts. That’s what I want you to do. When you come together, I want to hear the word of God proclaimed, not battah, battah, battah.”
Verse 4: “He that speaks in an tongue edifies himself; but he that prophesies edifies the church.” Which is better? Which is better? What’s Paul trying to say? What’s the point of the whole chapter? Edify – what? – the church. Edify the church. Edify the church.
Edifying yourself is not the point. Listen, beloved, you were never given any spiritual gift for yourself, never, never. And if a person takes a spiritual gift and turns it to himself, he has prostituted the gift – that’s right – because it’s for others. It’s to build the body.
You say, “Well, it says right here, John, ‘You speak in an unknown tongue you edify yourself.’” Yeah, but you don’t edify the church, and that’s the whole point: you don’t edify the church.
You say, “But if it’s translated, you edify the church.” All right, then it was the gift of interpretation that edified, not the gift of tongues. The gift of tongues is useless to edify the church – right? – because nobody knew what you’re saying. That’s what he says to the Corinthians. “With all of that going on, even if the real gift happened to be used, even if somebody popped up with the real thing, it wouldn’t edify anybody in and of itself, it would have to be translated.” That’s what he says at the end of verse 5, “except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying.”
And you know what’s wonderful? When the true gift was used, and when it was used as a sign, and when God did want to use the true gift, and it happened to be used with some Christians there, God would always have somebody interpret so that it would not go without meaning to the church; because even when the true gift was used which couldn’t edify, God had the gift of interpretation so that it would edify, because God didn’t want anything going on in the church that didn’t edify and build up. But the way the Corinthians were doing it was chaotic; and they had determined that just in and of itself, it would edify the church; and it won’t. And when people do it for their own self sake, they are trying to edify themselves.
And you know something? That’s a second perversion. Your gift was not only meant for men, not God; secondly, it was meant for men, not you, see, not you. And yet Donald Gee, a well-known Charismatic, says, “The revealed purpose of the gift of tongues is chiefly devotional, and we do well to emphasize the fact.” And Larry Christenson says, “One speaks in tongues, for the most part, in his private devotions. This is by far its most important use and value.” End quote.
We see that is the very opposite of what Paul is saying. Number one, he is saying, “Your gift is not to speak to God.” And number two, “Your gift is not for you.” You see, the whole point is it’s for them, it’s for them, it’s for them. And so if you seek to edify God, you’re out of line. If you seek to edify yourself, you’re out of line. And there’s almost sarcasm here: “He that speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself.” - J Mac
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