Listen in WMA
Download MP3
Download WMA<<Previous Part -- [This sermon is number 34 in a series of 46] -- Next part>>
1 Corinthians - Part 34
"Corinthian Confusion vs God's Commission Of Tongues"
Copyright 2003
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
(Permission is granted to distribute this transcript in its entirety, with no alterations)
I Corinthians 14:1-25 |
|
I want you to turn with me to chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians, and I see some visitors with us tonight and you're very welcome - but perhaps you are entering into this study somewhat at the end of it in one sense. We've got a good number of weeks to go yet, but we've been spending, now this is our 34th week in the study, and we've covered a lot of ground already. We are entering, as it were, a new section of what has been a new section on spiritual gifts, which comprises of chapters 12, 13 and 14 - but chapter 14 that we're embarking on tonight really takes up in very specific detail the subject of the spiritual gift of tongues that was so prevalent in the early church at Corinth, and is becoming more and more prevalent in our Western church in our modern day. What Paul is doing tonight is he's setting a contrast between the gift of tongues and the gift of prophesy, but what we will learn tonight - I hope - will be so relevant and contemporary to the church age in which we live today, where there's so much false teaching, misunderstanding and error of doctrine in this very subject in particular. We're going to look at this chapter under the title tonight of 'Corinthian Confusion vs God Commission of Tongues', and we'll begin our reading at verse 1 and read right through to verse 25.
You remember that we left off at a chapter dedicated to love in the context of spiritual gifts, where Paul said that what is more preferable than any spiritual gift is love. So he leads us on and says: "Follow after charity", verse 1, or 'follow after love', "and desire spiritual gifts". To love is not at the exclusion or expense of the spiritual gifts that God's Spirit has given to us, it is more preferable, but we also should desire spiritual gifts. "But rather", not just any spiritual gifts, but desire "that ye may prophesy. For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries".
Now we are reading this evening from the Authorised Version of the scriptures, but let me just instruct you a moment, as I have done in the past, that when you read this translation - and do please remember that it is a translation of the original Greek language and Hebrew language of the Old Testament - whenever you come across a word in italics such as you have here in verse 2, the word 'unknown', it has been added by the translators to help us understand something that they feel would be better conveyed to us in our own home language by the addition of a word or two that perhaps isn't in the original manuscript. Now they normally get it right, but this time they haven't got it right - we would have to say that most of the confusion that accrues to us even today in this modern age comes from this chapter's addition by the translators of this word 'unknown' - it is not there in any of the manuscripts.
So we could drop it entirely and say: "For he that speaketh in a tongue" - that's all it says - "speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries. But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort. He that speaketh in a tongue" - drop the 'unknown' - "edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church. I would that ye all spake with tongues but rather that ye prophesied: for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying. Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine? And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds", or in the tunes, as your margin might say, "how shall it be known what is piped or harped? For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air. There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification", or significance. "Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me. Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church. Wherefore let him that speaketh in a tongue pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then?", or 'what is the conclusion then?'. "I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest? For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other is not edified. I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all: Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue. Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men. In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe. If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad? But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth" - and we'll leave our reading there at verse 25.
Now before we embark tonight on what must be the most important passage in the Scriptures on the subject of spiritual gifts of tongues, both for those who adhere to its existence in the church today and those who oppose the reality of this gift among us, we want to ask the very elementary question which must be laid down first of all in preface as a foundation to this great subject: what is the gift of tongues in the Scriptures? You see, before we even enter into an exposition of this great portion of 1 Corinthians 14, we need to realise that there is a dispute on as to what this gift actually was in the New Testament, and transpiring what it is today if it is here at all. You see, there are those who say this gift of tongues is the language of heaven, it is a heavenly language - and they misinterpret some Scriptures that we will look at in weeks that lie ahead perhaps, to say that this is so, that this is a language that is spoken throughout the halls of heaven. Then there are others who turn to 1 Corinthians 13 and talk about where Paul says: 'Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels' - and right away they pluck that out of the sky and say: 'Oh this is the tongue of angels, this is an angelic language that the angels speak' - even though every time an angel spoke in the word of God he spoke in the contemporary language of the person that he was speaking to, but nevertheless this is how they interpret it. This is the language angels speak, and when you have a kind of ecstatic spiritual experience that takes you into some kind of deeper Christian life or higher Christian level, you will speak like the angels speak.
