1 Corinthians 14:1-5

The Corinthian Church desired the best gifts (1 Cor. 12:31).  Many in the church had concluded that the greatest spiritual was speaking in tongues.  We can imagine in this divided church that this created more strife.  Perhaps those who thought they had the gift considered themselves superior and encouraged others to seek the same.  Tongues was exalted likely was because of its inexplicable nature; those who had it had something amazing.  How does Paul deal with this?

His answer was not to tell them to quit desiring the best or greatest gifts.  Instead he showed them a more excellent way, the way of love.  Any gift without love was useless (13:1-3).  The church was not to be known by its gifted individuals but rather by their love (13:4-7).  Love would never fail but a time would come when the gifts would cease.  With that we come to a specific application of the more excellent way as we desire the best spirituals.  If we pursue love as we desire spirituals we will desire those that build up the body rather than those that merely build up the one with the spiritual.  In his illustration Paul says it is better to seek prophecy than tongues because prophecy builds up the whole church while tongues only builds up the one who speaks.

Now that these are in focus let us consider what they mean.  We have noted that speaking in tongues in Corinth was not what it was in Acts 2 when people heard a known language.  Proponents of tongues today would say this was a personal language, perhaps a so-called angelic language (from 1 Cor. 13:1).  What I have heard on occasion, where people interspersed English with what was said to be speaking in tongues, sounded quite strange.  At the very least this is the problem Paul raises.  These unintelligible sounds make no sense without interpretation, and if there is interpretation there is no way to verify the interpreter because it is not a known language.  It is of no benefit to those who hear.  The only one who gets encouragement is the one who did the speaking.

Prophecy also needs to be understood.  Many assume this is a predictive ministry, where someone can tell you things about yourself and your future that could not be known apart from some special revealing.  But the ministry of the prophet in Scripture says something different.  The prophet was primarily a preacher, used of God to call people to repentance.  Occasionally the Old Testament prophet engaged in prediction, but it was in the context of calling the people to God.  In the New Testament the prophet was one who spoke edification and exhortation and comfort to men (14:3).  In that time this was an important ministry as the New Testament Scriptures were not available.  The prophets took to the churches the message Christ had given to His Apostles.  But further, in any church, such as Corinth, there could be people who could preach, who could build up the congregation with the message as God enabled them.

The truth of Paul’s words are clear.  In the more excellent way the greater spiritual is the one that edifies the body rather than the individual (v5).