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.
