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Prophecy and Tongues

Pursuing What Is Better (14:1–19)

Reflections on the Nature of Several of the χαρίσματα (charismata)

Kinds of Tongues and Interpretation of Tongues (12:10, 29, 30)

Apostles (12:28)

Teachers (12:28)

Prophecy and Prophets (12:10, 28, 29)

The Superiority of Prophecy over Tongues (14:1–19)

The Potential of a χάρισμα (charisma) for Building the Church (14:1–5a)

Edification Depends on Intelligibility of Tongues (14:6–12)

I WANT TO USE the majority of my space in this chapter to address directly a question I have so far avoided: What precisely are such gifts as prophecy, tongues, and the interpretation of tongues? I intend therefore to explore those questions presently before turning to a summary exposition of the text itself.

Reflections on the Nature of Several of the χαρίσματα (charismata)

Kinds of Tongues and Interpretation of Tongues (12:10, 29, 30)

What does γλώσσαις λαλεῖν (glōssais lalein, to speak in tongues) mean? Discussions of this question are legion. I shall try to simplify the issues by asking and trying to answer the following questions.

Were the tongues in Corinth “ecstatic”? Everything turns on the definition of “ecstatic.” One major work offers this definition: “In ecstasy there is a condition of emotional exaltation, in which the one who experiences it is more or less oblivious of the external world, and loses to some extent his self-consciousness and his power of rational thought and self-control.”1 Most noncharismatics who argue that ecstasy characterizes contemporary speaking in tongues mean something more than this (though usually not less), in particular that the languages spoken by tongues-speakers are not real languages but (in the less graceful books) mere gibberish. Strictly speaking, however, there is no necessary connection between ecstasy and the coherence or incoherence of the “tongue” that is spoken. Indeed, there are three quite discrete issues: whether or not ecstasy is involved, whether the utterance is contentful or not, and whether it is a known, human language. These are three distinct questions. Any one of them can stand independently of the others. Most charismatics avoid applying the term ecstasy to their tongues-speaking; but this is because they do not take the term to describe the intelligibility or otherwise of their “tongue,” but to the psychological state, the degree of dissociation, that they experience. Culpepper writes:

The main reason charismatics object to tongues being called “ecstatic utterance” is that it seems to suggest one has gone “off his rocker” and lost control of oneself. The first meaning which Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1975) assigns to ecstasy is that of “a state of being beyond reason and self-control.” Glossolalists make the point that Paul assumes that the glossolalist can control his or her speech. This, they say, is exactly what they experience. The point is well taken!2

Hollenweger helpfully distinguishes between “hot” tongues (those that are spoken in a state of advanced mental dissociation) from “cool” tongues (those uttered where the speaker has perfect control of his or her utterance and remains mentally alert and cognizant of what is going on, even though he or she cannot understand the sounds coming from his or her own mouth).3 In that sense, hot tongues are ecstatic, cool tongues are not. My perception is that the overwhelming majority of modern tongues-speakers resort to cool tongues; and that is also the self-perception of most tongues-speakers themselves.4 By and large, however, “ecstasy” has become such a slippery term that it is probably better left out of the discussion unless it is thoroughly qualified and all sides in the debate know what is meant.5

Were the tongues at Corinth “real languages,” or something else? To put the matter in technical terms, is the phenomenon of 1 Corinthians an instance of xenoglossia (that is, speaking in unlearned human languages) or glossolalia (that is, speaking in verbal patterns that cannot be identified with any human language)? This is an extraordinarily difficult question to answer convincingly on either side, despite the dogmatic claims made by many proponents on each side. Most contemporary charismatics would be happy with the definition of “tongues” offered by Christensen: “a supernatural manifestation of the Holy Spirit, whereby the believer speaks forth in a language he has never learned, and which he does not understand.”6 This of course simply pushes the question back from the meaning of “tongue” to the meaning of “language.” Probably most charismatics are persuaded their utterances are real languages insofar as they believe they actually convey something: they are the tongues of men or of angels. It is a slightly different question whether they believe they are human languages occurring naturally in the world but unlearned by the tongues-speaker. Increasingly, however, some charismatics and a variety of sympathetic observers of the charismatic movement, spurred on by modern linguistic analyses of tapes of tongues utterances (about which I will say more in a few moments), argue that modern tongues and the tongues in Corinth alike are not so-called real languages at all (for instance, Cardinal Suenens,7 H. Mühlen, who views tongues primarily as a more intense prayer experience in the worship of the inexpressible God,8 and Green, who suggests that some tongues may be real languages and others not9).

One of the strongest defenders of the glossolalist position, over against xenoglossia, is Williams.10 He firmly criticizes those word studies of γλῶσσα (glōssa, tongue) that insist the term, when it does not refer to the wagging organ in one’s mouth, always means real languages. Not only may the word “indicate the physical organ, known languages, dialects or sub-dialects, but also the incoherent utterance of certain forms of spiritual fervency.”11 In any case, he writes, “normal usage is not the only criterion when the subject of investigation is what appears to be a new phonemenon or at least one that is unfamiliar in a particular context. In such cases a term in common currency may be given an extension of connotation and sometimes the new meaning establishes a technical application.”12 Williams is similarly unimpressed with studies that argue the verb to interpret normally means “to translate”—and translation presupposes a real language.13 Williams is far from saying that tongues are entirely devoid of meaning: he means rather that they may be an expression of deep feelings and inarticulate thoughts issuing out of the speaker’s deep experience of the Spirit, but not demonstrably conveyed in propositional terms in the sounds themselves. Whereas many commentators would be reasonably happy with this so far as 1 Corinthians is concerned, they might prefer to see in Acts 2 not glossolalia but xenoglossia. Williams, however, pushes on to consistency, and suggests that even in Acts 2 we are dealing with glossolalia: after all, even glossolalia makes some sounds that could be identified as real words in various languages. How else could it be, Williams wonders, that many of those present accused the believers of being drunk? Would we accuse someone who was speaking in another human language of being drunk?14