Then there are those who simply say: 'Well, it's maybe not an angelic language, or a heavenly language, but it certainly is an unknown language', and they get that from the addition, of course, by the translators of this word that I have told you is not in the original - 'unknown' tongues. They are unknown in the sense that they're unknown to many who will be hearing it, but they're not unknown in the sense of their existence as a literal language upon the planet that people and nations speak. Now let's establish this, because this is fundamental to our interpretation and our understanding of God's word in this realm. We need to turn right back to the very birthday of the church in Acts chapter 2, so do that with me - and we'll look at quite a few texts before we embark on chapter 14, but this is important. We go to the first principles, certainly not the first mention of the subject of tongues, but it is the first example of where tongues was found in the church - I think we would have to say that.
Verse 1: "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind", note please that it doesn't say that it was the sound of a rushing mighty wind, it says 'as of' the sound of a rushing mighty wind, "and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them" - it doesn't say that it was fire on their heads, it says there were cloven tongues 'like as' of fire. "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews" - now please underline that, that will be important later on, "There were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven" - now underline 'every nation'. These were Jews who lived in other nations and spoke the languages of those nations, because they were born among those nations. Now verse 6: "Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded", or troubled in mind, "because they couldn't understand why every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?". 'They're Galilaeans, but they're not speaking in the Galilean language, they're speaking in my language of the country and nation that I come from!'.
They were all amazed, and verse 8 says: "How hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?", there's the word 'tongue' and it is associated with the tongue in which they were born. We see a list of about 16 languages and nationalities, verse 9: "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine".
There we have it, right at the very beginning, at this gathering of the church on the pentecostal birthday of it as an organism there was the speaking of tongues - but it wasn't some kind of an emotional orgy that we see represented today as the speaking of tongues pentecostally - it was nothing of the sort. It was an utterance whereby those people from many nations, sixteen we read here, they were understanding in their own tongue what the apostles were saying. Now don't ask me about the logistics of this, because we're not told about it, but all I can assume is that at times some of them were speaking in one language, and at other times they were speaking in the other. Whatever it was, all these nations heard their own tongue. That was the first instance of the gift of tongues.
Now please note before we go into chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians, there was no interpreter needed at Pentecost - no interpreter - because the people to whom the message was meant for were getting the message, please remember that. There was no one standing there who did not understand, because it was spoken in their own language, they received it, it entered into their understanding and their heart, and many were converted. But we will see later in chapter 14 of Corinthians that an interpreter is necessary, but also note before we move on that specifically this speaking in tongues had a reference and a significance to the Jewish people. 'Devout Jews', verse 5, 'out of every nation under heaven'.
Now when we go to 1 Corinthians 14 the exact same word for 'tongues' that is used in Acts 2 is used here: 'glossa'. The phenomenon of tongues has been known as 'glossalia', the word is 'glossa'. We find it 50 times in the New Testament, sixteen of those times refer to the organ of the tongue that you've all got in your mouth tonight - James referred to it in chapter 3 of his epistle and verse 5, the literal tongue. Once it is referred to, as we read in chapter 2 of Acts, to these tongues that were like as fire that appeared on the heads of the apostles in the upper room at Pentecost. But an amazing 33 times out of its 50 uses in the New Testament Scriptures, it is used as human languages - languages like English, or German, or French, Chinese, Japanese - whatever 'ese' that you might want. Every language of the earth - this word is used to define and to mean that. Now I'm establishing just now that we must understand this gift of tongues, yes to be supernatural, but it is a supernatural ability given by the Spirit of God to speak in a language that you have not known - not an unknown language as if it has never existed, or something that's heavenly or angelic, but a language that you have not been taught and you have been given the ability to speak it to communicate a message from God to those who have that language as their native one.
