1 Corinthians 14:1-5. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on May 29, 2022.
Last week, we talked about the Day of Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. I want to pause on our walk through the Acts of the Apostles and focus this week and next on issues of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In fact, next week, June 5, is Pentecost Sunday.
The Day of Pentecost nearly 2,000 years ago was a significant day, which opened the door for a whole new way of God’s working among His people. From that day onward, each one of God’s people would have a spiritual gift or gifts by which they could strengthen and build up one another as the Holy Spirit leads us.
Let’s get into our passage.
Let’s refresh our minds regarding the context of this chapter. Paul is writing to the Church at Corinth, Greece, in order to correct their errors regarding spiritual gifts. In chapter 12, he broaches the subject, but then, in chapter 13, he shows them the more excellent way of love. Chapter 14 calls Christians to a balance. Love is not more excellent in the sense that we would choose it to the exclusion of spiritual gifts, but rather that it would be the moral imperative behind why and how we use spiritual gifts.
Verse 1 gives us the command to pursue love and to desire spiritual gifts. It makes sense that he puts love first as it is the “more excellent way.” He also uses the word pursue. Of course, it is not a love relationship with another person that we are pursuing now, but a love itself. The foundation of having love in my relationship with others is having a relationship with love itself. Better yet, when we understand that “God is love,” this is a call for us to pursue God Himself, His character, His image.
Paul clearly is not trying to nix spiritual gifts. We should continue to desire them, but for the purpose of demonstrating the image of God and His love for others. Any expression of spiritual gifts should be to fulfill the imperative of love. Love always works for the good of others, as defined by God, and not their harm.
Paul uses the example of two gifts, speaking in tongues and prophecy, because this is where their erroneous thinking was most obvious. Speaking in tongues was the spiritual gift that many of the Corinthian Christians saw as the most desirable, even to the point of ignoring others. The Greek culture saw intelligible language as a higher stamp of the divine than prophecy in an understood language. Those closest to the divine would not be understood. Their church assemblies had devolved into large numbers of people speaking in tongues and not wanting to do much else. They had become so hung up on it that it was harming the value of the Christian gatherings.
The root of this problem is that they are thinking about God’s things with the mindset of the world around them. Their Corinthian culture was dominating how they used these spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit. This is not just a Corinthian problem. All people are in danger of letting their own culture overwhelm how they approach the Bible, the Church, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
In verse 2, Paul begins to explain the purpose for both speaking in tongues and prophecy. He does so by highlighting two issues: who is being addressed and who is being edified by it. Let’s deal with them one at a time.
When a person speaks in tongues (an unknown language that they have not naturally learned), they are talking to God and not to others. One might object by pointing to the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. They were understood by others, but it does not in anyway give the idea that those speaking in tongues were speaking to the crowds. Peter later addresses the crowds in a language that they understand. In essence, the crowds are overhearing this group of about 120 individuals who are all speaking in languages that they did not naturally know.
It is also important to understand that this initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit is unique to later outpourings. God had orchestrated it to happen on a feast day in which Jews from many different nations would be there to overhear what He does. Why? We talked about this last week. At the Tower of Babel event, God had confused their languages so that they couldn’t understand one another. This was a sign of His judgment as He disowned the nations. Also, in Isaiah 28, especially verse 11, God is explaining to the northern kingdom, which was led by the tribe of Ephraim, that He was casting them out of the land. They had not listened to His prophets who spoke to them in a language they could understand, so God would speak to them through a language they don’t understand. Ultimately, it was a reference to foreign invaders (the Assyrians) who would destroy Samaria and cart the people of Israel off into exile, where they would be forced to learn foreign languages to survive. Again, unknown tongues, or languages, is a sign of God’s judgment throughout the Old Testament.
So, why would God have the Apostles and the disciples speaking in tongues? Notice that the languages are unknown to the Galileans, but not to these Jews who were from every nation under the Roman Empire, even beyond. God is letting these Jews who had been dispersed know that He is reversing the judgment of the northern kingdom of Israel, and He is reversing the judgment of the Tower of Babel.
I know that we have taken a big detour, but it is to establish Paul’s point. Speaking in tongues addresses God. Whether others overhearing understand it or not is immaterial.
In verse 4, Paul states that a person edifies themselves when they speak in tongues. This verb is the idea of building something up, strengthening it, completing it so that it is finished. Many of the Corinthians were not even thinking about these distinctions because they were more concerned with distinguishing themselves as spiritual in their meetings. Speaking in tongues is not a spiritual badge of honor that we get from the Holy Spirit. It is for the purpose of speaking to God and building ourselves up so that we look more like God, like Jesus.