Nevertheless, I remain unpersuaded by Williams’s arguments. I shall discuss Acts 2 in the last chapter, but for the moment I must merely register my conviction that what Luke describes at Pentecost are real, known, human languages. More careful word studies have shown that in none of the texts adduced by Behm15 or the standard lexica16 does γλῶσσα (glōssa) ever denote noncognitive utterance.17 The utterance may be enigmatic and incomprehensible, but not noncognitive. The ecstatic utterances of the pagan religions prove less suitable a set of parallels than was once thought.18 Nor is Thiselton entirely convincing when he argues that the verb ἑρμηνεύω (hermēneuō) can be used in Philo and Josephus to mean “to put into words” rather than “to translate”;19 for as Turner has pointed out, in 1 Corinthians it is not simply the verb that one must wrestle with, but the use of the verb in connection with “to speak in (or with) tongues.”20 MacGorman insists that glossolalia in 1 Corinthians is “Holy Spirit inspired utterance that is unintelligible apart from interpretation, itself an attendant gift. It is a form of ecstatic utterance, a valid charismatic endowment.”21 He goes on to affirm that if the modern reader reads real languages into the picture, then verses such as 14:2, 13, 14, 18, 26 degenerate to sheer nonsense. But in fact, not one of them is nonsense, even if the tongue is a real language, provided only that the tongues-speaker does not know what he or she is saying—a point Paul surely presupposes when he exhorts the tongues-speaker to pray for the gift of interpretation, and acknowledges it is possible to pray without the mind (see further discussion, below). Moreover if tongues are principally unintelligible at the intrinsic level until the gift of interpretation is exercised, one wonders in what sense tongues are being “interpreted” at all. Dunn supports the view that the tongues in Corinth were not real human languages, partly on the grounds that the subject matter is “mysteries,” which he understands to be eschatological secrets known only in heaven, and partly on the grounds that if Paul thought the gift of tongues utilized real foreign languages he could not have compared them with real foreign languages in 14:10ff. But “mysteries” in 13:2 are connected with prophecy, not tongues; and the expression all mysteries, as we saw in the last chapter, is purposely wildly hyperbolic, since Paul does not think that we can now enjoy more than partial knowledge. In any case, Paul is capable of expressing heavenly mysteries in Greek: see 1 Corinthians 15:51–52—so there is no necessary connection between mysteries and noncognitive speech. And in 14:10ff., “Paul could be pointing to the obvious consequences in the secular realm of what the Corinthians fail to see in the spiritual, without which others do not understand; Paul points out how close they come to being ridiculed as ‘barbarians’ rather than exalted as ‘spirituals.’”22

Other arguments in favor of taking tongues in 1 Corinthians as noncognitive have been treated elsewhere.23 Perhaps two more should be mentioned here. Smith says that if the tongues are real but unlearned languages, then each instance is an open miracle—and God is in the awkward position of doing miracles through tongues-speakers while simultaneously instructing his apostle to curb them. Therefore these cannot be real tongues, miraculously bestowed.24 But if this argument were applied to other spiritual gifts, we would arrive at nonsense. For instance, Paul curbs excesses in prophecy, which presumably is Spirit-prompted. Smith’s argument seems to suppose that if the tongues are not real languages, then the Spirit of God may not be so intimately involved. Indeed, if Smith’s argument had any real weight, it would be a decisive blow against the notion of a sovereign and providential God; for since all that transpires takes place under the aegis of divine sovereignty (Rom. 8:28), why should God forbid anything that does in fact take place? Possible answers to that question lie elsewhere;25 but certainly Smith’s objection does not rule out real languages.

A second objection concerns the use of the verb λαλεῖν (lalein), “to speak” in tongues. Some have suggested that it here retains an older meaning and hints at babbling, utterance empty of cognitive content. Gundry replies with four telling observations: Paul can also use λέγω (legō) for speaking in tongues, 14:16—and that verb is regularly used for ordinary speech; Paul uses the verb λαλέω (laleō) in 14:19 in connection with speaking with the mind, which seems to embrace intelligible speech, so the verb cannot be restricted to unintelligible speech; Paul also uses this verb in 14:29 of prophetic speech, which like tongues is Spirit-prompted but unlike tongues is immediately intelligible; and the same verb is used in 14:34–35 of a woman asking questions, presumably in her normal language.26

On balance, then, the evidence favors the view that Paul thought the gift of tongues was a gift of real languages, that is, languages that were cognitive, whether of men or of angels. Moreover, if he knew of the details of Pentecost (a currently unpopular opinion in the scholarly world, but in my view eminently defensible), his understanding of tongues must have been shaped to some extent by that event.27 Certainly tongues in Acts exercise some different functions from those in 1 Corinthians; but there is no substantial evidence that suggests Paul thought the two were essentially different.

We have established high probability, I think, that Paul believed the tongues about which he wrote in 1 Corinthians were cognitive.28 But before any sweeping conclusions can be drawn, another question must be brought to bear.

What bearing does the discipline of linguistics have on the assessment of modern tongues? To my knowledge there is universal agreement among linguists who have taped and analyzed thousands of examples of modern tongues-speaking that the contemporary phenomenon is not any human language.29 The patterns and structures that all known human language requires are simply not there. Occasionally a recognizable word slips out; but that is statistically likely, given the sheer quantity of verbalization. Jaquette’s conclusion is unavoidable: “we are dealing here not with language, but with verbalizations which superficially resemble language in certain of its structural aspects.”30 When studies have been made of tongues uttered in different cultures and linguistic environments, several startling conclusions have presented themselves.31 The tongues phenomena have been related to the speaker’s natural language (e.g., a German or French tongues-speaker will not use one of the two English “th” sounds; and English tongues-speakers will never include the “u” sound of French “cru”). Moreover, the stereotypical utterance of any culture “mirrors that of the person who guided the glossolalist into the behavior. There is little variation of sound patterns within the group arising around a particular guide,”32 even though other studies show that the tongues patterns of each speaker are usually identifiable from those of others, and a few tongues-speakers use two or more discrete patterns.33 In any case, modern tongues are lexically uncommunicative, and the few instances of reported modern xenoglossia are so poorly attested that no weight can be laid on them.