Now when we go into this chapter we find in verse 13 that an interpreter was necessary in the church of Corinth, and we'll find out the reason for that later - but let's just look at this: 'Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret'. Now before we look into the reason for the interpreter, that word 'interpret' in the Greek language is the word literally meaning 'to translate from one language into another', and out of its 21 uses in the New Testament 18 definitely refer to translation of one language into another. So what we're talking about here is a language, and when we go into Acts 9 the word is used when Tabitha is referred to 'being interpreted, Dorcas'. In one language her name was Tabitha, being interpreted - the same word here, 'translated' - her name became Dorcas in another language. This is the word that we find here in verse 13.
Now when we move on from Pentecost in Acts 2 on to Acts chapter 11, we find that the tongues that the apostle Peter witnessed in Caesarea among the believers were identical to the tongues that he saw at Pentecost, and he says so: 'It was the same as what I saw on that day of Pentecost'. So I hope that you can see quite conclusively, and we could go into a lot more Scriptures and a lot more detail, but the overwhelming inclination of holy Scripture in not only the New Testament, but we'll see later in the Old Testament, are that tongues are known languages of the world today that are not known to you, or learned specifically, but have been given to you by supernatural dispensation.
Now one thing is sure: that what is aspired to as tongues today in many pentecostal and charismatic circles is nothing but unintelligible babble. It is not glorifying, neither to God nor men, and it certainly doesn't measure up with what scripture teaches on the subject. It certainly does not reciprocate what the Lord said on something quite similar to the subject, turn with me please to Matthew's gospel chapter 6 - because the Lord warned against the type of activity that is so often witnessed among some circles today. When He was speaking about prayer in Matthew 6 in the Sermon on the Mount, He said in verse 7: "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking". Now the Lord used two Greek words there 'bata' (sp?) and 'logio' - and both of them refer to the act of babbling, or the act of speaking without thinking, of just sort of entering into some ecstatic emotional chant, and ecstasy whereby you don't understand what you're saying but all of this gobbledygook is just flowing out of your mouth uncontrollably - the Lord said to beware of that! For that is not of God, that is either of the devil or of yourself! In fact, He says that is what the pagans do.
Missionaries can take you to jungles today and they will show you the exact similarity of a representation of what is going on in some of our churches and mission halls tonight in our land. They don't know Christ, they don't know about the Holy Spirit, they're intoxicated with drink or certain types of drugs from plants, they're beating drums and worshipping their false idols, yet they're speaking in tongues so-called. We could take you to chapels tonight that venerate the Virgin Mary, we could take you to established churches that have denied the gospel and they're all met together in a false ecumenism, and they're speaking in tongues - you're not going to tell me that that's of God, are you? These are not what the Bible speaks of as tongues at all, all it is is some farmyard gibberish - and when you listen very carefully to it and analyse it, if you know anything about language, you'll know that you cannot distinguish any vocabulary, there are no grammatical features to the language (if it could be called a language at all), there's very limited vowel sounds, a lot of repetition - and it certainly has no relation at all to what we find that the Holy Spirit gives in the New Testament.
Now here in chapter 14, let me say that that if Paul was meaning that this was something different to Acts 2 and Acts 11, would he not have had the prime opportunity to distinguish the difference here? Would he not say right away, as he instructs them over their abuse of this gift: 'This is not what happened in Acts 2, this is something different, this is a heavenly language, an angelic language'? But he doesn't do it because it is the same thing.
