The Truth About Tongues, Part 2
1 Corinthians 14:6-19
We come to I Corinthians 14 in our study today; we have been in this book for many, many, many months now and we are in what has to be the most difficult chapter of the book, if not the most difficult chapter in the Bible, in many ways. I want to speak to you very carefully this morning to give you as clear an understanding of the difficulties of the text as I possibly can.
I want to begin by saying that I do not approach this text with any ulterior motive, but rather to try the best I can to understand what Paul is saying. I am not attempting to make this a message to speak against the current Charismatic movement as we have been discussing it in the last few months, but rather to simply teach you what the text is saying. We will draw some application as we go.
Now I know that it's difficult for some people to hold in their minds that I'm not personally attacking individuals who believe as the Charismatics believe, because we have been talking about this subject so much recently. Rather, I am only endeavoring as best as I possibly can to give a clear understanding of the things that are in the Word of God that speak to this phenomena going on today. So it is from the Word of God that I speak, endeavoring to understand God's truth, rather than some counter-attack against some who would have attacked me at this point. I have no ulterior motive, just the motive that you would understand the truth of the Word of God.
With that in mind, let's look at I Corinthians 14. This chapter brings us to the issue of tongues in the Corinthian church. Paul deals here with another manifestation of Corinthian carnality. As we have seen in past studies, the true biblical presentation of the gift of languages (or tongues) can be seen in Acts 2:6. In that passage, it was a known language, and the people heard it spoken in their own languages. That is the true gift of tongues - the miraculous ability to speak a foreign language which is unknown to the speaker, in order that he might communicate the truth of God in the language of someone present.
It also acted as a sign that God was present, by virtue of its miraculous element (that someone who didn't know the language spoke it), and it authenticated the message that was being proclaimed. We've learned that these were genuine languages understood by Jews visiting from many lands for the feasts in Jerusalem, as it occurred in Acts 2.
This is important for you to remember: this was an intelligible expression of the wonderful works of God in their own languages. You'll find that as you look at Acts 2. God was speaking; this was the beginning of the new age. The New Testament was to be written; many of the old things regarding Judaism, and things that God had revealed in the past, were going to be added to - altered somewhat in the marvelous new era of the New Testament. God was about to speak again, and what He was going to say was going to be hard for many of the Jews to understand. In order for God to authenticate that it was really Him speaking, He gave attendant signs and wonders to those who were His messengers, such as the ability to speak a foreign language they did not know in a miraculous way.
Now, there is no reason to think that this clear definition and purpose for the gift of languages ever changed. The Greek terms that are used in I Corinthians 14 are the very same words that are used in Acts 2. There is no new definition given, so that when we come to the time of the Corinthian church, the gift of languages is no different than it ever was. It is still the Holy Spirit-given, miraculous ability to speak a foreign language that a person doesn't know, but that someone present does know, in order to show them that God is there and He is authenticating the message.
The confusion comes because the Corinthians had corrupted this very simple and clear gift by misusing it and by mixing it with the heathen concept of speaking in the ecstatic gibberish which was so common to their culture. It was relatively easy for Satan to counterfeit the reality because of the cultural, pagan ecstasy that was so common to the Corinthian times. But keep in mind that the true gift was uniquely of God, living languages which could be understood by the people present when they were used.
On the other hand, ecstatic speech was much different. It was based on heathen superstition, ecstasy, eroticism, and sensualism, as we saw last time. It was speaking in a jargon unknown to anyone, supposedly believed to the the language of a god. They said that when you were speaking in that gibberish, you were having private communion with your god. It's meaning was never known to the devotee who spoke, because he didn't understand what he was saying; it was never known to the people who might have heard, because they had no idea what he was saying. So Paul says that they were speaking mysteries, some kind of sacred secrets with their god. That is the problem that had entered the Corinthian church.
They had corrupted the true gift into this counterfeit ecstasy. Even those who had the true gift, and incidentally, there were some in Corinth who had the true gift, no doubt, because I Corinthians 1:7 says, "You come behind in no gift." But even those who had the true gift were using the true gift in the wrong way, so the rest of the congregation was using the counterfeit gift. You have to keep those two things in mind as we study this chapter. Sometimes Paul is referring to the wrong, or the counterfeit gift, and sometimes he is referring to the wrong use of the true gift. That is something you must distinguish as we go through the chapter.