What follows from this information? For some, the evidence is so powerful that they conclude the only biblical position is that no known contemporary gift of tongues is biblically valid, and ideally the entire practice should be stopped immediately.34 For others, such as Packer, modern tongues are not like biblical tongues, and therefore contemporary tongues-speakers should not claim that their gift is in line with Pentecost or with Corinth; yet on the other hand the modern phenomenon seems to do more good than harm, it has helped many believers in worship, prayer, and commitment, and therefore should probably be assessed as a good gift from God that nevertheless stands without explicit biblical warrant.35 I cannot think of a better way of displeasing both sides of the current debate.

Can we get beyond this impasse? I think so, if the arguments of Poythress stand up. How, he asks, may tongues be perceived? There are three possibilities: disconnected sounds, ejaculations, and the like that are not confused with human language; connected sequences of sounds that appear to be real languages unknown to the hearer or trained in linguistics, even though they are not; and real language known by one or more of the potential hearers, even if unknown to the speaker.36 I would add a fourth possibility, which was later treated by Poythress though not at this point classified by him: speech patterns sufficiently complex that they may bear all kinds of cognitive information in some coded array, even though linguistically these patterns are not identifiable as human language.

Our problem so far is that the biblical descriptions of tongues seem to demand the third category, but the contemporary phenomena seem to fit better in the second category; and never the twain shall meet. But the fourth category is also logically possible, even though it is regularly overlooked; and it meets the constraints of both the first-century biblical documents and of some of the contemporary phenomena. I do not see how it can be dismissed.

Consider, then, Poythress’s linguistic description of glossolalia:

Free vocalization (glossolalia) occurs when (1) a human being produces a connected sequence of speech sounds, (2) he cannot identify the sound-sequence as belonging to any natural language that he already knows how to speak, (3) he cannot identify and give the meaning of words or morphemes (minimal lexical units), (4) in the case of utterances of more than a few syllables, he typically cannot repeat the same sound-sequence on demand, (5) a naive listener might suppose that it was an unknown language.37

The next step is crucial. Poythress reminds us that such free vocalization may still bear content beyond some vague picture of the speaker’s emotional state. He offers his own amusing illustration;38 I shall manufacture another. Suppose the message is:

“Praise the Lord, for his mercy endures forever.”

Remove the vowels to achieve:

PRS TH LRD FR HS MRC NDRS FRVR.

This may seem a bit strange; but when we remember that modern Hebrew is written without most vowels, we can imagine that with practice this could be read quite smoothly. Now remove the spaces and, beginning with the first letter, rewrite the sequence using every third letter, repeatedly going through the sequence until all the letters are used up. The result is:

PTRRMNSVRHDHRDFRSLFSCRR.

Now add an “a” sound after each consonant, and break up the unit into arbitrary bits:

PATARA RAMA NA SAVARAHA DAHARA DAFARASALA FASA CARARA

I think that is indistinguishable from transcriptions of certain modern tongues. Certainly it is very similar to some I have heard. But the important point is that it conveys information provided you know the code. Anyone who knows the steps I have taken could reverse them in order to retrieve the original message. As Poythress remarks, “thus it is always possible for the charismatic person to claim that T-speech [tongues] is coded language, and that only the interpreter of tongues is given the supernatural ‘key’ for deciphering it. It is impossible not only in practice, but even in theory, for a linguist to devise a means of testing this claim.”39

It appears, then, that tongues may bear cognitive information even though they are not known human languages—just as a computer program is a “language” that conveys a great deal of information, even though it is not a “language” that anyone actually speaks. You have to know the code to be able to understand it. Such a pattern of verbalization could not be legitimately dismissed as gibberish. It is as capable of conveying propositional and cognitive content as any known human language. “Tongue” and “language” still seem eminently reasonable words to describe the phenomenon. This does not mean that all modern tongues phenomena are therefore biblically authentic. It does mean there is a category of linguistic phenomenon that conveys cognitive content, may be interpreted, and seems to meet the constraints of the biblical descriptions, even though it is no known human language. Of course, this will not do for the tongues of Acts 2, where the gift consisted of known human languages; but elsewhere, the alternative is not as simple as “human languages” or “gibberish,” as many noncharismatic writers affirm. Indeed, the fact that Paul can speak of different kinds of tongues (12:10, 28) may suggest that on some occasions human languages were spoken (as in Acts 2), and in other cases not—even though in the latter eventuality the tongues were viewed as bearing cognitive content.

What bearing does the gift of interpretation have on the nature of contemporary tongues? This was addressed in part when the meaning of the verb to interpret was briefly considered, but several other things must be said. The most important is that Paul draws an extremely tight connection between the gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation. If someone wishes to argue that Paul may have used “tongues” or “languages” even though what was spoken was verbalization that bore no cognitive content, Paul’s treatment of the gift of interpretation becomes an immediate barrier. After all, the interpretation issues in intelligible speech, cognitive content; and if it is not in fact a rendering of what was spoken in tongues, then the gift of interpretation is not only misnamed but also must be assessed as undifferentiable from the gift of prophecy. The tight connection Paul presupposes between the content of the tongues and the intelligible result of the gift of interpretation demands that we conclude the tongues in Corinth, as Paul understood them, bore cognitive content.

What about the contemporary gift of interpretation? A few years ago a friend of mine attended a charismatic service and rather cheekily recited some of John 1:1–18 in Greek as his contribution to speaking in tongues. Immediately there was an “interpretation” that bore no relation whatsoever to the Johannine prologue. Two people with the gift of interpretation have on occasion been asked to interpret the same recorded tongues message, and the resulting different and conflicting interpretations have been justified on the grounds that God gives different interpretations to different people.40 That is preposterous, if the interpretations are wildly dissimilar, because it would force us to conclude that there is no univocal, cognitive content to the tongues themselves. I know of no major work that has researched hundreds or thousands of examples; but it could be a very revealing study.

More commonly, at least in my experience, triteness triumphs: “Interpretations prove to be as stereotyped, vague, and uninformative as they are spontaneous, fluent, and confident.”41

This does not prove that there is no valid, modern gift of tongues. But these distortions of interpretation are sufficiently frequent, and the interpretations themselves so commonly pedestrian, that at some point the gift of tongues must, in some cases, also be called into question. The evidence is not comprehensive enough to serve as a universally damning indictment; but it is enough to provide reflective pauses in all thoughtful believers.

