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Misunderstanding Tongues – A Contextual Commentary on 1 Corinthians 14:1-5 (Part III)
Posted by Guest Author in Bible & Theology
Technical and Practical Quality
It does appear from the varying opinions that a question has been raised as to whether the gift of tongues is defined as (A) the same operation….meaning, that tongues are always the same in substance, or that the gift of tongues is presented as (B) two distinct operations or substances; one is language (as in the book of Acts) and the other is not (i.e. what is commonly known as a private “prayer language”).
From what I understand, this question has been raised from only these two verses; 1 Corinthians 14:2 and 1 Corinthians 14:14. The two substance approach (B), proposes that Paul is making the case in these two verses for a second and distinct operation of the gift of tongues that is not language as is seen in the book of Acts, as well as maintaining the integrity of the gift of tongues that is language (Acts). This is proposed because Paul states in verse 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” and verse 14 “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful”.
For sake of clarification….I will concede that an interpretive approach that uses these two verses in isolation could demand that a “two substance operation” of the gift of tongues exists. However, we need to test this approach and determine if Paul is using these two verses in isolation or if they are used within a continuing argument that Paul is making in this section.
I would submit that Paul is using each of the statements not in isolation, but as a complimentary qualification of each preceding verse and in the full context of this teaching section. When read would be as follows….
1 Corinthians 14:1-2 Pursue love, yet desire earnestly 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.
The “for” in verse 2 connects the meaning of verse 2 back to verse 1, where the statement qualifies two directives, to pursue love and to prophesy….therefore verse 2 is subordinate to and determines that verse 1 is impossible to achieve in the current state of speaking.
1 Corinthians 14:13-14 Therefore let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret. (14) For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.
The “for” in verse 14 connects the meaning of verse 14 back to verse 13, where the statement qualifies the directive to interpret….therefore verse 14 is subordinate to and determines that verse 13 is impossible to achieve in the current state of speaking.
This is a classic Pauline rabbinical teaching style. In this particular text, Paul does not argue for a second operative substance to expand the definition to the gift of tongues. But in contrast, he applies his logic to reinforce the singular dynamic that the gift of tongues is singular in operation, substance and force leading into his final argument. When read in complete context this singular mode and substance of the gift of tongues is unavoidable. Paul’s correction to the church at Corinth hits on many fronts, with tongues being just one of the problem areas. We should be thankful that God chose to leave us with this correction, so that the entire church will be edified by the Spirit as he has gifted the members of the body of Christ for ministry.
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Chris,
As I explained a bit in my comment on your Part II post, I would not really argue in favor of a “two substance approach” as you are presenting it here. I don’t see “tongues” in Acts and 1 Corinthians as two different gifts, but rather differing contexts of the practice of the same gift, which may be expressed by way of different KINDS of tongues (1 Cor. 12:10, 28).
As far as the “for” at the beginning of 1 Cor. 14:2 is concerned, it seems to me that the concern Paul is addressing is the public use of tongues in which the Body is not edified. The “way of love,” in the context of the public assembly, is one of mutual edification, decency and order. That is why it is better to practice untranslated or uninterpreted tongues in the context of private prayer.
I think the same thing can be said for the “for” in v. 14.
It seems to me that if the intention of Paul were to show that the “tongues” the Corinthians were practicing were not authentic tongues at all, he would have just come out and said so. At other places, he had no qualms in calling a spade a spade. Why not just say, “enough of this bogus gibberish you Corinthians are pretending is tongues”? But, instead, he urges them to restrain themselves and remain silent during public worship and edification time, and practice their gift alone, between them and God.
Brother David R.,
I don’t think we are too far apart on our understanding of these passages. I would include the Apostles reason for writing the letter as an important step to understand the context and its meaning. I am not convinced that he is instructing this Corinthian group in this letter in the same context for instance as the letter to the Romans as evidenced by his introductions and what he had learned of each of the congregations…..
