1 Corinthians 14:1-19 Prophecy and Tongues - part 2
1 Corinthians 14:1-19 · Roger Henderson · Oct 9, 2016
1 Corinthians, No. 39
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926540215946

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Today we're in part two of Prophecy in Tongues. Last week we covered the top section of this. We covered the inferiority of tongues, the deficiency of tongues. It's amazing. This whole chapter is all about... Paul spends a tremendous amount... The more you look at that, the more you think, why in the world are we confused about tongues? Paul has just gone to elaborate words and making his point to show us that tongues are so inferior.

Even if you would grant people would have tongues, the restriction on tongues that he shows in here. Let's assume that tongues were valid for today, which I don't believe they are. Tongue, you know, speaking in another language. The restrictions say, hey, I don't think that's valuable to you because you always have to have an interpreter. and people being like we are, having us in nature, it sounds kind of cool if we had a tongue, if I could speak in some of the language, you know, maybe I'd want to, you know, in the flesh show off a little bit. Well, that wouldn't be right. That wouldn't be what God has in mind.

So, Paul just spends a tremendous amount of time. We're going to see a lot more of that today. So, using Macaulay's outline again, there's a conclusion section in 9-12, preliminary and final conclusion. And if that wasn't enough, he has this reiteration section where he goes back over and he points out again the superiority of edification and how edification of the church body is a primary thing that needs to be understood and done and not Don't get hung up on tongues. He makes statements that are pretty amazing.

I wish all of you spoke in tongues. I speak in tongues more than anybody else. But the very last verse we're going to see is he compares 10,000 words not in a tongue versus five words in a tongue. So there's just no comparison is the bottom line. He is warning the church here that tongues are a wrong path. They can be valid, but they are a wrong path.

Let's just jump into this. You can come up front Bob, if you want to. So I'd like someone to read the 9 through 19, those 10 verses. If you can see it on the overhead or in your handout or in your Bible, whatever, you have an electronic device, whatever is your...

So also you, unless you utter by the tongue speech that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking in the day. There are perhaps great many kinds of languages in the world, and no kind is without meaning. If then I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be to the one who speaks a barbarian, and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me.

So also you, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the Church. Therefore let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What is the outcome then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the mind also. I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the mind also.

Otherwise, if you bless in the spirit only, how will the one who fills the place of the ungifted say the Amen at your giving of thanks, since he does not know what you are saying? For you are giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not edified. I thank God I speak in tongues more than you all, however in the church I desire to speak five words with my mind so that I may instruct others also rather than ten thousand words in a tongue. Thanks Randy. I think I actually put that example around when I explained it. We'll get to that part at the end here.

So the first part is, so also, unless you utter by tongue speech that is clear. So he's going to point out first of all, If you're going to speak in tongues, it has to be clear. And we know from what we read before, that requires somebody to interpret that. So he's going to start down that path.

So remember again, tongues are unknown languages to the person that God is using. So that's kind of the miraculous thing here. We have a person, we have a believer in the Lord Jesus in that time period, and we saw that in Acts last week when we looked at Acts, that could speak in another language based upon God's will and God's purpose. So that's kind of key in all this.

So also, thus also in your case, unless you utter by tongue speech that is clear. So clear is intelligible, distinguishable, as speech can be easily understood. So if someone speaks in a language you don't understand, then that's going to be unintelligible to you. It may be the most eloquent language.

If I spoke Greek, I know a few words, but I could speak Greek, and I started speaking Greek to you, you say, that's Greek to me, right? I don't understand it. That's where the term is unintelligible. You can't understand it. So it must be clear. We translate that if by means of the tongue, you do not give a word which is clear and definite.

So the first part, then he's going to say, how will that, that's part two, how will it be known what is spoken? And he says, you'll be speaking into the air. So once again, he makes these points kind of over and over. He comes back to the same thing over and over again. And so I would say we're to understand this and believe that and trust that God knows what he's talking about here. How will it be that that which is spoken is understood? For you're speaking into the air.

I noticed that this idea of in the air is used in a in other places in Scripture. Let's look at 1 Corinthians 9. Let's go back to chapter 9 for a second. And in 9.26, I'll just go ahead and read that. In 9.26, he gives an analogy, not the same analogy that we have here, but he uses the idea about beating the air. It says, therefore, verse 26, 9.26, 1 Corinthians. Therefore I run in such a way as not without aim, I box in such a way as not beating the air. So that seems to be a term that Paul will use occasionally, and he uses it in this case.