In the last chapter, I will reflect further on the bearing of church history and of psychology in assessing the modern tongues movement. At the moment I shall turn to three other gifts.

Apostles (12:28)

There is neither time nor space to treat this subject in a comprehensive fashion; yet something must be said, for quite apart from its intrinsic interest, the subject has a curious relation to the broader questions of spiritual gifts. As long as “apostles” are understood to refer to a select group (the Twelve plus Paul) whose positions or functions cannot be duplicated after their demise, there is a prima facie case for saying at least one of the χαρίσματα (charismata) passes away at the end of the first generation, a gift tightly tied to the locus of revelation that came with Jesus Messiah and related events. Therefore, there is a precedent for asking if there were other spiritual gifts in Paul’s day that cannot be operative in our day. Conversely, once the charismatic movement had rehabilitated all of the other spiritual gifts explicitly mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12–14, it is not surprising that some felt there should be a place for apostles as well. As a result some wings of Pentecostalism do not hesitate to appoint modern apostles.

Certainly Paul does not use the term exclusively in a tightly defined or technical sense. The referent in some passages is disputed: are the apostles in 1 Corinthians 15:7 the Twelve less Judas Iscariot, as I think likely, or a broader group who became, as eyewitnesses of the resurrection, founding missionaries? There are certainly broader uses. Epaphroditus is an “apostle,” a messenger, of a congregation (Phil. 2:25); Paul’s agents to the churches can also be designated “apostles” (2 Cor. 8:22–23). The force of “apostles” in Romans 16:7 is uncertain on several grounds, but may be roughly equivalent to “missionaries” or the like. Moreover, as has often been remarked, “There could not have been false apostles (2 Cor. xi.13) unless the number of Apostles had been indefinite.”42 Certainly the tendency in some branches of modern scholarship is to downplay the uniqueness and authority of those thirteen (the Twelve plus Paul) traditionally referred to as apostles. All recognize that in time these thirteen came to be looked on as a closed circle that served in part as the foundation of the church, a position already reflected (it is argued) in the Epistle to the Ephesians and in the Apocalypse (cf. Eph. 2:20; 3:5; Rev. 21:14). Because some date Ephesians rather late, and Revelation later, naturally there are suspicions that such notions formed no part of the understanding of the original apostles about whom such claims are made. Taking a leaf out of this analysis, some branches of the charismatic movement therefore cluster the kinds of apostles in the New Testament in three groups: Jesus Christ himself, a group of one; the Twelve, unrepeatable and irreplaceable; and Paul and all other apostles—an open-ended group that allows modern equivalents.43 And since it is Paul who is writing 1 Corinthians 12:28, the conclusion is obvious.

This conclusion is nevertheless premature. Dupont has shown that even Acts pictures the missionary and authority status of Paul in the same categories as that of the Twelve;44 and Jervell, likewise bucking the tide, argues that the perspectives of Acts and of the writings of Paul are indistinguishable so far as the apostolic authority of Paul is concerned.45 Too much is made of Paul’s persistent willingness to reason with his churches, to beg them to reform or to take some action, to function as the servant and example. None of this is incompatible with a strong sense of unique, personal, apostolic authority that may (as threatened in 2 Cor. 10–13) regretfully be applied in its full force if the church does not conform to gentler admonitions.46 Indeed, this combination of authority and meekness lies at the heart of all level of Christian leadership; so to pit one against the other, as if the former is called into question by the latter, is to exhibit a very deep misunderstanding.

Of course, the word apostle can extend beyond the Twelve plus Paul; but “Lord” can extend beyond Jesus, “elders” and “deacons” can extend beyond ecclesiastical office/functions, and so forth. The primary reason is obvious: nascent Christianity had to use the vocabulary into which it was born, and its own specialized use of certain terms did not immediately displace the larger semantic range of the terms employed. As a result, attempts to establish what apostleship means for Paul be simply appealing to the full semantic range of the word as it is found in his writings is deeply flawed at the methodological level.47 Only a traditional skepticism will ignore several important strands of evidence: Jesus himself, according to the synoptic Gospels, appointed the Twelve, designated them “apostles,” and gave them certain distinguishing privileges and responsibilities (Luke 6:13); after the resurrection and ascension, these men felt it necessary on biblical grounds to make up their number in the wake of the defection of Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:15–26); Paul saw his own apostleship as on a par with that of the Twelve, so far as immediacy of call, witness to the resurrection, grasp of the gospel, and intrinsic authority were concerned. The only area in which he admitted he was not worthy to be grouped with the others had to do with the lateness of his conversion and call, and that from a context in which he was persecuting the church; but even so, he confessed he had worked harder than all the others (see especially 1 Cor. 9; 1 Cor. 15; Gal. 1–2). There is even a little evidence from Paul’s writings that he recognized the notion of the Twelve sprang from the Lord Jesus himself48—which is in line with the way he viewed his own ministry.

What use of “apostle,” then, do we find in 1 Corinthians 12:28? The revealing word, I think, is “first”; “God has appointed first of all apostles.” If the summary I have just given is cogent, it is hard to imagine why Paul would designate “first” in any sense those who are apostles in some derivative fashion—messengers from the churches, perhaps. It is more likely that he has the narrow scope of “apostles” in mind. If we ask, “First in what sense?” the answer is uncertain. It could be “first in the potential for edifying the church”; but that theme does not assume major proportions until chapter 14. It might be “first in greatness or importance”; but Paul is about to classify greatness in terms of love and edification, not personal pomp or importance. It might be “first in authority in the church”; not only does this theme seem incidental to the flow of 1 Corinthians 12–13, but I shall argue shortly that usually the New Testament treats the authority of the teacher above that of the prophet, even though “prophet” precedes “teacher” in 1 Corinthians 12:28.49 It may simply be “first in chronological appointment”: in historical order, God first appointed apostles, then (New Testament) prophets at Pentecost (about which I shall say more), and then teachers. This seems the most likely interpretation, but in any case, it is clear that the gift of apostleship that Paul mentions in this text is not transferable to persons living in our day. Perhaps that is why it is not apostleship but prophecy that is discussed so centrally in chapter 13. If Paul had wanted to say that tongues cease toward the end of the apostolic age or thereabout, instead of at the parousia, he had a ready-made precedent in the gift of apostleship, already listed as the first appointment in the church. Instead, he links tongues and the gift of knowledge with prophecy, the second appointment in the church, and thereby opens the door to the eschatological argument central to that chapter.

