Let’s remind ourselves once more that the earliest churches were all patterned on Jewish synagogues. That is, churches were simply Christian synagogues. The men sat down front and could interact with the speaker. Women sat in the back half of the audience, typically with the children. The church at Corinth was not small; it could not be an informal meeting as you might have with only a couple dozen present. Thus, the Corinthian church needed to understand what “formal” should look like in a Christian synagogue. Some of the guidance in this chapter reflects the needs of a formal meeting.
The anthropology of the Ancient Near East was uncommon in Asia Minor and Europe. The former believed that our spirits were trapped in fleshly bodies, whereas the latter typically denied the existence of eternal spirits. There’s no doubt Paul had correctly taught them, but they still had mental reflexes toward the old pagan assumptions. The teaching in this chapter reemphasizes the Hebrew assumptions; what he writes here makes no sense otherwise.
You can learn self-sacrificing love, so pursue it consciously, but spiritual gifts are rooted outside the conscious awareness. The only thing you can learn is to rein in the flesh and compel it to submit to the process. The gift of prophecy requires the cooperation of the conscious mind, but it is aimed outside the mind. Praying in tongues bypasses the conscious mind, but stays inside yourself. You can turn it off, but you cannot inspect the contents at all. The Corinthians were all excited about this ecstatic utterance thing that gave such an emotional boost, but did no one else any good, for the most part. There’s nothing wrong with praying in tongues, but prophets are much more useful to the rest of the church body.
Paul uses a parable of musical instruments to represent the tongue. If you don’t know how to play one, all you make is noise. There is no skill in esoteric tongues. But a skillful player can make instruments speak, as it were. The same tongue in prophecy is a blessing to everyone. If tongues is all you have when you come to the church meeting, then pray that you or someone else can interpret so everyone gets to share the gift.
Nor is this an either/or kind of thing. Paul prayed and sang in tongues outside of his conscious control, and then prayed and sang with his conscious will. In the end, it’s better to say just a few words of inspired prophecy than to natter all night in tongues. We keep coming back to the question of what the purpose of gathering at church meetings is. It’s a family time together. Do we let the kids hog all the attention, yacking interminably about all the things special to them? No, we need some time for adults who will seek to build up each other.
Paul quotes from Isaiah 28. In that passage, the prophet warned the nation’s leaders that they didn’t somehow graduate from the Covenant. Any prophets who called for the nation to return were mocked as being childish. God said, “Since they won’t hear my Word, would they prefer to hear invaders speaking a language they don’t know at all?” How does that apply here?
The nation’s leaders did not believe. The invading forces speaking in a foreign language were a sign, a warning from God for them. That’s how God operates. Christians speaking in languages they could not have possibly learned would be impressive to unbelievers, but it should have been rather common in the church. Do that outside of the church meetings. Speaking a word of prophecy was God’s love letter to those inclined to listen; it was not a gift for strangers’ consumption. When the church gathers, don’t act like excited children showing off new toys. Act like mature adults savoring the voice of God that they can understand.
When a seeker comes to the church meeting, they don’t need a bunch of ecstatic demonstrations. They’ll think you are on drugs. But if everyone testifies of God’s Word, there is a much better chance they will hear something that touches them, because they’ll understand the words. If the Lord is going to convict them, He’ll do it through a message that hits them between the eyes to get to their hearts.
So, in the formal setting of the large Corinthian church, keep the demonstration of tongues to a minimum, and even then, only with an interpretation so everyone is blessed. Otherwise, keep your tongue in your mouth. If some would like to test their gifts of prophecy, keep it few, and let the mature evaluate. Don’t let someone drone on and on. If someone is speaking a word and someone else gets a sudden inspiration, let the first one wrap it up and the new word can be shared.
Whatever they do, Corinth must conform to the standards. Women do not speak up in large church gatherings. It’s not that they cannot share their gifts, but that they cannot jump up and ask questions during the teaching sessions. They can ask their male covering when they get home. Women cannot teach men, and in synagogue traditions, questions were often a means to making a teaching point. This restriction is explained elsewhere; it’s from God, not from sentimental customs dreamed up by mere men.
Apparently the Corinthians balked at this. They kept forgetting they were being welcomed into a blessing that belonged first to the Hebrew people and was rooted in the ancient eastern world where God first revealed Himself. God chose that context and affirmed certain aspects of it as consistent with His divine nature. The gospel did not originate in Corinth with Corinthian customs. People who considered themselves spiritually mature should be the first to uphold this standard.
To sum up, Paul said they should pray for gifts of prophecy, yet not forbid anyone speaking in tongues at church. Just keep the meeting in good order.