So you're not just speaking into the air. I'm not speaking this unknown language into the air. He wants it to be clear and precise and known. And then McCauley kind of says, once again Paul notes that that even an understandable language can communicate nothing to the one who does not know the language. So it can be a perfectly beautiful language, but you have to know the language to communicate something.

And he's going to continue to do that, talk about how the primary focus is for edification of the body of believers. If we have meetings and gatherings where nobody can understand what's being said, it's kind of a waste of time to gather. So edification of the body is primary here. So now I'm going to go into a little bit of a digression here.

There are perhaps a great many kinds of languages in the world, and no kind without meaning. So actually it's voices. There are a great many languages or voices in the world, and no without meaning, or actually the word is significance in the original. So I didn't do a whole lot with these verses, this section here. So many kinds of voices. it may be existing in the world, not one is without a particular significance.

And we're going to see a little bit here where I come up with this word barbarian, which is coming up in the next part here, which is kind of cool. So in verse 11, if I then do not know the meaning of a language, I will be to the one one who speaks a barbarian and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me. So let's just stop for a second. Looking a little bit and I listen to what others have said.

The word barbarian is the idea of one who speaks in a rude or harsh way And actually it's this idea, if you're familiar with, I have it right here, yeah, it's a onomatopoeia, sounds kind of like I'm really clever here, but it's the idea that if, let's see if I can give an example.

Well, it actually kind of, in this case, the sound of the word, it came from the fact that the Greeks, when they came to another culture, they heard them speaking in something which to them was just Baba, Baba, Baba. So that came over to a word called barbarian. So it's the Baba thing they heard in their ears. So onomatopoeia is the idea that the word, the sound of it is in the spelling or the description of the word.

So we see that actually, what it came to mean was a barbarian was one who there was no mutual understanding. So he takes it two ways. He says, I'll be the one who speaks a barbarian. So I don't understand the barbarian. And then the reverse, the barbarian doesn't understand me. So there's no communication between the barbarian and me.

So that's the example he's using. And Paul uses it other places. Let's look in Romans. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. Yeah, you notice there that the barbarian, if you take that, the wise are the Greeks, right? And the barbarians are the foolish.

So the word has a negative connotation. If you said you're a barbarian, if I say you're a barbarian, even in our culture, you pretty much say, you've insulted me. I'm not going to say that to somebody that I think has understanding and that kind of stuff. So barbarian was one who only could go, bah, bah, bah, bah, that kind of thing. So he makes this point here that we're mutually barbarians to one another if we can't understand what's going on.

So that was kind of what Macaulay has as a preliminary conclusion. So this verse kind of tries to wrap it up into the fact that edification is a focus. So also, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church. So it could be thus also as for yourselves. So this is similar if you have open to 1 Corinthians 14. If you go back to verse 1, back in verse 1, the B part of verse 1 was, Yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.

So if we remember, prophesy is declaring God's word, an understandable Understanding God's Word in an understandable fashion. This is saying, I want to edify the church. Obviously that takes words, hopefully, from God. It's the same kind of idea. People are only edified by an understandable form of God's Word in their culture. If I'm in France, hopefully I'm speaking in French. If I'm in Italy, I speak in Italian, and so on. So it should be understandable by both parties. Otherwise, your communication is going to be hurting there.

So edification, we saw this before, we defined it back in verse 2 last week. It's the idea to build up, the building up of the body, building up of the faith. So Weiss kind of renders this passage, be desiring them, I think in the context spiritual gifts, in order that you may abound in them, spiritual gifts, with a view to building up the local assembly. So, what we saw back from verse 1 last week, verse 1, prophecy, declaring God's word in an understandable fashion, is a primary gift that Paul says, that's a gift, if you're going to be focusing on spiritual gifts, that's the one that you should be focusing on.

These other ones may not edify or cannot edify, especially in tongues without an interpreter. Any questions so far? Now we're going to have this section which is kind of a reiteration of some points we've already made here. Therefore, based on the previous verses, let the one who speaks in a tongue, an unknown language, pray that he may interpret. We saw Let me just jump down to the bottom point here.

