18 “I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all; 19yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I may teach others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue. 20Brethren, do not be children in understanding; however, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature.”
14:18
I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all;
The Corinthians were not to get the idea that Paul did not value the gift of tongues, for he spoke in tongues more than all of them. It was Paul’s custom to go to the “Jews first” in a city he evangelized. Since tongues were a sign to Jews that the New Testament canon was valid (14:21,22), Paul probably spoke in tongues to validate New Testament truth related to the Jews. Hundreds of Jews in the Roman Empire would have heard him speak in tongues.
14:19
yet in the church
The phrase “in the church” refers to the assembled congregation. This phrase is emphatic in Greek. This is no contrast to speaking in tongues in private, for there is no place where the New Testament teaches such a doctrine – including verse two.
I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I may teach others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue.
Paul’s value of the gift was not in its use but its function. If speaking in tongues did not produce understanding, then it had little value. Edification is 10,000 times more valuable than the experience of speaking in tongues. “Teach others” implies understanding. Subjectivism hinders growth. Paul was preeminently a preacher, apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles” (2 Ti 1:11).
PRINCIPLE:
We should deemphasize anything that God does not place priority upon.
APPLICATION:
It is a shock to some people that God does not put a priority on the miraculous and the unusual but understanding. We need to be careful not to set upon a high pedestal that God does not place there. Anything we do for the advantage of our personal popularity dislocates the central purposes of the church. It prostitutes gifts for selfish reasons. The gift of exposition (prophecy) transcends other gifts toward this end. We misplace the emphasis that God places on tongues if we give it priority over exposition.
Hi Grant,
Why do you refer to prophecy as exposition? What is the scriptural basis for this definition of prophecy? In the illustration which Paul gives about prophecy in 1 Cor. 14:24-15, the unbeliever who walks into a church where everyone is prophesying receives a prophetic word that involves a revelation of the secrets of his heart. This revelation of the secrets of one’s heart by means of prophecy is clearly not exposition. It is a revelation similar to a word of knowledge.
Austa, the Greek uses the word for prophecy in at least two senses: 1) foretelling and 2) forth-telling. It is not used simply for foretelling in Scripture. The context of chapter 14 clearly indicates that Paul refers to forth-telling.