The Corinthians' public worship practices not only failed to be edifying and convicting, but they also involved disorderly conduct. Paul proceeded to deal with this additional need to help his readers value these qualities over the pseudo spirituality that they associated with glossolalia.
The apostle now began to regulate the use of tongues with interpretation, and he urged the use of discernment with prophecy.
"St Paul has here completed his treatment (xii.--xiv.) of pneumatika. He now gives detailed directions as to their use."339
14:26 The apostle did not want any one gift to dominate the meetings of this richly gifted church. Again his list of utterance gifts was limited and selective. Many Christians could make a variety of contributions to the general spiritual welfare of the congregation. He permitted the use of tongues but not their exclusive use and only if someone provided an interpretation (v. 27).
"That many in Corinth exercised their gifts in the interests of self-development and even of self-display can hardly be doubted; this was contrary to the law of love which regulates all Christian behaviour."340
14:27-28 Paul laid down three guidelines for the use of tongues in public worship. First, the believers should permit only two or at the most three interpreted tongues messages. This is in harmony with the inferior contribution that tongues make compared with prophecy. Second, the speakers should give them consecutively rather than concurrently to minimize confusion. The Spirit does not overpower the speaker but is subject to the speaker, and the Spirit leads speakers to contribute in appropriate times and ways. The Spirit's leading of the Old Testament prophets to speak at appropriate times and settings illustrates this. Third, the Christians should not allow tongues without interpretation in the church services, though Paul did permit private tongues-speaking (vv. 2, 4, 27). However remember that tongues were languages, and Paul valued private tongues-speaking quite low (vv. 2, 10, 11, 13, 14, et al.).
14:29 Likewise the prophets should minister in an orderly fashion and limit themselves to two or three messages at a service. The others in the congregation (not just other prophets) should pay attention to what they said. The Greek word diakrinomeans "pass judgment"(NASB) or "weigh carefully"(NIV). In 12:10 it reads "distinguish."Here it probably means to evaluate carefully and, if need be, to reject if the ministry was not in harmony with Scripture.
"The apostle does notinstruct the churches to sort out the true and false elements in any particular prophecy. Rather, he instructs them to sort out the true and false prophecies among the many they would hear."341
14:30-31 Here we seem to have an example of two of the different kinds of prophesying that took place in the early church conflicting with each other. What Paul seems to have envisioned was one person--men and women could prophesy in this sense (11:4-5)--sharing a word from the Lord. This type of prophesying was open to almost anyone in the church. While this person was speaking, another prophet received a revelation from the Lord. This appears to be a more direct revelation than just the desire to address the congregation that had moved the first speaker to minister. In such a case the first speaker was to give preference to the person making the new revelation. Presumable the first speaker would finish what he was saying later.
"There was obviously a flexibility about the order of service in the early Church which is now totally lacking. . . . Everything was informal enough to allow any man who felt that he had a message to give to give it.
14:32-33 Prophets were to control themselves when speaking, even when giving new revelation (cf. vv. 27-28). The nature of this gift was that it did not sweep the prophet into a mindless frenzy. Pagans who received demonic revelations frequently lost control of themselves. Inability to control oneself was no evidence that the prophet spoke from God. On the contrary, it indicated that he was not submitting to God's control because God produces peace, not confusion.
"The theological point is crucial: the character of one's deity is reflected in the character of one's worship. The Corinthians must therefore cease worship that reflects the pagan deities more than the God whom they have come to know through the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. 12:2-3). God is neither characterized by disorder nor the cause of it in the assembly."342
Again the apostle reminded his readers that what he was commanding was standard policy in the other churches (cf. 1:2; 4:17; 7:17; 11:16; 14:36). This reminds us again that this church had some serious underlying problems.
Confusion and disorder in church services are not in keeping with the character of God and so dishonor Him.
Paul had formerly acknowledged that women could share a word from the Lord in the church meetings (11:4-16). Now he clarified one point about their participation in this context of prophesying.
14:34 The word translated "silent"(Gr. sige) means just that, namely to keep silent or to hold one's peace. However in 11:5 Paul spoke as though women prophesying in the church was a common and acceptable practice. I think the best explanation of this apparent contradiction comes out of the context, as is usually true. Paul had just permitted others in the congregation to evaluate the comments that a prophet made (v. 29). Now he qualified this by saying the women should not to do so vocally in the church meetings as the men could. The teaching of the Law on this subject appears to be a reference to woman's subordination to the authoritative man in her family (Gen. 3:16). The "Law"then would refer to the Old Testament, as in verse 21.
14:35 Rather than calling out a question in the middle of some male or female prophet's message, a woman was to wait and ask her husband about it at home after the service. Presumably unmarried women would ask their fathers or some other man in the church after the service. Men could raise questions or make comments, but too much of this could ruin the order of the service and the edifying value of the message. Consequently Paul asked the women, evidently because of their natural position of subordination, to refrain. It is improper for a woman to speak in church meetings in the situation Paul addressed in the context. That situation is the questioning and perhaps challenging of what a prophet said who was sharing something he or she believed God had given him or her to pass on to the church.343
There have been many other explanations of this apparent contradiction. Richard Lenski assumed that all of what Paul said in 14:26-32 applies only to men and that he added verses 33-36 as an appendix to deal with women's participation.344However this does not harmonize with 11:4-5. William Barclay believed at this point Paul was not able to rise above the spirit of his age that said women should not participate in intellectual activities on a par with men.345This view fails to appreciate the implications of Paul's inspiration by the Spirit as he wrote as well as his high regard for women that he expressed elsewhere in his writings. G. Campbell Morgan seems to have regarded Paul's prohibition as necessary in view of conditions unique in Corinth.346C. K. Barrett believed Paul did not write verses 34-35. He presumed some other person added them to the text later when Christians thought good order was more important than the freedom of the Spirit.347Gordon Fee also argued that these verses are inauthentic.348Harry Ironside believed the occasions at which women could speak were different from the official meetings of the church at which they were to be silent.349David Lowery wrote that Paul wanted the married women whose husbands were present in the meeting to be silent, but that other women could speak if properly covered.350S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., seems to have felt women could never speak in the church meetings except when they prayed or prophesied.351H. Wayne House concluded women could not speak if others considered what they said was authoritative.352Anne Blampied said Paul told the women to keep silent because they were violating the principle of order in the church, not because they were women.353
The most common view is that Paul forbade some form of inappropriate speech, not all speech.354The second most popular interpretation is that Paul forbade some form of "inspired"speech other than prophecy, perhaps contradicting the prophets or speaking in tongues.