We saw that similarly in the fact that in verse 5b from last week, greater is the one who prophesies than the one who speaks in a tongue, unless he interprets so that church may receive edifying. So what we kind of learned last week, it was possible, which seems kind of, I had never thought of this until I really got into this passage that we talked about last week.

A person may supernaturally speak in a tongue. The Holy Spirit may allow him to do that. But then he says here he also ought to pray that he can interpret it too. So there's two kind of gifts going on at the same time. The gift of speaking the unknown language and the gift of interpretation.

And I think that someone pointed out at the end of the class that would Wouldn't that be kind of neat if you knew the language the person spoke and it agreed. That was pointed out to me after the class last week. If you knew French, I spoke to you in French this word, then I interpreted it for you and you knew English as well. You said, wow, that's the same message. That would be kind of cool. And that's kind of what's being said in 5b there.

That if you're going to speak in a tongue, pray that you can interpret it. Otherwise, you have to depend upon somebody else in the body that the Lord is leading to interpret that. Remember, this is all in the context of the Corinthian church there. And I think there's ample reason to believe that gift is not enforced today. So let's go back to interpret.

It's the idea to translate, which we kind of already talked about. But it's interesting, the translation seemed to be, since you didn't understand the language, that was supernatural. the fact that you're praying to interpret it. That was a supernatural. It wasn't like that you had learned that language on the side and then you would say, well, okay, the Lord's going to speak through me.

You don't know it. That's the whole premise in all this. You do not know that what you're, the tongue you're speaking in. Margaret? So my question is, you know, when you hear people talk about in their church, they speak in tongues and then these other people interpret. That's not what that's saying here.

It's saying that the same person who's speaking in the tongue. Exactly. Exactly. So it's not some other person who has that gift separate from this, who then interprets and can say anything they want about what this guy's saying. That's a good point. I mean, you know, that was interesting. I've never had... Well, actually, I haven't picked up on that either.

In fact, at first I thought, I'm not understanding this right, because it was saying, But the more I looked at it and the more I tried to understand it, it's actually two separate miraculous things happening. You don't know the language and then the Lord gives you it in your own language so you can speak it so the body can be edified.

And that's different than like you say. But that gift of interpretation is one of the gifts of the list of gifts we covered back in 12. That's one of the gifts, the gift of interpretation. That's a valid gift. But in a body, if you're speaking an unknown language, you have to depend upon If it's not you, it's got to be somebody else out there. And it's all kind of hit and miss. And he says, Paul's saying, don't go there. You know, I can speak in all kinds. But let's speak in a language we can understand. I want to edify the body of believers.

He just keeps hammering that over and over and over again. Tom, you had something you wanted to say? Well, it's kind of amazing because this harks clear back to an instance in the Old Testament where Balaam's music He wasn't willing to listen, but he went ahead and took out his anchor and was ready to shoot. Maybe because he had a gun, he shot the tip of our mule. If your mule interpreted it for you, go ahead.

In 1210, it does clarify that to another one, their interpretation may come. So it's not necessarily that every time, if you were to speak in tongues, there would have to be you as an interpretation. But it's an important thing. What's the purpose of tongues when it shows up in the New Testament? We see it in Acts in chapter 2 and then in chapter 9. Well, Acts chapter 2 is where we see the first occurrence.

Luke goes to the Gentiles, right? Or Peter goes to the Gentiles, right? And yeah, so what happens is they speak in tongues and they're known in other languages. And so that's the interpretation is only for the rest of the body to get what's going on, the outcome is supposed to be a presentation of the gospel, at least in the documented cases.

Let's turn to Acts chapter 2. In that passage, we read that last week, that's the first occurrence of tongues in scripture, even though it talks about In the Old Testament, it looks forward to that. But in the New Testament, in Acts chapter 2, on the day of Pentecost, it talks about verse 4.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. This is Acts 2 verse 4. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. and how there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and were bewildered because they were where each one hearing them speak in their own language.

And then it goes on and tells you who all these people are. We've got the Parthenons, the Medes, the Edomites. It names all these different people groups. I assume they have different language or dialects. So they all were hearing it in their own language.

So that's the miraculous gift that apparently the church in Corinth, that still was available to believers and still was being done, but was being misused. Even though it was available, they were misusing it. You can see what happens. People love spectacular things. That's what the Jews want. They want miracles. They want Christ. Do some more miracles, Christ. Come on. Everybody wants to see this flashy stuff.