So in the Corinthian assembly, they had counterfeited, for the most part, this real gift and turned it into the ecstatic speech of the pagans. With its concomitant emotional excesses, it had begun to dominate the Corinthian assembly. So Paul is writing to separate the worship of false gods with the personal objective of self- satisfaction from the worship of the true God with an objective that reached out to others. In other words, we saw last time that the people doing this were very selfish and that the point that Paul wanted to get across was that they were to use whatever gift they had (if it was really a true gift) to minister to others, not as a selfish thing to minister some special, ecstatic blessing to themselves.
Alexander Hay said, "These believers, in their heathen days, had believed that when they spoke in a tongue not understood by men, not even by the worshiper, they were speaking secrets or mysteries with their god. They believed it was their spirit speaking. The benefit was received by the worshiper alone; no one else understood. The worshiper profited through the ecstasy of feeling aroused and the sense that he was really participating with the spirits in the inner circle. He had no thought for the building up of the other worshipers. Paul contrasts this selfish objective with the Christian objective. The purpose of the manifestations of God's Spirit is that the whole congregation be edified."
That's a summary of what we said last time. The purpose of true gifts is for others, never for yourself. The whole body is to be built up. In I Corinthians 12:7, the manifestation of the Spirit is given to profit all, for the profit of all, for the benefit of all. The gift of languages was for manifesting the truth of God to others; it was for speaking the truth of God in a language the unbeliever would hear, and he would say, "My this is amazing! That person doesn't know my language, and yet he speaks it. God must be speaking through him." Then, when the person went on to give the Gospel, or speak the truth as Peter did on the Day of Pentecost, there would be belief in their heart because they had seen that God was speaking by virtue of the wonders that attended the message.
Charismatics and Pentecostals realize that there is a difference between Acts 2 and what is going on in I Corinthians 14, and they usually explain the difference by saying that there are two kinds of tongues. They say that the tongues of Acts 2 are real languages and the tongues of I Corinthians 14 refer to an ecstatic, private, devotional speech by which one speaks in an unknown tongue to God personally and privately for self-edification. They recognize a difference and resolve the difference by saying there are two gifts of tongues.
I recognize a difference, but I resolve it by saying there was the true use of it in Acts 2 and the false use of it in I Corinthians 14. I Corinthians 14 doesn't talk about another gift; it talks about a perversion of the intended gift and its mixture with the heathen counterfeit. The Scriptures nowhere teach that there are two kinds of tongues speaking - one a language and one an ecstasy. The reason we know that is because the same term describes the gift in Acts 2 that describes it in I Corinthians 14. If God wanted to make a distinction, He would need to use another term, but He does not. It is the very same word. It is the normal Greek word for language. There is no reason to justify the selfish use of tongues as if it were some new, special gift.
In fact, I think for us to say that what the Corinthians had was the true gift being truly exercised is to counter-argue against the most basic truth of spirituality. The Corinthian church could never have been manifesting a true gift in the state in which they existed.
I'll put it this way: can a group of Christians who are worldly, divisive, opinionated, cliquish, carnal, fleshly, envious, strife-ridden, argumentative, puffed up, self-glorying, smug, immoral, compromising with sin, defrauding each other, fornicating, depriving in marriage, offending weaker Christians, lusting after evil things, idolatrous, fellowshipping with demons, insubordinate, gluttonous, drunken, selfish toward the poor, and desecrating the Lord's Table be expressing a true gift of the Holy Spirit?
Well, the answer is obvious. It would defy every single principle of spirituality if that were true. A believer either walks in the flesh or he walks in the Spirit. There is no argument about what the Corinthians were doing, they were walking in the flesh. If you have a problem with that, read chapter 3, or any chapter, for that matter. When you are walking in the flesh you are not manifesting a true gift in the true power of the Holy Spirit. It is a conundrum, it can't happen.
As you come to I Corinthians 14, you must not conclude that the Corinthians were exercising the true gift of tongues or you will violate every basic truth about spirituality and how the gifts operate. The only possible thing that could have been happening here was wrong, because everything else was wrong in their lives. Paul was really writing, just like he did in the first 13 chapters, to correct an error in the Corinthian assembly. He is writing because there is a serious disorder: the selfish, pagan use of ecstatic speech was being justified as if it was the gift of languages given by the Holy Spirit.
Apparently, even those who had the true gift had perverted it, and were using it to speak in their own private way, as well as in the assembly when unbelievers weren't even present. They were using it as a way to lift themselves up to a level of spiritual superiority. If there is one thing common to the Corinthian church, it is that they had let every system in the world engulf them and this is no different. All the rest of the stuff in their world had come into the church, why would not the world's approach to religion?