"Paul's long response to the Corinthians' enthusiasm for tongues is now finished. The basic issue is over what it means to be pneumatikos(spiritual'); and on this issue Paul and they are deeply divided. They think it has to do with speaking in tongues, the language(s) of the angels, the sure evidence that they are already living in the pneumatic existence of the future. For this reason they have great zeal for this gift (cf. v. 12), including an insistence on its practice in the gathered assembly. Apparently in their letter they have not only defended this practice, but by the same criterion have called Paul into question for his lack of spirituality.' Hence the undercurrent of apologetic for his own speaking in tongues in vv. 6, 15, and 18.
"Paul's response to all this has been twofold. First, they are to broaden their perspective to recognize that being Spirit people by its very nature means a great variety of gifts and ministries in the church (chap. 12). Second, the whole point of the gathered people of God is edification, the true expression of love for the saints. Whatever they do in the assembly must be both intelligible and orderly so that the whole community may be edified; thus it must reflect the character of God, which is how it is (or is to be) in all the churches of the saints (v. 33)."355
Paul concluded his answer to the Corinthians' question concerning spiritual gifts (chs. 12-14) and his teaching on tongues (ch. 14) with a strong call to cooperation. He zeroed in on their individualism (v. 36; cf. v. 33) and confronted them on the issue of who indeed was spiritual (v. 37). As a prophet of old he warned anyone who disagreed with his instructions (v. 38) and finally summarized his argument (vv. 39-40; cf. 4:18-21).
14:36 In this verse Paul reminded the Corinthians that they did not set the standard for how the church meetings should proceed. Their arrogance evidently drew this warning. The Corinthian church was not the mother church nor was it the only church to which the gospel had come (cf. 11:16; 14:33b). Therefore the Corinthian readers should submit to the apostle's direction (cf. 9:1-23).
14:37 Anyone could easily validate a Corinthian's claim to being a prophet or spiritual. He could do so by seeing if he or she acknowledged that what Paul had written was authoritative because he was an apostle of the Lord. Submission to apostolic authority was the test, not speaking in tongues. Submissiveness to the apostles and their teaching was an expression of submission to the Lord Himself (cf. 7:10, 25). It still is.
14:38 The Corinthians should not recognize as a prophet or as a person under the control of the Holy Spirit anyone who refused to acknowledge the apostle's authority. Failure to recognize the Lord as the source of Paul's teaching would lead to that person's failure to be recognized (i.e., acknowledged with approval) by the Lord (cf. 8:2-3)
14:39 "Therefore"signals a summation of the entire argument on spiritual gifts. "My brethren"sounds a loving note at the end of this very stern discussion (cf. 1:10). "Desire earnestly to prophesy"repeats the imperative with which Paul began (v. 1). "Do not forbid to speak in tongues"concedes the legitimacy of their favorite gift. Paul heartily encouraged the exercise of the gift of prophecy, but he only permitted the gift of speaking in tongues with certain qualifiers.
As time passed, God no longer gave prophets revelations concerning the future. The apostle John was evidently the last person to function as a prophet in this sense (cf. Rev. 22:18). They also no longer received new revelation from the Lord. We can see this passing away even during the history of the church that Luke recorded in Acts. Much of the revelation contained in the books of the New Testament was of this type. In this sense the gift of prophecy was foundational to the establishment of the church and has ceased (Eph. 2:20). Nevertheless people continued to speak forth messages from the Lord, the basic meaning of the Greek word propheteuo(to prophesy). In the more general sense this gift is still with us today (cf. v. 3).
Paul said his readers were not to forbid speaking in tongues. He meant they were not to do so provided they followed the rules he had just explained for the exercise of the gift. Certainly if someone has the New Testament gift of tongues, he or she should observe these rules today as well. However, many Christians seriously doubt that anyone has this gift today. Christians involved in the charismatic movement believe the gift does exist today. Nevertheless the differences between tongues-speaking as practiced today and what took place in first century churches has led most believers to conclude that these are very different experiences.
14:40 The foundational principles that should underlie what takes place in church meetings are these. Christians should do everything in a decent and orderly manner, everything should be edifying (v. 26), and a spirit of peace should prevail (v. 33).
This chapter on speaking in tongues is extremely relevant because of current interest in the charismatic gifts of the Spirit. If believers followed the teaching in this chapter alone, even in charismatic churches, there would be far less confusion in the church over this subject.
"In these three chapters (xii.--xiv.) the Apostle has been contending with the danger of spiritual anarchy, which would be the result if every Christian who believed that he had a charisma were allowed to exercise it without consideration for others."356