The Roman letter intro as…..
“Romans 1:8-12 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. (9) For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, (10) always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you. (11) For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established; (12) that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine.
Then the Corinthian letter intro as…..
1 Corinthian 1:4-11 I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, (5) that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, (6) even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, (7) so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, (8) who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. (9) God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (10) Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. (11) For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you.
Paul’s instruction is certainly more corrective in the Corinthian letter, than informative. In other words, correcting the gift of tongues (1 Corinthians), verses informing the gift of justification (Romans). The context gives light to the tone and order of the hyperbole that is used by Paul in his correction to these Saints at Corinth. Without the context of correction, I would be more in line with your assessment of “KINDS” of tongues. Where in context the word used for KINDS by Paul,.. “1 Corinthians 14:10 There are, perhaps, a great many kinds of languages in the world, and no kind is without meaning”…is consistent with the previous uses and seems to say that there is more than one language and all of them have meaning which builds evidence for his corrective action.
If he were simply instructing the Corinthians as to the gift being used properly, he would have used the same approach as he has before like in the letter to the Romans.
The problem I see with trying to get Paul to introduce a private prayer concern with these first few verses is (1) the context and (2 ) the fact that he is pushing hard for prophecy as the primary way to love. Prophecy is the theme,…while tongues are used as a pedagogical tool to illustrate the worth of prophecy. That doesn’t make tongues wrong or ceasing, yet it does not seem to circumvent the main argument as well,… being prophecy.
Thank you again for the input. All of these discussions are helpful to me.
Blessings,
Chris
David: You and I conversed in the earlier post re: tongues. Regarding your comment that Paul should have come out and said no ‘gibberish.’ Well, that makes my point from the other posting…it was not gibberish, just another tongue (a known language).
Thanks for your efforts Chris.
Brother Jeff,
I think you bring forward an important point about gibberish vs. tongues. It appears that the Apostle does not have any problem with the already defined gift,…he simply understands when it is not profitable and tries to help these Corinthians understand the difference.
It could probably be argued that our contemporary love for the mysterious, and the high level of ignorance of doctrine in the church today have resulted in “gibberish” being thought of as legitimate by naïve congregations and Pastors with a love for attention.
It would do the church well to work hard at teaching doctrine to expose the gibberish (which is obvious),…for the heath of the floundering congregation.
Blessings,
Chris
meant to say for the “health”…although I do like heath bars
-Chris
Doesn’t 1 Cor. 13 (re: love) also diminish the argument that the acts previously referred to as gifts are some mystic type of ability from God (vs. simply known tongues, proclaiming God’s word, etc.)? Not that it eliminates such, but that chapter seems to imply that such acts, otherwise gifts from God, are not gifts from God if not motivated by His agape. Hence, the ‘tongues’ must be of the everyday variety or it could not be spoken without the Spirit (of love). ??
Chris,
I agree that the overall tone and purpose of 1 Corinthians is different than that of, for example, Romans. However, I don’t think that rules out the possibility that while Paul is primarily interested in correcting abuses of the use of tongues he might parenthetically refer to a legitimate secondary use (e.g. as a “private prayer language”). I would also agree he is not trying to teach them some new use of tongues of which they had previously not been aware. My intuitive reading of the context is that the Corinthians, who, according to 1 Cor. 1:7, were not lacking in any spiritual gift, were already practicing tongues in private, but were also abusing the same gift by practicing it in public worship without interpretation. Thus, it fits in perfectly well with Paul’s general argument for him to say, if you have the gift of tongues, but not that of interpretation, then the best way for you to practice it is in your private prayer closet. In such a case, he is not “informing” them of anything new, but rather referring them back to what they were already well aware of.
Jeff,
I do not believe the Corinthians were speaking gibberish, either. However, I believe there is a third option that is neither gibberish or a known, translatable language. You might call it an “angelic language” or, if not, just a language of a “different kind.”