So this was a gift that was genuine in the Apostolic Era; believe me, the gift of languages is genuine. I received a letter this week from someone to whom I had written to ask permission to quote them in the book. They said, "We'll give you permission to quote if you are not against the gift of tongues." Of course, I don't know how I'll handle that, because I'm not against it. There is a true gift; I know what they mean, I know the spirit of what they say, but my position is that there is a true gift.
I'm not against that - God did give the gift of languages in the Apostolic Era. But as we saw, from I Corinthians 13:8-12, it has ceased. That's why this chapter is so hard for us, because for 2,000 years, the real thing hasn't been around and it's very difficult to reconstruct all the details concerning that thing. I daresay I read 50 books on this subject at least, and I have yet to find any two of them that agree on all the details. That's amazing, even among Evangelicals.
So this morning, I offer you my guess. There are some things that we don't have to guess about, but there are some parts here that we just don't have enough information about. One thing that we do know is that the Corinthians were carnal. Another thing we do know is they had allowed this cultural ecstasy to infiltrate the congregation. Another thing we do know is that the true gift was speaking in a true language to someone who understood it, and that is not what they were doing. So there will be some absolutes as we go along.
Let's go to the text. I told you last time that we'll divide the text into three parts; you can look at your outline for at least the initial element of it. You will find that part one of the text is the position of the gift of languages, and that position is secondary. Verses 1-19 speak to the position of the gift of languages as secondary. The next section is the purpose of the gift, and the next is the procedure. So we have the position, the purpose, and the procedure. We'll cover the whole chapter in looking at those, but today, we want to look at the position of the gift of languages. We said last time that it is secondary and the reason it is secondary is because of the fact that it is compared to prophecy, and prophecy can edify, but tongues cannot. So it is a secondary gift.
Notice verse 26; the end of the verse gives the key to the whole chapter. "Let all things be done unto edifying." In other words, the whole thrust of the chapter is, "Whatever you do, be sure that it builds up the body." That same phrase is repeated again and again. We saw it last time at the end of verse 4, "Edifies the church," verse 5, "That the church may receive edification," this is the point of everything. Verse 12, "To the edifying of the church." In other words, he again and again emphasizes that whatever you do should be done for the edification of the church.
Let's look at the position of tongues. We said last time that its position is secondary compared to prophecy, and point one, which we covered last time in verses 1-5, is that prophesying edifies the whole congregation. That is why tongues is secondary to prophesying, because prophesying edifies the whole congregation. In verse 1, he says, "Follow after love, and desire spiritual gifts, but most of all that you may prophesy."
Why? Because prophesying edifies the whole congregation. If you are seeking a manifestation of a gift of the Spirit in your assembly, you're to seek that which will edify the whole congregation, the best gift. Now, I want to point out one thing that you need to remember. In verse 1, Paul is not speaking about an individual Christian seeking an individual gift. He is talking about the assembly.
He is saying, "When the assembly meets together, the assembly should seek the manifestation of the gift of prophesying from whoever has that gift." You need to make this mental note. From chapters 11-14, Paul deals with the meeting together of the assembly of the Corinthian church. None of it has reference to a private time or a personal relationship with God. It all speaks to how they were to behave in the assembly.
For example, chapter 11 talks about how women were to behave in the assembly. Chapter 11 also talks about how they were to take care of the Lord's Table and the love feast when they met together. Chapter 12 talks about how they were to minister their gifts in the assembly. Chapter 13 talks about how they were to manifest love to one another when they met together. Chapter 14 talks about how they were to use the gift of languages when they met together. The whole context of chapters 11-14 is how to behave in the assembly of the church.
So, when Charismatic and Pentecostal people take chapter 14 and make the gift of tongues relate to a private devotional tongue, they are taking that totally out of the context in which it exists in the book, which is discussing totally the concept of meeting in the assembly, like we are this morning. What Paul is saying is this: "When you come together, instead of wanting the ecstatic manifestations and seeking this gift, seek that you may see prophesying, so that God may speak to you out of His Word."
Verse 2. "For he that speaks in an unknown tongue [ecstatic speech] speaks not unto men, but unto God ['a god' in the Greek]."
In the last lesson, I mentioned an interesting possibility. I'm not going to be totally dogmatic on this, but the more I study it the more I like it. Whenever the singular term 'tongue' appears, Paul may well be referring to the ecstatic gift. When the plural term tongues' appears, he's referring to the true gift. Now, the reason I say that is because there can only be a plural in 'languages.' There cannot be a plural in 'gibberish,' there aren't many kinds of gibberish, there is only one kind - gibberish. You don't say, "What kind of gibberish do you speak?" There aren't many kinds, there is just one. This may well be why the King James translators put the word 'unknown' in when the word 'tongue' is used in the singular. Perhaps they recognized this nuance in Paul's writing.