I'm afraid with fallen nature, we all fall into that pattern. Whereas what Paul is pointing out over and over again, let's get God's message out that He is providing to us. I remember the P.T. Barnum incident. he put a sign over this area that turned out to be the way out from the circus, the exit, this way to the entrance, as if that was an additional attraction. At some point, people would kind of get tired of having to listen to it one at a time, trying to do it right.

So this miracle was necessary. Bob, you had something? Yeah, a question. If I'm going to speak in Hebrew, I must understand what I'm saying. Well no, actually that's not the case. Actually, if you look back, in fact we have to go back, listen to last week.

What you come away with, and actually I didn't have it as clear as studying through this time. What the miraculous gift was, you spoke in a language that you did not know. So you did not know, and actually we're going to see that shortly. You spoke in a language that you did not know what you were speaking.

You're speaking The Lord would use you as a vessel and you would speak in whatever language these people needed to hear so you would not know their language. And that's why down here it says pray that you might be able to interpret it because you don't know what you're speaking. But maybe in fact what you were doing is in your head praying you're speaking your language. I see what you're saying. as because the Lord is doing that.

And it's actually coming out in the other language. It's not just babble. But verse 14 says, if I pray in another tongue, another language, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. So it would imply that you've got to have an understanding. Well, let's wait till we get there. Actually, we're going to get there.

But so the message that goes out, this could be a message that is interpreted by another believer than to present to the unsaved? Okay, we'll cover this context, but to your point, what I understand from studying it last week, the first part of the first eight verses in 14, is that the person that speaks does not know the language.

And that's a miraculous, just like we read in Acts 2.14, he does not know it. Maybe you hear it in your head in English, but you speak it in Chinese or whatever it is. So then the question is, if Paul hammers this hard, you've got to have an interpreter. Otherwise, it's a barbaric situation. You're making sounds that nobody understands.

But Paul's going to cover a case here where he's going to talk about the value of praying. Anyway, I don't want to get into that too much. He's going to discuss some other situations in that whole arena. But let's just leave it at that. Let's go on to 13 here. So now we're going to 13. And this is not an easy example. I was looking for one conclusion in this example, but it gives a different conclusion.

It says, for if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. So let's just take that first part. So what I would take away from that, if my spirit is praying, the Holy Spirit is getting the message out, so it's coming from me, but the Holy Spirit is using me as a vessel. But my mind is not, because he doesn't know the language. So this would kind of contradict your idea, Margaret, because this would say he knew the message. So this says, in this case, he doesn't know the message.

But then, unfruitful is that there's no fruit, unprofitable, bad fruit. The examples I had there were like in Jude there, it talked about things without fruit, unfruitful, and then there's unfruitful deeds of darkness here. So my intellect confers no benefit upon others. So verse 14 basically says, my spirit prays, so the Holy Spirit is using that, but then he comes around the corner and he says, what is the outcome?

That bothered me a little bit, because I thought it might be closer than what is to be done. If you're going to pray, does God want mindless prayer? Does He want you to do a mantra? People do mantras, and after about a minute of a mantra, I doubt if your mind is engaged much. I don't know, whatever you're doing.

You've heard people do that. How about chanting? How about singing? He's going to use praying and singing. He's going to say here, that just making the sound of that, your mind has to be doing something. If your mind is not engaged in your prayer and in your singing, then why do it?

So he makes that case, and that's the case right here he's going to make. He says, I will pray by means of the Spirit, that's what the with means in the original, by means of the Spirit, I will pray with my mind also, with my intellect. So he's saying, the way you want to pray is you don't want to pray in a tongue you don't know. So praying in tongues, he's kind of putting down praying in tongues. He says, I want to pray with my intellect. I want to have my mind engaged. If it's not engaged, and then he's going to use singing. I will sing with my means of the spirit. I will sing with the aid of my intellect. So he wants us to sing and pray with our minds engaged.

If they're not engaged, So I found this difficult, because you start off with verse 14, and I think it's going to go one direction, but then it comes around and says, well, I'm going to present to you the case of what you ought to be doing. And that's the way I take it. Otherwise, it's going to be very difficult to interpret this. Go ahead.