So hopefully we have established that first of all as a foundation, and let us look also at the first chapter, and remind ourselves of 1 Corinthians that this church was a very gifted church. In verse 7 of chapter 1 he says: 'that they come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ'. They were extremely spiritually gifted. But Paul also said to them, this time in chapter 3 and verse 1: 'Brethren, I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ'. So on one hand you have, if we could use the term today, a very charismatic church, but on the other hand a very carnal church. So right away what I want to do for you tonight is to warn you not to make the mistake that many charismatic people make, to take their example as to how to speak in tongues from the Corinthians. If you're going to take an example of anything on how to be spiritual, how to be a holy man of God, don't look to the Corinthians to do it! They were exercising their gift, Paul said, at the expense of something that was infinitely more important, and that was love for God. Did we not see it in chapter 13? Love for each other that will be there if they really love God - and that will all flow out in a fruition of edification for the body, looking out for one another not looking out for themselves and the pride in their own spiritual gift.
So let us look at how Paul really comes in now and addresses this confusion in Corinth with regards to tongues. He looks at, first of all, the influence of tongues in the church; the confusion that this doctrine caused. We begin at verse 1: "Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts". Now the connection is obvious right away with chapter 13, what Paul is saying is: 'Look, if you Corinthians were really following after love, and really preferring one another in love, you would be serving each other. You would be earnestly desiring the spiritual gifts that were the most beneficial gifts for the assembly'. Not talking about personal desire for these gifts, although you may interpret it that way, but specifically he's saying that you should be looking after not the gift that makes you look the best, but the gift that benefits the whole body the most.
For that reason, he says in verse 1, rather desire prophecy - because the gift of prophecy is more desirable to edify the believers than the gift of tongues is. Let me just pause for a moment, because it's necessary that not only we define again for you tongues but also prophecy. We did this a few weeks ago if you want to get the tape, but let me just say very quickly that prophecy in the New Testament sense was a foundational gift in the early church - Ephesians 2:20 tells us that. It was the inspiration of a brother in the meeting to stand up and give a word from the Lord, directly inspired perfectly complete from God, a message that they needed to hear - because don't forget that they weren't sitting like you tonight with a Bible on their lap. They hadn't the finished completed New Testament that we have, and they were speaking by revelation - that's how God communicated to them. So we do not have that gift with us today, because it is not necessary because it has been improved upon in the sense of completion by the finished canon of the word of God in scripture.
Today what we have is the gift of teaching, whereby a man - like the one standing before you tonight - takes the word of God, opens it, and from the already revealed and delivered truth, the faith once and for all delivered to the saints, he interprets and preaches and delivers God's prophetic word. In that sense prophecy is still here in the Scriptures, but it's not the gift of an individual man. Teaching has replaced prophecy in the original sense, and if you want a text for that you can turn to 2 Peter 2 verse 1. What Paul is now explaining is why prophecy is a greater gift than the gift of tongues, and he does that by showing these Corinthians that they were lapsing, fatally, into the motivation of this gift of tongues for self-exultation. They were wanting to speak in tongues so that they could be seen as some great spiritual brother, rather than for the body's edification.
Please note that in your first sub-point of point 1. This is what verses 1 to 5, and really verses 1 to 19, is all about. You should be desiring gifts that will build up the church the most, not make you look good - that's his basic point. The word 'edify' is used so many times, you should circle it with red ink right throughout this passage, and 'edify' is the word that we get 'edifice' from, which is a building, and it simply means 'to build up'. He tells us in verse 2: 'he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God'. Now many people who adhere to the gift of tongues today say: 'Well, there you go, there's the proof right away that this is something that maybe you don't speak to men with, but you speak to God with it. It's a special language, it's a prayer language'. That's not what Paul is saying here, and what people who aspire to tongues often do throughout this passage is actually take verses that Paul is using to disdain the Corinthians use of tongues, and they use it as a proof and evidence for it. What Paul is saying here in verse 2 is: 'If you speak in an unknown tongue that's unknown to the brethren that are gathered among you, and even the unbelievers and unlearned men, God - that's the only person you're speaking to, because only God can understand what you're saying!'. Do you see it?