Someone may ask, “How in the world does speaking in tongues edify a person when it isn’t understandable?” There are several ways. First, speaking in tongues is a tangible gift from God. You know for sure whether you are speaking a language you know or not. You also know if you are just mimicking someone else, or really letting the Holy Spirit give you words to say that you don’t know. Such a tangible gift lets me personally know that God is keeping His word to believers by giving spiritual gifts to us.
Second and more importantly, willingly surrendering yourself to speak what you don’t understand strengthens our faith for those times when the Spirit of God prompts us to speak something that we can understand. It becomes an exercising of our ability to trust God and just do what He gives me to do. Of course, there are people through the years who have done all manner of unbiblical things in the name of God, but they were lying. The Holy Spirit will not contradict God’s Word since He was the One who inspired the prophets to speak those words and write them down.
Even when God gives us something to say to another person, we don’t always understand why He would have us say it, or how it can help them. Speaking in tongues builds our confidence in God and helps us to grow in our relationship of learning to be obedient to the Holy Spirit.
There is a third reason. We are told that the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf and through us to God. He can put into words what we struggle to say. This is part of His helping ministry.
Thus, we can see that speaking in tongues is more of a personal thing that is intended for me to use for my benefit. I will point out Paul’s words in verses 18-19. Paul basically says that he speaks in tongues more than any of the Corinthians. However, in a church meeting, he would rather speak 5 words in a known language than 10,000 in an unknown language. The whole purpose of gathering together is to build each other up.
All of this teaching about speaking in tongues is qualified by the statement in verse 5 “unless indeed he interprets…” Here, Paul recognizes that there is another spiritual gift, the gift of interpretation. If a person is going to speak to the assembly in tongues, they should be ready to interpret it, or know that someone else in the assembly has the gift of interpretation (see 1 Corinthians 14:27-28. In the case when speaking in tongues is interpreted, it then functions essentially like prophecy and can now help others in the group.
In conclusion, speaking in tongues is generally for personal use. There are times in a corporate meeting where we may all be privately praying, i.e., we are not leading prayer for the group. I think that speaking in tongues would be fine even though you are in a group. However, one should not raise their voice to the point of sounding like you want everyone to listen to you. The key is understanding the purpose of the moment we are in, and the purpose of the gift we exercise.
Let’s look at the comparison of prophecy and its particular purpose. With the gift of prophecy, a person is addressing other people. The prophet speaks on behalf of God to people. In this setting, they would be speaking to God’s people in a church service. God may speak about something in the past, something in the present, or something in the future. Some things about the future may even disclose something that God says will happen (predictive prophecy). Regardless, God intends the person receiving the prophetic word from the Holy Spirit to share it with another person, or group. This requires a prophet to be careful to hear from the Holy Spirit about the content of a message and the timing of disclosure.
Paul even adds some words that describe the purpose of prophecy. It is to build up the people of God (in order to be like Jesus), to exhort them (stirring them up to Godly action), and to comfort them in difficult times. God’s purpose is not to show who in the assembly He favors. The purpose of the prophecy is about strengthening the whole church. It takes faith in God, and a true spiritual gift from God and operating in love, in order to speak to others on His behalf. No other motivation is acceptable.
There are many in the Church today who think they are making the Church stronger by casting off clear teaching of Christ and His Apostles. They may even do so under the guise of speaking on behalf of God, i.e., prophesying. A prophetic word will always be in harmony with the whole counsel of Scripture. It will strengthen us in ways that God wants, as opposed to what we want and what the world wants. Those who compromise the Word of God often believe that more lost people will listen to us if we “fix” the Gospel. However, this is a self-delusion.
In verse 5, Paul makes it clear that prophecy is the greater gift and not speaking in tongues. This would be a surprise to some of the Corinthians. It is the greater gift because it impacts a greater number of people. His emphasis is on the primary benefit. We could say that if every single person in the Church was being personally edified through the proper use of speaking in tongues, then they would be more able to exercise the other spiritual gifts, like prophecy. These gifts should not be in contention with one another, but rather dovetail together in their complementary purposes.
The American culture is like the Corinthian culture in some ways and not in other ways. Speaking in tongues in prayer is not something you would “brag” about with the world or even some believers. We are more likely to “hide” it or “run” from it than they would have been. Speaking in tongues is not something to be feared, yet neither is it something to be publicized. These are God’s holy gifts among His holy people. We should not prostitute such things by promoting it before the world. I’ve seen secular shows done on speaking in tongues, or videos on YouTube. This is not something that we should treat lightly. It is an intimate thing between believers and the Holy Spirit of God.
Let us build the foundation of unconditionally loving each other, not because the other person is doing it too, but because that’s what Christ asks us to do! Then, let us desire spiritual gifts by praying for God to enable us in the ways that He desires to do, so that we can be a blessing to His people on His behalf. It was always His intention that we would need one another, and especially that we would need one another operating properly in those spiritual gifts that He supplies.