Teachers (12:28)

About this gift I shall say very little. The word used (διδάσκαλος, didaskalos) does not in the New Testament designate a particular office or role—though by contrast it is intrinsic to the office/role of apostle and of “bishop” or “overseer.” “Presumably [teachers] were mature Christians who instructed others in the meaning and moral implications of Christian faith; . . . possibly (as some think) they expounded the Christian meaning of the Old Testament.”50

Prophecy and Prophets (12:10, 28, 29)

The range of phenomena covered by this word group in the first century is enormous.51 But just what was included under the rubric of “prophecy” in the New Testament?

The answers to that question are legion. Sometimes they are formulated less in terms of what prophecy is than of what prophecy does. One commentator, for instance, writes: “Prophesying was the power of seeing and making known the nature and will of God, a gift of insight into the truth and of power in imparting it, and hence a capacity for building up men’s characters, quickening their wills, and encouraging their spirits.”52 That is, of course, true; but since it is cast in terms of function, it could be applied equally to gifted preaching—and elsewhere the same commentators make precisely that connection.53 When Paul says that prophecy is for the “strengthening, encouragement and comfort” (14:3) of the congregation, he does not thereby define prophecy, for exposition, prayer, and teaching might serve the same ends. Further, it is not clear (as Turner points out) that 14:3 provides a necessary criterion of prophecy; for such a view inevitably marginalizes rather arbitrarily such prophecies as those of Agabus (e.g., Acts 21:11).54

There is in fact a sustained tradition that identifies New Testament prophecy with what we today call preaching or expounding Scripture.55 The reasons offered are many. One of the most common is that prophecy in the Old Testament is largely devoted to calls to reform and renewal: it is paraenetic. Therefore paraenetic ministry under the new covenant is also a form of prophecy.56 Logically this connection cannot be made, unless prophecy and paraenesis are so tightly bound together as never to be found separately or in any other linkage—a manifest absurdity. The argument of Ellis—that the exegesis and application of Old Testament texts in the New Testament are sometimes accompanied by a phrase like “says the Lord” and therefore to be treated as prophecy (thereby serving as a model for our exegesis and exposition of Scripture)57—has been shown by Aune to be mistaken.58 Aune points out that the “says the Lord” formula in passages like Romans 12:19, citing Deuteronomy 32:35, does nothing more than identify God as the source of the Old Testament quotation. Moreover, similar application of Scripture in Barnabas is labeled as teaching, not prophecy.

On the other hand, Green forges an absolute disjunction between prophecy and preaching59 (a point to which I shall return in the last chapter). Schlink makes New Testament prophecy and Old Testament prophecy indistinguishable, insisting moreover that the gift continues today; but she does not recognize the inherent dangers in that position:60 that is, once again, the finality of canon is threatened, at least theoretically. Prior, alert to the danger, suggests that at least most of the New Testament prophets enjoyed the same authority status as their Old Testament predecessors; but they died out with the apostles, and any subsequent manifestation of the gift must be subordinate to the canon.61 This position may be theologically safe, but it is difficult to justify exegetically, and it labors under the disadvantage that any subsequent gift of prophecy is rendered unlike the gift of prophecy that was exercised in New Testament times. Whereas many writers in noncharismatic traditions attempt to align prophecy and contemporary preaching, others emphasize the essentially revelatory nature of tongues and prophecy, concerned to argue that revelatory material of any kind must eventually prove a threat to the stability of Christian truth once and for all delivered to the saints and now preserved in the canon.62

This is not the place to analyze each New Testament text that deals with prophecy. Some of the relevant texts lie in the chapter before us, and will be briefly considered in a few minutes, and other studies have laid the necessary groundwork.63 Aune defines prophecy as “a specific form of divination that consists of intelligible verbal messages believed to originate with God and communicated through inspired human intermediaries.”64 Grudem bases his definition of prophecy in Paul on a detailed study of 1 Corinthians 14:29–30: prophecy is the reception and subsequent transmission of spontaneous, divinely originating revelation.65 The verb to prophesy denotes this process. Rather similar is the definition of Panagopoulos.66

But Grudem’s thesis on New Testament prophecy breaks new ground. I am generally sympathetic to it, although I have reservations at two or three critical points. I shall not defend this thesis, as that would be to write a book he has already written, but I shall summarize some of his arguments, indicate my mild dissent now and then, and show how the thesis bears on these chapters.

Grudem seeks to put on a systematic basis what has been suggested by some others, that the prophecy of the New Testament must be distinguished from the prophecy of the Old Testament, especially in its authority status. Some of the reasons include the following.

(1) Adequate definitions of prophecy, like the two previously reported, accept that prophecy presupposes revelation—the prophecy comes from God. But they do not presuppose that each prophecy is in the form of a direct quotation from God, prefaced perhaps by a stern “thus says the Lord”: such instances are rare in the New Testament, and somewhat disputed.67

(2) For Paul, the legitimate heirs and successors of the Old Testament prophets, so far as their authority status was concerned, were not New Testament prophets, but the apostles—“apostles” defined in a fairly narrow way. Here again Grudem expands on a point advanced by others.68 Once a prophet was tested and approved in the Old Testament, God’s people were morally bound to obey him. To disobey such a prophet was to oppose God. If a prophet speaking in the name of God was shown to be in error, the official sanction was death. But once a prophet is acknowledged as true, there is no trace of repeated checks on the content of his oracles. By contrast, New Testament prophets are to have their oracles carefully weighed (14:29; so also 1 Thess. 5:19–21). The word διακρίνω (diakrinō) suggests that the prophecy be evaluated, not simply accepted as totally true or totally false.69 “The presupposition is that any one New Testament prophetic oracle is expected to be mixed in quality, and the wheat must be separated from the chaff.”70 Moreover, there is no hint of excommunication as the threatened sanction if the prophet occasionally does not live up to the mark. More importantly, Paul places the authority of Christian prophets under his own (14:37–38); and to contravene apostolic authority may eventually bring enormous threat (see 1 Cor. 4:21; 2 Cor. 10:11; 13:1–10; 1 Tim. 1:20).71 There is even evidence, albeit disputed, that Paul’s self-consciousness as an apostle has close similarities to the self-consciousness of the Old Testament prophets.