The people don't speak the language, and he tells them: 'You could be revealing marvellous mysteries' - a mystery is not some kind of airy-fairy idea that comes from pagan mystery religion, what this is is something that hitherto had not been revealed to men, and God was now revealing and inspiring men to know and to speak. Paul was saying: 'You could have that to deliver to the saints, but because they don't speak the language that you're churning out they don't understand it - so you're gift isn't edifying them, it's not doing them any good at all because your speech is unintelligible'.
'But', verse 3, 'he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort'. The man that prophesies, he builds up, he encourages, Paul says, he comforts - why does he do it? Because he speaks in a language that is common to the people. Verse 4, another verse commonly used by those who adhere to tongues today: 'He that speaketh in a tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church'. There they say: 'Well, even if you don't believe tongues should be spoken in the church, it could be used as a means of self-edification. You bless yourself as you pray to God in tongues, and God blesses you, and it deepens your faith with the Lord'. Now if you look at this, you can see that Paul is here contrasting the negativity of a lack of edification in the gift of tongues and positivity of the necessity of prophesying to build up the church. He's saying that tongues isn't as good as prophecy in this, how can you use that as a proof?
Not only that, but about nine times the word 'church' is used right throughout this whole passage - and, if anything, that tells us that he's not talking about a believer's individual devotional life in the closet, he's talking about the use of this gift in the local assembly. Far from advocating the use of self-edification, he is saying no gift, no gift is for self-edification - the gifts are given for the body and for the building up of the body, the benefit of the body, the well-being of the church. In fact, if he's doing anything he's condemning any use in the church that doesn't result in helping other people - that's what the whole of chapter 13 is about, isn't it? Love for each other, not our own pride, not blessing ourselves and getting gratification, but love for the body and our brethren should be what motivates our exercise of whatever gift we have.
Love for others, that's why he says 'he that prophesies edifies the church'. He's not parading his gift for personal advantage, but he's speaking constructively in a language that the congregation understands. Then in verse 5 he says: 'I would that ye all spake with tongues' - then there they go again! 'There you go, what more do you want 'I would that you all spoke with tongues' - Paul wanted them all to speak with tongues!'. Now just bear with the argument that Paul has here, and also go back to chapter 12 for a moment and remind yourself that Paul himself said in rhetorical questions: 'Are all apostles?', verse 29, the answer comes back 'No'. 'Are all prophets?', the implication 'No'. 'Are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues?', no!
Is he contradicting himself? Of course he's not. What he's saying is that he's not despising the gift of the Holy Spirit of tongues, and we ought not to do so either, what we do despise is the counterfeit, sacrilegious, blasphemous, idiotic counterfeit with us today - but we believe that the Holy Spirit gave this gift. He says: 'I wish that you all spoke with tongues'. He's saying it's not a selfish desire that makes me speak with tongues, or anybody - it ought not to be so at least - it's not for a favoured few, but it's something that is given to men but it doesn't make them any better than another, and I wish that you could all have it so that there wasn't this competition among you and God could be glorified'. That's what Moses said, you remember, when he said in Numbers 11:29: 'Oh that all the LORD's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!'.
Paul knew that all these people couldn't speak in tongues, and neither had God willed that it be such - but please note what he's saying: 'I would that ye all spake with tongues', and don't put a full-stop there, there's a comma there, 'but rather that ye prophesied'. Again it's a contrast and comparison - he says: 'Oh, it would be great if you all spoke in tongues the way you all want to, but I would rather that you prophesied'. He would rather that you prophesy, because that is what will build each other up - it is preferred to be edifying one another than self-exalting yourself. As Kelly said in his commentary: 'What astonishes is far less important for the spiritual mind than what edifies'. We shouldn't be a people that get titillated and tickled by the supernatural and nothing else will do - praise God we believe in it, but what is more important than the miraculous is the edifying.
Sure many folk go into a big flashy meeting with charismatic signs and wonders claimed and all the rest, and the singing and the swaying and the clapping is all going, and they come out on a high as if they could jump over the moon - and the next day when they go into work they're at rock bottom, because it's nothing to do with God, it's only the sensational on the emotional level. It's not edifying them, if they were built up there would still be a structure the next day, but they're not.