So, what Paul is saying here in verse 2, it seems best to me, is, "He that speaks in this ecstatic gibberish speaks not unto men, but unto a god." In other words, he is simply characterizing their particular phenomenon. "For nobody understands him," and that would include the true God, in a sense, because that's not God's kind of talk; but he's basically referring to people. "However, in his spirit he is speaking mysteries." Remember, the term 'mystery' was a big word in all the pagan mystery religions. He is saying, "When you speak in your ecstasies, you are not speaking to anybody." Right there is the first perversion, because all gifts were intended to build up somebody other than yourself. If they're not used to speak to men, then they are perverted.
Then he contrasts it with prophecy in verse 3. "But he that prophesies speaks unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort." So Paul contrasts their pagan, ecstatic speech with prophesying, which truly speaks the truth of God to the hearts of people. That's a tremendous contrast. Then Paul goes on to hit the issue of their selfishness in verse 4. "He that speaks in an unknown tongue [gibberish, ecstatic speech] edifies himself," and I don't take that to be a good thing.
I pointed out to you in the last lesson that in I Corinthians 8:10, there is an illustration of a bad kind of edification, of building somebody up only to a position where he will fall. We also saw that in I Corinthians 10:23-24, Paul says, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own [edification], but every man another's [edification]." Self-edification and the wrong kind of edification are already in Paul's vocabulary as negatives, so I think it's easy to see it here. What he is saying is somewhat caustic and sarcastic, pointing out their self-centeredness. He's saying, "He that speaks this gibberish is only building himself up," as if it's an ego-building thing, "But the one who prophesies truly builds up the church. So in the assembly, there's no place for this kind of ecstatic speech."
Verse 5. "I would that you all spoke with tongues." Now, notice the change. He stops the singular and uses the plural. "I would that you all spoke with languages, I wish you all had the true gift. But even beyond the true gift, I rather that you prophesied; for greater is he that prophesies than he that speaks with tongues [or languages], except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying."
The true gift is alright if it's used in the right context, if somebody who speaks that language is there, and if it's truly interpreted for the church to understand. But apart from that situation, it has no purpose. So prophesying edifies the whole church; consequently, the true gift of tongues takes a secondary place. The false gift has no place at all. The second reason that tongues are secondary is, and it follows the first, tongues are unintelligible. We're going to fly a little bit here, so stay with me.
Verse 6. Here, he is referring again to the true gift, if we take that use of the singular and plural. "Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues [or languages], what shall I profit you?"
In other words, Paul says, "Even if I, the Apostle Paul, with all the clout and all the godliness that I have, come to you and speak with the true gift of languages, what good will it do you? You speak Greek, you don't need me to do this." So he says, "Except I speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine, it has no meaning to you. It wouldn't profit or benefit you." What he is really saying is that speaking must be intelligible to the hearers, and since they all spoke Greek, there was no sense in Paul coming and speaking some foreign language.
It's amazing to me today that we have seen this one segment of the church put such an incredible premium on unintelligible communication that nobody, not even the speaker, understands. It's also amazing to note that many, many times when the so-called true interpretation is given, it can be indicated that it is, in fact, not a true interpretation at all. There are many, many testimonies to the effect that people have experimented speaking in Hebrew, or other known foreign languages, and the interpretation given was in no way related to what they said.
Somehow, today, we have made some kind of sacred cow, some kind of great, spiritual hierarchy out of people who are able to communicate to nobody. Paul says, "If I came and used the true gift, it wouldn't mean anything to you because you speak Greek." In verse 7, he begins to illustrate this point.
"And even things without life, giving sound, whether flute or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped?"
The pipe here would be a flute, and the harp would be any kind of a stringed instrument. The flute and the harp were the most common instruments of that day. They were used at banquets, funerals, and religious ceremonies, so the Corinthians would understand what Paul was referring to. Notice in verse 7 the phrase 'things without life,' soulless, inanimate instruments which were known for beautiful music and the moods of joy and sorrow that they could create. These kinds of instruments, except they be played with a distinction in tone and rhythm, mean absolutely nothing. Notice the phrase 'except they give a distinction.' The Greek literally means 'unless there is a difference.' In other words, there has to be variation in sound to make sense. There has to be a studied, calculated variation. A flute or a harp makes sense only when there is meaningful variation in the sound.