These exegetical observations undermine the criticism of Gaffin, who against Grudem insists that the evaluation in view is not of the prophecy but of the prophet, or rather of the prophecy in order to pass judgment on the prophet himself—exactly as in the Old Testament:

The distinguishing or discrimination required functions to determine the source of an alleged prophecy, whether or not it is genuine, whether it is from the Holy Spirit or some other spirit; it does not sift worthwhile elements presumably based on a revelation from those that are not. Perhaps also included is an interpretive function, assessing in some way the significance of the prophecy for the congregation. . . . What also needs to be grasped is that in the case of genuine prophecies, the need for evaluation does not show that they lack the full authority of God’s Word. Rather, this evaluation is of a piece with the positive proving, the affirmative testing Paul the apostle commands for his own teaching.72

This is rather more assertion than argument, and it flies in the face of too much of the evidence. If Gaffin is right, why is the authority of the prophets at Corinth so emphatically placed under his own (14:37–38, a point to be emphasized in the next chapter)? Why is it the prophecy that is to be judged, and this with a tone that suggests normal operating procedure? If Paul wanted to make the point Gaffin detects, why did he not use the verb κρίνω (krinō) instead of the verb διακρίνω (diakrinō, weigh)?

(3) The New Testament does not see prophets as the solution to the problem of apostolic succession. The silence is startling. If the gift of prophecy was regarded as the equivalent in authority to that of Old Testament prophecy, and if it persisted throughout the New Testament era right into the midpatristic period, why, once the apostles had died, were the prophets not presented as the church’s bastion against false teaching, its source of light and information in the face of uncertainty? In fact, the latest epistles in the New Testament sound a different note. The emphasis is “Guard the deposit! Keep the faith once delivered to the saints! Return to what was from the beginning!” (2 Tim.; Jude; 1 John respectively). One must either conclude that the prophets died with the apostles—a conclusion so totally at variance with the early Fathers it must be instantly rejected—or that the prophets of the new covenant never enjoyed the authority status of the apostles (in the narrow sense of that term).

(4) Although New Testament prophets apparently spoke on a variety of topics, there is little evidence that they enjoyed the clout in the church that either the apostles demanded in the church or the writing prophets demanded in Israel and Judah. I do not mean that Old Testament prophets were universally revered and uncontested, nor that New Testament apostles were never opposed, maligned, or slighted by Christians. Quite the reverse: it is precisely because of the public status and high claims to authority that there were such polarized reactions. But New Testament prophecy, by contrast with that of the Old, cuts a very low profile. The Thessalonians actually have to be told not to treat prophecies with contempt (1 Thess. 5:20); and in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul has to advance the cause of prophecy above the cause of tongues. There are only two passages in the Pauline correspondence where prophets stand in more exalted company, Ephesians 2:20 and 3:5. The former is crucial: the church, we are told, is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. In an extended treatment, Grudem argues that the construction means “the apostles who are prophets”;73 certainly the New Testament writers sometimes view the apostles as prophets (see 1 Cor. 13:9; 14:6; and possibly Rev. 1:3, if the traditional authorship is correct). There are difficulties with his view that he himself acknowledges; but his lengthy discussion demonstrates, at the least, how complex is the detailed exegesis of that verse, and how cautious our deductions should be under any interpretation of it. If we conclude, against Grudem, that the “prophets” in question here enjoy a role with the apostles in providing the revelatory foundation for Christianity (although that is not quite what is said), we must hasten to admit that this is an anomalous use of “prophets” in the New Testament. It is as illegitimate for Gaffin74 to use this verse as the controlling factor in his understanding of the New Testament gift of prophecy as it would be to conclude from Titus 1:12 (“Even one of their own prophets has said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons’”) that New Testament prophets were pagan poets from Crete.

(5) There are instances of prophecies in Acts that are viewed as genuinely from God yet having something less than the authority status of an Old Testament prophecy. Perhaps most startling is Acts 21:4 where certain disciples “by means of the Spirit”—almost certainly a signal of prophecy, see 11:28—tell Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Paul goes anyway, persuaded that he is being prompted by the Spirit to visit the city. Perhaps, as Grudem suggests,75 these prophets had received some revelation about the apostle’s impending sufferings, and interpreted them to mean Paul should not go. Whatever the case, the prophecy, so far as Paul was concerned, needed evaluating, and, in the form he received it from them, rejecting. The prophecy of Agabus in Acts 21:10–11 stipulates that the Jews at Jerusalem would bind the man who owns Paul’s girdle and hand him over to the Gentiles. Strictly speaking, however, in the event itself, Paul was not bound by the Jews but by the Romans; and the Jews did not hand Paul over to the Romans, but sought to kill him with mob violence, prompting a rescue by the Romans. I can think of no reported Old Testament prophet whose prophecies are so wrong on the details. The rebuttal of Gaffin, in my judgment, does not pay close enough attention to the text.76

(6) The constraints placed on prophecy in this chapter—see verses 29, 30, 36—make it clear that the gift of prophecy stands considerably tamed. Moreover, it is precisely because prophecy operates at this lower level of authority that Paul can encourage women to pray and prophesy in public under the constraints of 1 Corinthians 11 (whatever they mean), while forbidding them to exercise an authoritative teaching role over men (1 Tim. 2:11ff.) or to evaluate the content of the prophecies (1 Cor. 14:33b–36). The latter point of course is immensely controverted; but I shall say more about it in the next chapter.

My hesitations about this thesis are two, neither of which does irreparable damage to it, but only refines it.