Of course, Paul says: 'except he interpret', which could mean unless the one speaking in tongues interprets, the man that has the gift of tongues could also have the gift of interpreting, or he could desire that another had it, and another could interpret at this time in the early church. Whatever that meaning is, the one point I want you to see tonight is that the whole church had to know what God was saying - have you got it? It wasn't for a select few, and if there was a man standing speaking in tongues there had to be someone who could edify the whole church, whether it was that man who interpreted himself or another interpreter - but the people had to know what God was saying. Do you see it now? It's not about self-exaltation: 'I've got it and you haven't', it's about the body's edification.
Then secondly, here's another item of their problem: they had confusion, or tongues caused confusion for them, rather than understanding - verses 6 to 19. Now we're probably not going to get through all this tonight, as you've suspected already, but we'll take our time because this is such an important subject. Verse 6: 'Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine?'. Paul is saying: 'Look, even if I came to you, me, the great apostle Paul, and I came speaking with tongues, it wouldn't profit you. If you couldn't understand the revelation that I was bringing to you, if you couldn't grasp the knowledge, the prophesying, the teaching, if you didn't recognise what God was saying it wouldn't matter if it was Paul preaching to you tonight...you wouldn't be built up'. Do you see what he's just saying here? The point of everything that God gives to the church by His gifts is that the church should be edified through the understanding of God's truth. The crux is understanding, and whenever you don't understand it won't do you any good at all.
Now he goes on to prove this by various illustrations in verse 7 on: 'And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped?'. He's talking now about musical instrument, things that have sound but they have no life in them. He says to take for instance a flute, that's a pipe, or a harp, it makes a distinction of a noise in its notes and in its tune. When it is piped and played you can tell the difference between a harp and a pipe, and you can tell the difference between the tune that is being played. The whole idea of enjoyable music, as far as I can understand, includes the distinction of notes, the definite rhythms that there are in those notes and the clarity of them. A man says: 'I can play every note on the piano board, but just not in the right order'. That's what Paul is trying to say here: it's important that they are in the right order, because the right order will distinguish the tune, it will bring clarity, it will bring definite distinction.
Then he uses in verse 8 the illustration of a trumpet: 'If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?'. The picture is the bugler at the back of the battalion, and if he doesn't play the right tune or the right signal the army won't know whether to retreat or whether to charge. None of the soldiers will know what to do, maybe half of them will go forward and half of them will go backward because there is not a certain sound, they haven't recognised the command that is going forth. Verse 9 uses another illustration: 'So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air'. If you spoke gibberish in your everyday conversational form, people wouldn't know what you were saying - you might as well, as Paul says, you might as well be talking in an empty room because people aren't understanding a word you're saying. As we would put it in our contemporary vernacular, you might as well talk to the wall. That's what he's saying, because understanding is the key of language, isn't it? If you can't understand what's being said when these folks are getting up and speaking in tongues, there's no point in it at all unless their speech that they utter is intelligible - speaking into the air.
Now might I just stop for a moment and say that this has an application for us preachers, and maybe as I point one finger the three are pointing back at me tonight. It's very easy to get so complicated and speak in a language that people don't understand, that they don't grasp the tenets and the heart and soul and spirit of God's holy Word. What we're saying is that the teaching and preaching should be clear, and it should be simple - not simplistic - but simple and easy to understand. Really the bottom line is it shouldn't be motivated by an aspiration to impress, but rather by a desire that people should rejoice not in your gift but in the truth that you preach! C.H. Spurgeon on many a time was so humorous, and on this point he says: 'I'm afraid that many of my ministerial brethren must imagine that when Scripture tells them to feed my sheep, it means feed my giraffes - for they put the food so high that the people would have to be giraffes to reach it!'. Isn't that true? Paul's whole message is: everything must be simple to understand, and if you're speaking in a language that some, even, of the people don't understand, it's not edifying anybody! It might be glorifying you, but it's not bringing glory to God because it's not building up His church.