The idea of your mind being unfruitful is actually really important, because I think it's reflective of the purpose of our being created in God's image. God created us as not just emotional beings but intellectual beings. He created us to think and observe and look at his creation and look at what he's doing and to teach us and instruct us and develop us. That requires our review of what is true. That requires our engaging of our minds. And the idea that you would pray and have it be unfruitful, and you would be promoting. Here's this church, there's someone in the church, at least one person, promoting, turn your brain off.

And what does the flesh do with a mind turned off? It goes into instinct mode, or... Who knows where it goes? Probably none of the good. To compliment that, Randy, I think to go into this space with the mind only is fruitless too. Well, yeah, I mean, We don't turn our minds off, but the prayer is an essential component. You might as well be engaged on communication with the intellect through the Holy Spirit to the right hand of God. This is all still tied back to the body. This is going back to chapter 12 and the previous chapters where the body is so critical If I go up to Bob and I just look at him blankly, that's not a really fruitful use of Bob's time, or my time, and he might think, well, maybe he might need some help.

No, we need to talk privately. But imagine that's the context. Someone in the church is actually promoting this long, body-oriented... Well, they're promoting speaking in this thing, and nobody knows what it is, but it sounds really... I'm really spiritual, but I can speak in this thing, and you don't know what it is.

Well, what value is that? There's no value in that. 15 is the ideal case. This is where you want to be. You want to pray and your mind must be engaged. He doesn't want mindless prayer. He doesn't want mindless singing. That really reinforces why we nitpick every song. We go in there and we say, nope, that word doesn't fit. That's not scriptural. We cross that word out. We drop that verse. Maybe you think we overdo it here sometimes, but we cross that word. We're not totally complete. There are times, and I know Randy, we go through that and we cross, no, not that word, not that verse.

It doesn't communicate what God's saying. We tried very much to communicate in song what God has said. So this is really pretty cool. Prayer and song, the intellect have to be involved. Otherwise, it's not going to be fruitful. This is a rabbit trail, but it's a short, very contextually relevant rabbit trail.

If you pray with your mind, and you're praying, there is an engagement there inside the body. there is edification. If we just see the music as a musical construct and not a teaching construct, then we miss part of the point of what he's saying. He's like, listen, I sing and I'm singing and I have to engage my mind because the words mean something. This morning, some of the songs that I picked were specifically because of the words, not the melody. The music is only a piece of what's going on. Right, that's good. That's excellent. If you wanted a validation that music in the body is to involve the intellect, this is a great verse to point to. That's great, Randy. That's really great.

Now he's going to give an example. He's going to say, if you don't pray with your mind and intellect, and sing with your mind and intellect, then otherwise, he's going to give an example here, which is a little tough example. Otherwise, if you bless in the Spirit only, so you bless and the Holy Spirit understands it, but you don't understand it. How will the one who fills the place of the ungifted say amen at your giving of thanks? That's a toughie. I like this version of it.

How is it possible for the one who occupies the position of the unlearned, so this is a person that doesn't know the Lord possibly, He's unfit to say amen. You can't say amen. If Randy says something in German, I can't say I agree with him, because I don't know what it means. But if he says it in English, I can say, amen, Randy, right on.

So I think that's what's being said here. Since he does not know what you're saying. Paul's pretty basic here. You've got to know what the person's saying if you're going to communicate stuff here. Before you're giving thanks well enough, But the person is not edified or built up.

So Paul once again, he wants the body of believers, he wants you person to be edified, to be built up in the faith. Okay, actually we zipped through that a little quicker than I wanted to. Sure, go ahead, we have a little bit of time. If we look at the spiritual gifts, and Paul is kind of building up to 17 and then restating some things in 18 and 19, That function of edification is really, if we look at his other letters, for example, Colossians 5, 18-20, where he's talking about submission and singing to one another songs, spiritual songs. The purpose of our coming together should be edification.

Exactly. One thing I missed last week, I'm sorry I was on my anniversary trip and I haven't had a chance to catch up on the lessons. Did you talk about the character of communication? How there's multiple parties, what needs to go on? Well, I probably didn't cover that. Go ahead. Well, communication requires two engaged people. You go to listen and you're actually hearing and taking in rather than hearing to formulate a counter-statement. That's a totally different kind of listening and communication and engagement.