For example, Mary Jane Duncan plays the piano beautifully. We have someone in our family who plays the piano, Melinda. She is 3 years old. She plays the same notes, hits the same keys, and you know what happens? After about 30 seconds, we tell her, "Melinda, mercy! Stop playing the piano!" Why? Because the lack of proper variation in the tones creates nothing but dissonance and chaos. That is what Paul is saying here. "Sound alone, even from a beautiful instrument, means nothing unless there is enough variation in the tone for somebody to understand the melody and the tune."
You say, "Well, what's the point of this analogy, John?" The point is, you can't be benefited or edified when you hear somebody speak unless there is an understood variation in the tone that communicates meaning. Paul says, "It doesn't do any good to do it any other way." Even the true gift of languages used with people who don't understand it is useless, to say nothing of the gibberish, which is always useless. He goes further in verse 8. "For if the trumpet [bugle] give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?"
Can you imagine what would happen if a bugler was supposed to blow the sound to prepare the troops for battle, and instead he got up and blew any old tune he wanted? The soldiers wouldn't know whether to get out of bed, go back to bed, put on their armor, or what. It's very obvious that the bugle has to have significant variation to have meaning. A military trumpet was the clearest and loudest of all instruments, but no soldier would have any idea what to do if it didn't blow something with significance.
Verse 9. He goes on to another illustration. "So likewise you, except you utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? For you shall speak into the air." The only thing that will hear you is the air; that's all.
Paul's point is that there is absolutely no signification for gibberish ever, because nobody is ever able to understand it. The only significant time for the use of the true gift in the Apostolic Era was when somebody was present who understood the language. If it occurred in the assembly of believers, it would be translated in order that the believers might also be edified by it. It must be able to be understood, otherwise they were just blowing into the air.
Paul is really drawing some pretty satirical, sarcastic pictures for the Corinthians. Musical instruments that are so out of tune they can't be recognized, and an army bugler so incompetent that the army has no idea what's going on. Then he says, "That's about what's going on in the Corinthian assembly: pure confusion and chaos." Paul is trying to get these believers to recognize and realize that the purpose of the gifts of the Spirit are to proclaim the Gospel to the unsaved and to teach the truth to God's people. Or to authenticate those who will do both of those things. And that can only be done through intelligible words. So with irony, and some sarcasm, and much patience, and great illustration, Paul is trying to break through the barrier of ignorance, emotion, and superstition that exists in the Corinthian church.
He goes on to an illustration in the realm of language in verse 10. "There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification.'" He's hammering the same point; he's like a farmer plowing the same ground because it is so hard. He just keeps saying the same thing again and again and again, hoping sooner or later, he'll plow it up.
"There are so many languages." They tell us today that there are probably 3,000. "There are so many languages in the world, so many kinds of voices." Incidentally, that is a very general term. 'Voices' simply means 'sounds.' The same word is used of instruments in verse 7, so it's a very broad word. "There are all kinds of sounds, but no sound is without meaning." Here, he is applying it to language, as verse 11 makes very clear. He says, "Therefore, if I know not the meaning of the sound [the voice], I shall be unto him that speaks a barbaros, and he that speaks shall be a barbaros unto me."
Paul says, "If you don't talk in a language that I can understand, we're two barbarians trying to talk to one another." In case you don't understand what a barbarian is, it is term for a foreigner. A barbarian was anyone who didn't speak Greek. So he's simply saying, "If you talk in that kind of stuff, we're just going to be incommunicado. We will be like two barbarians, neither of whom have a common language."
The word barbaros is onomatopoetic. It is a word that sounds like what it refers to, like buzz, zip, and hiss. An onomatopoetic word simply repeats a sound. Well, the word barbaros comes from the repetition of the sounds "bar, bar, bar." In other words, Paul is saying, "If you speak like that, I won't know the meaning of what you're saying. It will be nothing more than saying, 'Bar, bar, bar, bar,' to me. I don't understand it; it doesn't make any sense."
The whole point, then, is the uselessness of unintelligible language and pagan gibberish. It had absolutely no signification whatsoever. According to verse 10, it was contrary to all the laws of sound and meaning. Everything has meaning, except for what they were doing. All languages communicate, except for their kind. And remember, they could have been indicted for the misuse of the true gift by speaking a language as if it were some great spiritual accomplishment and doing it when there was nobody around who would even understand it. It was only to be used when some were there who spoke that language. We'll get into that detail later in the chapter.
So no spiritual ministry can ever be accomplished with that kind of confusion. Unbelievers coming into their assembly would look around and say, "These people are mad!" (verse 23). In other words, they would see that the frenzy of the Corinthians wasn't any different than the frenzy of the worshipers of Diana. They would see that the Corinthians were going through the same kind of ecstasy that the pagans were engaging in in the temple. Consequently, they would see no difference between the Christian chu