Saturday 2/12/05 1Cor 12-14

[moonkat]

1 Corinthians 12-14

any thoughts?

[imported__neil]

Sometimes I wonder if the teaching on tongues in the following verses is widely appreciated.

1 Cor 14:16-17
If you are praising God with your spirit [i.e. in a tongue], how can one who finds himself among those who do not understand say "Amen" to your thanksgiving, since he does not know what you are saying? You may be giving thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified.

1 Cor 14:27-28
If anyone speaks in a tongue, two ? or at the most three ? should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.

From 1 Cor 14 I discern three uses for tongues: a "prayer tongue" used in private to God (which the person should pray to understand); a "church tongue" which gets interpreted for the edification of others present; a "sign tongue" for persuasion of unbelievers.

In the case of the "church tongue", how would one know before speaking that an interpretation would necessarily follow? The Spirit would have to be driving and coordinating both the speaker and the interpreter, and so a genuine manifestation of this should really shake everyone up. It may be, however, that often it is rather the "prayer tongue" that gets heard in groups, which the above verses define as disorderly. That's just my opinion.

Neil