Edification should mean that when I'm, if I'm speaking something useful, which is not always the case, that you're hearing it and you're taking it in and you're listening and it's probably going to stir in you some things to think about that the Holy Spirit is, he may have convicted me of some truth that I need to share with you. But if you're not listening, That's not edifying, right? And if the words aren't clear, that's not edifying.

Because you can't take it, you can't chew on it, you can't meditate on it, and seek the Lord on it, and study the Word, and say, is what Randy said a lie now? Is this heretical? As an under-teacher at Holly Hills, there's been a few times when you've had to correct me, and correct my doctrine. And then I had to go back and tell, hey, this is not right, I have misinterpreted this, or whatever.

But if you weren't listening, that couldn't happen. The correction of the doctrine, the correction of teaching. But it requires both people engaged. And I think that's part of Paul's point of view. That's good. That's good. Two parties. That's great. That's great. I like that. OK. Let me just see here. There's something I wanted to point out. OK. Let's just go back here just for a second. Sorry. Back here.

I was thinking about the fact, just trying to understand, pray by means of the Spirit. I was trying to not be focused so much on the spiritual gift situation, but Scripture talks about where to pray to the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus. by means of the Holy Spirit.

Actually, if you look in Jude, it talks about the fact that we are to be praying in the Holy Spirit. And then in Romans, it talks about the fact that the Holy Spirit comes alongside with groanings too deep for words. So the Holy Spirit is intimately involved in our prayer life. But what's cool about this is, so that's one level, but our mind is to be engaged in our prayer life too. So that's the other part of that. The Holy Spirit works in us as we pray to the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus and he takes and he with growings to defrost he's involved in our prayer life but our intellect is being involved in that too.

It's not like you say well I'm just going to turn it over to you. You don't think through what you're praying about. Well should I be praying about you know here's something that's always difficult should I pray that every person in the body gets well? I mean that's a temptation and I probably most cases I do because I don't know how else I don't know enough about the situation to pray otherwise but maybe The Lord has a different idea.

Maybe that difficulty may be for his purpose. We don't know that. We pray with the understanding we have, so our intellect is involved in that. But the Holy Spirit has his plans and God has his plans and his purpose. Praying with our intellect is important and we should do that. We shouldn't not pray with our intellect.

Tom? Roger, is prayer for those in whom we're praying or is it prayer to conform us to the image of God? It's both. I think it's communication. day in and day out, 24-7, right? And that prayer is really conforming us to the Lord Jesus Christ who prayed constantly. Interaction with the Father was consistent. And that doesn't mean that our prayer for others goes in vain, but I think this earthly life is temporizing.

Kim and Jim lived near the coast in Jacksonville. I didn't think about that. They had gone and there was concern on everybody's part. It was a great bonding of every member of the family trying to communicate with them. At times it was difficult. But they came out able to communicate. So anyway, did God spare them because we prayed for them?

I don't think so. I think God allows the natural consequences of this world play out. But all her siblings and Margaret and I were praying for her. I don't want to get too into this now. Randy's right, it's for both. We're called to prayer and our intellect gets involved. That's exactly what you're talking about. It's not one or the other. It's both. It's both. Both have to be involved.

But what's interesting, our intellect, our gut feel, which is, I want my children safe. There's no parent on this earth, I hope, that doesn't want that. Hopefully there's not. I want my children safe. So you're going to pray with your intellect for your children to be safe.

But as believers in an omniscient God who knows I said, well Lord, maybe you understand something I don't understand. You have to be willing to allow things to fail. And that's a tough area. That's one of the toughest areas. When things don't go the way you prayed, Do you get angry with God? Do you get upset with God that it didn't go?

Some people do. Some people do. And I wouldn't say that I haven't been there. I've been in that position. But then I find I come back around and think, well, let me think about this for a moment. I kind of go talk to myself a bit. And I think, well, wait a minute. Who am I as a creature to say this shouldn't have happened? And that's the difficulty. When we go through difficult times, we say, Wait a minute, who's really in control? Who created me? Who knew me in my mother's womb? You need to get that prospect right. So the intellect and the spirit, that's a wonderful thing, pretty much a mystery. We do have glimpses into that. So the last two verses here.

I thank God I speak in tongues more than you all. However, in the church I desire to speak five words with my mind. So this is a similar thing he talked about. I wish that you all spoke in tongues. He does say that tongues can be valuable. And he does say that he does speak in tongues. But he constantly gives, but oh by the way, Don't forget that edification or instruction is the main thing.