In verse 10 he comes very close to the subject of languages, he says there are many different kinds of voices in the word, dialects, languages themselves - none of them is without significance. Now I don't know when you're speaking Chinese, but a Chinaman would know what you're saying. Just because I don't know what it is doesn't mean it doesn't mean anything, it has its own significance and distinction, and it conveys a definite message. Even the animals and the birds of the air have their own code of language, they understand what it means. But if you don't understand my language, in verse 11 he says, you might as well be a barbarian and I a barbarian to you!
Now to the Greeks a barbarian was just somebody who wasn't a Greek and couldn't speak Greek, everybody but them was a barbarian. If you like, they were lowest of the low, but you could say: 'You're a foreigner, I don't understand you whatsoever'. Now you can imagine the frustration of this, trying to have a conversation with somebody who's speaking absolute gibberish to you, and you don't understand a word they're saying - it is a language, it's distinctive, they know what they're saying perhaps, somebody else knows, but you don't know. Imagine that in the meeting! Maybe you don't have to think of it too much to imagine it - but imagine that! You wouldn't be being edified, you'd be like the way some of us are sometimes: you'd be getting frustrated - 'I'm not getting anything, I don't even understand what's being said'.
He says in verse 12: 'Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church'. Now can I paraphrase that: if you were just as zealous about edifying one another as you are about speaking in tongues and doing this spectacular thing and the other, the church would be built up in no time! Edification was the key, if a man speaks in tongues, verse 13: 'Wherefore let him that speaketh in a tongue pray that he may interpret'. He should pray that he may interpret - or it may mean, as I said, someone else may interpret - but the reason for it is verse 14: 'For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful'.
What he's saying is: 'I'm praying in the spirit in tongues', right? 'My own spirit', that's not the Holy Spirit, it's not a capital 'S', it's 'my spirit' of your spirit, soul and body that make you up. 'My spirit is praying, but unless I'm being understood as I pray, it is not edifying' - unless someone interprets it, whether it's the pray-er or another interpreter, people don't get anything out of it. Now although it uses that word 'my understanding is unfruitful', that in the Greek language - and I have to say this so that you understand - is an objective genitive, which means not 'what I myself understand', that's not what he's talking about, but 'what others understand when I speak' - or you could translate it 'the understanding of me'. 'If I get up and pray out of my spirit and nobody interprets, whether it's me or another man in the assembly, I am not being understood' - that's the sense - 'and if I am not being understood, it matters nothing', because it's obviously not of love.
Please note that he doesn't stop with praying, he says: 'What is it then?', what's the conclusion?, 'I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding'. There's not to be some kind of spiritual praying that nobody understands, that's not found in the church, or it ought not to be found. There must be understanding, Christianity is not a belief just of the heart, it also must be a belief of the head. If ever our emotions rise over our intellect until we look like imbeciles, we have reached the point of paganism rather than biblical Christianity. He goes on: 'and I will pray with understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also'. We live in a day where repetitive, meaningless, empty, nebulous choruses are sung ad nauseam over and over again, and there's hardly an iota of truth in any of them. I tell you, on some occasions all it is is a hypnotic kind of transitory state that the people are getting themselves into to exercise some gibberish now and again. It is from the inside, it is emotion, no doubt about it. It is hysteria, it may be even hypnotic, but there is no understanding in it and that's not right - there has to be both! Let me also say to us folk: we have all this, don't we? We have all the doctrine perhaps, in our hymns, and we get up and sing them - but is our spirit in them? Is our heart and soul in them, or are we putting in the time, are we filling up the sandwich in between the sermon and prayer? Or is our heart really engaged in worshipping the Lord? It is this biblical balance that Paul calls for, and the implication is that some of them were praying in tongues, even singing in tongues - but it didn't matter what they were doing in their spirit if the people didn't understand.