First, the thesis oversimplifies the contrast between Old Testament prophets and New Testament prophets. The Old Testament, for instance, records the existence of “schools” of the prophets; and it is far from clear that everyone in a particular “school” enjoyed the status of Amos or Isaiah. There is no single, stereotypical Old Testament prophecy and a different stereotypical New Testament prophecy. Indeed, it has been compellingly suggested that Numbers 12:6–8 and 11:29 give evidence within the Old Testament of two kinds of prophecy—one “charismatic and enigmatic” and the other “Mosaic.”77 The suggestion may nevertheless provide indirect support for Grudem since the “charismatic and enigmatic” kind is picked up by Joel’s prophecy, which is said by Peter to be fulfilled on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:16ff.). Grudem’s general point stands, but as we shall see in the last chapter, it needs some qualification.

Second, Grudem describes the two levels of authority as, respectively, an authority of general content and an authority that extends to the very words of the prophet. This goes beyond the evidence, and is open to several objections.78 Exegetically, the distinction does not seem securely based in Paul. It appears rather as an attempt to find a consistent explanation for distinctions in authority that are there; but another explanation may be possible. Moreover, Grudem’s distinction masks a difficult point in the prophetic psychology. When Old Testament prophets were declaring the word of the Lord, they were not always presenting what they believed to be verbatim quotes. We may agree that the inscripturated form of those prophecies was so superintended by God that the result was God’s truth right down to the words (that was Jesus’s view of the Old Testament [Matt. 5:17]), but it is not obvious that when, for instance, Paul was explaining his itinerary to the Corinthians in his second canonical letter to them he was psychologically aware of a revelatory process operating that extended to the words he was dictating. The question arises therefore whether there is any difference between the psychological self-awareness of the Old Testament prophet and the New Testament prophet. What evidence is there that it was a different gift, so far as the prophets’ self-perceptions were concerned? Grudem’s distinction may be salvaged if the difference in authority level lies only in the prophecy qua result, and not in prophecy qua revelatory experience: but (wrongly, he assures me), he has not always been understood that way. In any case, in the prophecy of Agabus, the errors turn not on quibbles over words but on aspects of the content. Turner remarks:

This is where Grudem’s distinction breaks down (and he is not unaware of the problems): semantically it is not the surface structure of the wording, but the semantic structure of the propositions of a communication that is primarily significant. And this suggests, what seems reasonable on other grounds too, namely, that there was no sharp distinction between apostolic prophecy and prophets’ prophesyings—rather, a spectrum of authority of charisma extending from apostolic speech and prophecy (backed by apostolic commission) at one extreme to vague and barely profitable attempts at oracular speech such as brought “prophecy” as a whole into question at Thessalonika (1 Thess. 5:19f.) at the other. A prophet’s speech might fall anywhere on the spectrum, so the task of evaluation fell on the congregation.79

That Grudem has rightly delineated some distinguishing limitations of New Testament prophecy is in my judgment beyond cavil. It will not do to question his entire synthesis because we have questions about some of his formulations. In the last chapter I shall offer tentative suggestions about how to resolve some of these tensions—in particular how we can speak of prophecy as revelatory yet avoid jeopardizing the canon, and how we can best distinguish between the authority of apostolic prophesying and the authority of (other) New Testament prophets’ prophesyings. At the same time I shall briefly assess modern charismatic claims to prophecy. For the moment, however, I must return to 1 Corinthians 14.

The Superiority of Prophecy over Tongues (14:1–19)80

That Paul should restrict the focus of discussion from the χαρίσματα (charismata) in general to two of them, prophecy and tongues, strongly suggests that there was some dispute or uncertainty about these two in the Corinthian church. It is even possible that the Corinthians lumped both gifts under the rubric prophecy, and it is Paul that is making the distinction.81 After all, on the day of Pentecost when the believers spoke in tongues, Peter insisted that his tongues-speaking was evidence that the last day promised by Joel had dawned, the day of which sons and daughters would prophesy (Acts 2:17, citing Joel). The range of the “prophet” word group was certainly broad enough to encompass tongues-speaking. In this view, it seems likely that in the eyes of some Corinthians the tongues form of prophecy was greatly to be preferred over the intelligible form of prophecy, presumably because it was more spectacular. Paul in this chapter draws a distinction between the two, and reverses the order of rank on the basis of which one best edifies the church.

Whether Paul was the first to make the distinction between prophecy and tongues or not, if the background at Corinth is anything like what I am suggesting, there is an important deduction to be made. Although some of Paul’s arguments in this chapter are of the generalizing sort, applicable to all the spiritual gifts, Paul’s chief concern is the relative weight given to prophecy and tongues. This means that Paul may not be saying that tongues is the least of the gifts on some absolute scale, but only that it is less important than prophecy on the scale of reference adopted; equally, it means that Paul may not be saying that prophecy is the greatest of the gifts on some absolute scale, but only that it is more important than tongues on the same scale of reference. The relative value of prophecy over against, say, apostleship, teaching, or giving is not what is primarily in view. This observation is not jeopardized by 12:31a, which encourages the Corinthians to desire the greater gifts. That exhortation assumes that the spiritual gifts can be ranked, of course, but instead of providing such ranking, Paul hastens to transcend the spiritual gifts entirely with this chapter on love. Taking up the argument in 14:1, he does not attempt to rank all the gifts he has listed in chapter 12. Rather, assuming that spiritually minded believers will want the greater gifts, and having encouraged them along such lines, he proceeds to distinguish which is the greater of two—the two that apparently stand at the heart of Corinthian debate. And here, as Mills puts it, “Paul’s main objection is not to the practice of glossolalia so much as to the estimate of the practice.”82

Potential of a χάρισμα (charisma) for Building the Church (14:1–5)

That thought, of course, is simply a corollary of the love expounded in the previous chapter. The importance of love does not mean it should be pursued at the expense of spiritual gifts:83 they too are to be eagerly desired. We have already noticed (in the second chapter) that there is no clash between this encouragement and Paul’s insistence that the spiritual gifts are sovereignly distributed.84 Here the apostle immediately becomes more specific. Eagerly desire spiritual gifts, he says, especially the gift of prophecy. The expression underlying the New International Version’s “especially” means “rather” or “but rather.”85 It does not affirm that the best spiritual gift is prophecy; it simply specifies that the Corinthians are to seek this one in particular. The reasons for that specificity can only be learned from the context; such reasons, as I have already pointed out, are cast in the form of a sustained contrast between prophecy and tongues.