I also think we should be careful about calling “gibberish” something that may be a legitimate gift of the Holy Spirit.
Brother David R.,
I do think we are on the same track here…., but we will probably approach it a bit differently when teaching our congregations.
Since “private prayer” as a language of tongues seems to be a popular theme of our time, for what benefit to the one praying… I have no idea,…. Even so,…we are certain that those in Christ can rest assured that we already have an intercessor. The Spirit knows already what to pray and does it on our behalf. So our ignorance on either count is graciously aligned by the mercies of God on behalf of his body.
Romans 8:26-27 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; (27) and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Now that is good news!… to know that Christ provides a way for us to commune with Him in our ignorance and in our honest attempts as well.
I do believe in the midst of the church, we are required to test all tongues, whether “gibberish” or not, for the benefit and edification of the congregation. Worship is never a “show”. This day and age we will find a lot of pretenders. So if someone does speak there is no option but to interpret and verify, so anyone… as we all should…. be tested and approved.
Blessings,
Chris
David, I agree. Gibberish is not a gift of the Spirit. So…I guess we found a bit of mutual ground, at least on this issue! Thanks for y’all’s input; enjoyed it. Jeff
I wish I had time to comment more, but for now I’ll limit myself to this.
The “for” in verse 2 connects the meaning of verse 2 back to verse 1, where the statement qualifies two directives, to pursue love and to prophesy….
This doesn’t seem to me to follow. You seem to be treating verse 1 as a unit merely because it’s a verse, but verse markings aren’t part of the original scripture. They are a later addition. You need to look not at ‘verses’, but at (for lack of a better term) phrases.
If you’re going to break verse 1 into 2 directives, it’s actually to pursue love and to earnestly desire (or be eager for) spiritual gifts. As part of the latter directive, Paul separates out prophecy as a gift to be especially desired. From the context, it seems obvious to me that that verse 2′s initial ‘For’ is there because Paul is explaining why he is emphasizing prophecy over the other gifts. He’s explaining not the ‘verse’ before (there is no verse in the original) but the phrase before (‘especially that you might prophesy’). For some reason he explains it by contrasting the results of the gift of prophecy with the gift of tongues (one might ask why he didn’t bring in comparisons with the other spiritual gifts). That comparison extends at least through verse 5, and is continued in verses 22-25.
Note that there are questions about the authenticity of the ‘For’ that begins verse 14.
therefore verse 2 is subordinate to and determines that verse 1 is impossible to achieve in the current state of speaking.
You use this phrase twice, and it makes no sense to me. I’m not trying to ridicule you, but I’ve never heard anything like it before, and the logic of it escapes me. Can you re-express this?
Brother Oloryn,
I just logged back into the conversation and thank you for these points.
I completely agree with you on the verse inclusions that came “way late” in the processing of scripture. That is something all serious teachers should consider when reading these letters…thank you for that. So yes,…I too have only used the verses as markers …. I would continue to believe that the use of “for” is a good connecting translation for the “context” of the passage and what the Apostle is trying to explain to the church within the entire body of the letter.
I think your right to say that the Apostle is making a contrast with the gift of tongues….because I think that is clearly the intent. Meaning; prophecy may not be achieved if tongues are out of sync with its intended function and purpose.
That is really why I used the phrase “therefore verse 2 is subordinate to and determines that verse 1 is impossible to achieve in the current state of speaking.”
So the words used by Paul as depicted by verse two is to illustrate that if tongues are not properly conducted or used for the edification of the church, the Apostle then turns the floodlight back on the importance of prophecy or understanding what the will of the Lord is for the church,…. and if those in the church that were using tongues improperly did not cease the activity, then getting encouragement through prophecy would be impossible,…resulting in 1 Corinthians 1:11 “For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you.”
So, the element of correction is always at play throughout the letter and in this section as well.
Blessings,
Chris