So he says in verse 16: 'Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?'. That means when you get up and speak in an unknown tongue, whatever you're saying may be absolutely wonderful, but I can't say 'Amen' to it if I don't know your language. Incidentally, Paul was saying that they used to say 'Amen' in the meetings - Amen? And you're allowed to say 'Amen', and 'Hallelujah' in the meetings - it just means 'So be it, I adhere to what is being said', but you can't say that if you don't understand what the man is saying!
In verse 18 he says: 'I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all' - it's not that he's despising tongues. He's saying: 'I speak in more foreign languages than any of you' - now we know that Paul probably learnt some of them, but surely what he's saying here is that this spiritual gift that has been given by the Holy Ghost: 'I have it in more of an extent than you all' - but please note this change of emphasis in verse 19: 'Yet in the church'. You underline that one - in the church what is important is not my superior ability with language, but that you might understand. 'For that reason I'd rather speak', he said, 'five words in an understood language than 10,000 words in a foreign tongue, because my chief aim is to help and to bless the people of God, not boost up the reputation of the apostle'.
Now we have to finish, but let me just say this: Paul was determining that when he spoke in the assembly, and encouraging everybody else to do the same, he should speak in a way that people understood. My friends, where is the gift of tongues there? Unless there's an interpreter in the New Testament surely, but where is it today? Is it here? I've never seen anybody, I've never heard anybody - and I've heard a lot of nonsense - but I've never heard anybody with this gift. If you know anybody, bring them along, or get a tape recorder and tape them, and take the tape down to somebody that knows, who's Chinese or Japanese or Russian or Italian, and let them analyse it and see if it is a language. But I don't know anybody, and next week we'll look on at the intention that this gift was for, and we'll see why God gave it in the first place, and way that intended need is with us today. I remember a man saying to me, I don't know whether I heeded him much at the beginning when I started off preaching, 'David, don't be clever, just be clear'. That was Paul's message in a nutshell.
Our Father, we thank Thee tonight for the word of God incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ. We read of Him in the Gospels that the common people heard Him gladly. There was no ecstatic utterance from His lips, but He spoke in a language that the people could understand, for He had a heart for the people. In fact, Lord, He had that love of 1 Corinthians 13, that love that faileth not. Though prophecies will fail, and tongues shall cease; God is love, and love shall forever endure. O Lord, help us to be a people who love, help us to be a people who love each other and not look out for ourselves or our own reputation or record, but look out for others in seeking to build them up to edify them and to comfort them, to encourage and instruct them. We pray that in this age of apostasy and false teaching, that we will be a Berean people that will search the Scriptures to see if what we see going on around us in the world and even in the church today, if it's found in the word of God, and if it's not may we reject it - and may we embrace everything that the Lord God the sovereign Spirit who has gifted the churches has for us. O Lord, hear our prayer, and may we be a people that walks according to Thy word; but may we be a people that edify each other to the glory of Jesus we pray, and the building of His body, Amen.
Don't miss part 35 of the 1 Corinthians Study Series: "The Command And Commission Concerning Tongues"
------------------------
Transcribed by:
Andrew Watkins
Preach The Word.
November 2003
www.preachtheword.com
info@preachtheword.com
This sermon was delivered at The Iron Hall Assembly in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by Pastor David Legge. It was transcribed from the thirty-fourth tape in his 1 Corinthians series, titled "Corinthian Confusion vs God's Commision Of Tongues" - Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word.
All material by David Legge is copyrighted. However, these materials may be freely copied and distributed unaltered for the purpose of study and teaching, so long as they are made available to others free of charge, and this copyright is included. This does not include hosting or broadcasting the materials on another website, however linking to the resources on preachtheword.com is permitted. These materials may not, in any manner, be sold or used to solicit 'donations' from others, nor may they be included in anything you intend to copyright, sell, or offer for a fee. This copyright is exercised to keep these materials freely available to all. Any exceptions to these conditions must be explicitly approved by Preach The Word.