However, in the church, in the assembly, in strong contrast, I desire to speak five words of my mind. Mind is a seat of perception, understanding, And that Luke passage is the one where the Lord was walking with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and he opened their minds. That's the word that's used here. So that I may instruct others also, with a purpose set, to instruct us to teach. It's preaching. It can be preaching. And it's used in Galatians there a couple times. Let's just look at Galatians just real quick. Galatians chapter 6, 6, 6.

And let the one who is taught... Actually this word for instruct occurs twice. It's translated taught or teach. Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with him who teaches. Okay. McCulloch points out that the word instruct is the word catechism. It refers to the instruction presented in an orderly and categorical manner. So that's what Paul is all about.

Our instruction to the body of believers needs to be orderly, categorical, and needs to be line upon line, precept upon precept. than 10,000 words in a tongue. So once again, this makes a super strong case for, yes tongues are there, yes they can accomplish certain things, but be careful. Our focus needs to be on clearly presenting God's word.

So Roger again, is 19 then in contradiction to 13? What he implies to me is these 10,000 words he has no comprehension of. He's making a case that it would seem like those 10,000 words had no value because those five words had tremendous value. These 10,000 words, he's implying they haven't been interpreted. So you can babble on with 10,000 words and people can be amazed and astounded. that you're speaking in some language that no one understands, but five clear words of understanding are far more important than 10,000 words.

Now 13 implies that there's some understanding to what's being communicated. Is that because someone on the other end is... Well Bob, the key thing on 13 is that he may interpret. See 13 says, Therefore, let the one who speaks that tongue pray that he may interpret." So there can be value if it's interpreted. But there's got to be an interpreter. And I kind of gather that interpreters were sparse. That's kind of me talking. Looking at the context, interpreters were sparse.

Because he wouldn't be making this point over and over again if they were getting interpreted consistently. He would say, this body is really doing what the Lord has said they're interpreting so the body can understand. Apparently we're not doing that. Randy had something he wanted to...

Sure, well, if the purpose of tongues is evangelism, and you're within a body of believers, evangelism is pretty low value. I say that carefully, I don't mean to be belittling to evangelism, but often in a body of believers, we're body believers. If you ran your mouth for 10,000 words, If he had spoken five valuable words, everyone's edified. Edify, building up the body, edification. If you come away with anything else from this first part of 14 is edification is primary. He wants to edify the body with five words over 10,000 words of a tongue.

So the purpose, total purpose of the tongues was to evangelize. That's the examples we have. The whole purpose of them was to, as Randy said, if you're talking to a group of believers, the speaking in tongues was pretty much worthless because that's not what they needed to hear. They needed to hear these five other words that were more geared to believers, to teaching them the truth, or whatever.

I've been there shortly after coming to Denver. Sharon and I went to a Baptist church, mostly for the school system, and let me tell you, every week, getting saved was what was preached. Right, and you see that pattern, unfortunately, in a lot of churches.

They get as far as the gospel, and they stay right there, and they don't show people how to grow in the Lord Jesus, how to mature in the Lord Jesus. And people are constantly coming up to the altar to confess their sins because they've fallen short, which they're going to. We know they're going to. So they're going to come back again and confess their sins. It's a cycle. It's sad. It's a sad situation, really. Tom? It's kind of like a rower heading into a World Series. What's better to watch five well-hit home runs than 10,000-pile balls?

That's a practical example I hadn't thought of. okay so anything else so I actually you're gonna see we're gonna carry on I forgot who teaches next week but is it you Bobby so it's going to carry on my first But you have to think, Paul has delivered a lot of real estate, pointing out the deficiency of tongues.

And it is actually pretty amazing that we even have that issue now. It seems like with this much teaching, if they really did it right, we wouldn't have that problem. We would say, well Paul said back in the early church, he said, five words versus 10,000, why are we messing around with this? Why are we fooling around with it? I don't know. The thing we learn about history is we don't learn from history right there.

Thank you Father. Thank you so much Lord for this day. Thank you for your clear teaching about tongues Lord. We pray that we would Just understand that your goal is to edify us, to build us up in our Savior. We thank you for that. We ask it in His name. Amen.