So you see that speaking in tongues is a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers. Prophecy, however, is for the benefit of believers, not unbelievers. Even so, if unbelievers or people who don’t understand these things come into your church meeting and hear everyone speaking in an unknown language, they will think you are crazy. But if all of you are prophesying, and unbelievers or people who don’t understand these things come into your meeting, they will be convicted of sin and judged by what you say. As they listen, their secret thoughts will be exposed, and they will fall to their knees and worship God, declaring, “God is truly here among you.”
1 Corinthians 14:22-25
What on earth is going on here? This too is a difficult passage and the subject of much debate. Paul seems to contradict himself in these verses. His opening statement in verse 22 says tongues is a sign for unbelievers; prophecy is for believers. But then in the subsequent verses he appears to argue the opposite. Has Paul lost it? J.B. Phillips thought so when he translated verse 22 as follows:
That means that tongues are a sign of God’s power, not for those who are unbelievers but to those who already believe*. Preaching the word of God, on the other hand, is a sign of God’s power to those who do not believe rather than to believers.
1 Corinthians 14:22, (J B Phillips Version)
* Footnote: This is the sole instance of the translator’s departing from the accepted text. He felt bound to conclude, from the sense of the next three verses, that we have either a slip of the pen on the part of Paul, or, more probably a copyist’s error.
This is the exact opposite of what the Greek text says. There is no evidence or reason to provide a basis for Phillips doing this. But he did it anyway to try to make the passage make sense as he saw it. He must have assumed there had been a mistake in the original text. This is a knotty problem. One that many commentators stay away from as there seems to be no clear answer or insights to offer on this issue. I told you when we started this difficult section of Corinthians (Bible Gem 413) that I figured I must be a fool because I know I am not an angel. I am going to put forward my suggestion for solving this problem. THIS I SAY NOT THE LORD. Take it at face value for what it is worth.
I think most have missed the fact that Paul has connected this passage to Isaiah 28:10 with a Midrash, a veiled connection to the seeming nonsense saying of Isaiah 28:10. I think Paul intends to convey to the Corinthians both the notion of tongues and the “nonsense saying” of Isaiah as well as the notion of judgement on foolish unbelieving believers. An unbeliever isn’t just someone who is not a follower of Christ. There are unbelievers among the believers. Isn’t it possible that Paul is deliberately compounding and confounding the issue because of the nonsense going on in Corinth which was similar to the nonsense going on in Isaiah’s time. Therefore Paul alludes to the nonsense saying in much the same way Isaiah used it to grab the attention of the leaders of Israel who consistently and wilfully refused to “trust in quiet and rest”.
Note how Paul bridges between his quote from Isaiah and what follows. Isaiah adds “…BUT EVEN THEN they will not listen to me, says the LORD.” (NIV)
Paul says “EVEN SO, if unbelievers or people who don’t understand these things come into your church meeting and hear everyone speaking in an unknown language, they will think you are crazy.”
It is like Paul is saying based on the experience and quote from Isaiah – Yes tongues are for unbelievers (a là Isaiah) Prophecy is for believers. But EVEN SO, but EVEN THOUGH THAT MAY BE TRUE, there is a sense in which the opposite is true. I don’t imagine Paul with his mind for one nano-second getting confused and losing the thread of what he is saying. I imagine Tertius his amanuensis (scribe) drawing his attention to the seeming contradiction and Paul saying “No Tertius. Let it stand. I want them to see that even though that is how it normally is, in this case it is the reverse. Hence his use of “even so”. Even though that may supposedly be true, what about this scenario?
Think deeply on this people (you Corinthians) because there are those among you who are just like the leaders of Israel of old. You are confused like children, supposing you know the truth but actually totally missing it in your ignorance. Yes tongues is a sign for unbelievers in the sense that the bulk of people will not believe. Believers and unbelievers unlike. Believing or not believing occurs irrespective or whether one is a Christian or not. Christians too can be unbelieving.
Allow me to share one little story with you and I will stop for today and close this discussion tomorrow with some concluding comments. While in a church in Auckland some years ago I have an interesting discussion with a leader in the church. We had experienced what I thought was a more typical charismatic approach to the gifts of the Spirit. We had had a time of praise and worship, followed by a time of the expression of the gifts, tongues and interpretation of tongues in that instance. It could almost be predictable because it happened after a time of “singing in the spirit”. Actually I felt like singing in the spirit after we had sung Amazing Grace earlier in the service. But it seemed like the worship leader had another plan and the time for singing in the spirit was planned later. I may well have been wrong but that is how if felt it in my spirit – that the timing of everything and “tongues” was contrived. The interpretation that followed was like this “I the Lord would say to you my people I lovest thee with a deep love. Oh how I lovest thee my people. Rest in my learn to know the dimensions of my love and soak yourself in it.” I don’t remember it now, I am making the above “quote” up. But something like that.
After the service one of the leaders came to me and said “Hi Ian, wow wasn’t that a great service. The Lord really spoke to us, didn’t He?”
I was feeling a dissonance in my spirit because I felt we had been manipulated to “sing in the spirit” at the time the worship leader had pre-planned it and we had not been sensitive to do it earlier at the end of Amazing Grace. I said to him “so you think that was a great service do you?”
He went on the defensive, and said “Yes, you know, there was a time of singing in tongues and the Lord spoke to us through the Word of interpretation.
”I said “so the Lord spoke to us, did He?”
He got even more defensive and told me “You believe in the gift of tongues Ian and interpretation, don’t you?”
I said “Yes I do. So that was a word from the Lord was it?” He said “Yes”.
I said “If that was word from the Lord what did He say?”
I waited for him to answer. His answer after a long pause “Well love and all that.”
I rest my case. My point is sometimes we get so tied up in our rituals, or playing church, our waiting on the Lord for words, but if we really believed He had spoken to us we ought to be hanging on every word He said.
Isn’t that what Isaiah and Paul are doing with their very clever way of drawing the people’s attention to the problem. Are we really BELIEVING or are we just “believing”? Go ponder it.
Experience is that thing you have just after you need it.
Anon
Sometimes your small encounters are God-encounters that take place when you’re busy with other things or on your way to somewhere else.
Anon