The person who speaks in a tongue does not in the first instance speak to people but to God. No one understands him (14:2). Some noncharismatics seek to reduce the scope of that “no one” to “no one who does not know the (human) language that is being spoken.”86 That is barely possible; but since the preceding line draws a contrast between speech directed to people and speech directed to God, it seems more natural to understand the “no one” in a broader, principal fashion. The content of this tongues-speech is “mysteries.” The word may be used here in a nontechnical sense to suggest that “the speaker and God are sharing hidden truths which others are not permitted to share.”87 By contrast, the one who prophesies strengthens, encourages, and comforts others. This does not mean that prophecy is the only gift that has those virtues: teaching and tongues that are interpreted do as well. In other words, these functions of prophecy are not definitional.88 The context specifies that the issue is intelligibility: among spiritual gifts of speech (others such as giving or administration are not in view), only those that are intelligible result in the immediate edification of the church. True, the tongues-speaker may be edifying himself (14:4);89 but that is too small a horizon for those who have meditated on 1 Corinthians 13. This does not mean Paul is prepared to abolish tongues. On the contrary, he would love all of them to speak in tongues (which of course implies that some of them did not). This cannot mean that Paul’s conception of the ideal in the church, as a considered theological stance, is that every Christian speak in tongues—any more than his desire in 7:7 that all be celibate as he is means his considered theological stance is that the ideal church must be utterly celibate. After all, Paul has just finished insisting, in chapter 12, that not all do speak in tongues. The text before us simply means that Paul knows the gift of tongues is from God and is therefore a good gift, and he wants his beloved converts to enjoy as many good things as possible. One of those is tongues. “But rather,” he says—the same expression as in 14:1—“I would like you to prophesy.” Once again, the “but rather” does not itself establish a comparison in intrinsic worth. The expression refers to what Paul prefers, but does not itself give the reason why. The reason is provided in the context and the point is now driven home (14:5): in any comparison of prophecy and tongues, in the church the edification of the church is of paramount concern. On the other hand, it appears as if tongues can have the same functional significance as prophecy if there is an interpreter present. Of course, against Hummel90 and others, this does not mean there is no difference between tongues-plus-interpretation and prophecy. Verses 18–25 are still to come!

Edification Depends on Intelligibility of Tongues (14:6–12)

Paul has introduced the question of intelligibility; now he stresses and enlarges upon it. The string of gift words in 14:6 (revelation/knowledge/prophecy/word of instruction) should probably be rendered like this: “How shall I benefit you unless I report to you a revelation or some knowledge, or unless I prophesy to you or teach you?”—that is, the first two words probably refer to content, and the latter two to the form of content Paul’s speech would take.91 The point is clear: edification demands intelligible content, and tongues, by themselves, cannot provide it. That Paul has to labor the point with examples from musical instruments and military bugle calls suggests how deeply committed to advancing the superiority of tongues the Corinthians (or at least some of them) must have been. Distinct notes from an instrument in coherent array constitute music and engender pleasure; distinct notes from a military horn elicit obedience; understanding another’s language makes communication possible. “So it is with you,” Paul writes—and the application of these illustrations is obvious. “Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts92 [here an assumption, with perhaps just a hint from the context that their desire was nevertheless unfortunately warped], try to excel in gifts that build up the church.” Thus Paul’s stress on intelligibility continues on from its introduction in the first five verses.

Stipulations for Tongues-Speakers (14:13–19)

Whether the opening “for this reason” (διό, dio) refers to 14:1–12 or just to verse 12,93 the rendering of the rest of the verse is probably as in the New International Version: the tongues-speaker, in consequence of the importance of edifying the church and the concomitant need for intelligible utterance in the church, should pray for another gift—the gift of interpretation.94 Verse 14 does not introduce a new subject, a switch from speaking in tongues to praying in tongues, for 14:2 has already established that speaking in tongues is primarily directed to God. In other words, speaking in tongues is a form of prayer. Paul acknowledges that such prayer is valid prayer—his spirit praying—but his mind remains “unfruitful.” This may mean that such prayer leaves him without mental, intellectual, or thought benefit; but it may mean that under such circumstances, since his mind is not engaged in the exercise, it does not produce fruit in the hearers—the presupposition being that the edification of the hearers requires intelligibility of utterance, and intelligibility of utterance requires that the mind of the speaker be engaged. In light of the sustained emphasis in this chapter on the edification of the hearers, this latter interpretation is marginally more likely.

If that is correct way to understand verse 14, then verse 15 probably means something like this: What then shall I do? Well, having prayed for the gift of interpretation, I will pray with my spirit (that is, I will continue to speak in tongues), but I will also pray with my mind (that is, the prayer will be repeated, this time with the mind engaged—presumably the interpretation of the prayer with the spirit). The same is true for singing with the spirit (apparently this is a more melodious or metrical form of tongues-speaking/praying). There is no evidence that this justifies entire congregational participation, as in many contemporary charismatic churches. For a start, that would violate Paul’s principle that not all have the same gift; and moreover, since this too is a form of tongues-speaking, interpretation should be required. Still less is there justification for linking this with the hymn singing of Ephesians and Colossians:95 that the latter was “in the Spirit” is not a sufficient criterion.

That Paul has been talking about what he expects the tongues-speaker to do in the church is now confirmed by verse 16. Again Paul allows that the tongues-speaker whose utterances are not interpreted may be praising God with his spirit; but the non-tongues-speaker in the congregation does not know what the tongues-speaker is saying, and cannot join in with the corporate “Amen.” The word I have rendered “non-tongues-speaker”96 simply means the outsider, the layperson, with the nature of the guild from which he is excluded determined by the context. This person must be a Christian, or there would be no expected “Amen” from his or her lips; hence the conclusion that this is a non-tongues-speaker. Again, the principles of the passage are summarized: “You may be giving thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified” (14:17).

Reverting again to the first person, Paul thanks God that he speaks in tongues more than all of his readers. Like a wise pastor, he thus identifies himself with those he seeks to correct.97 But more movingly yet, like other passages in Paul’s epistles (such as the astonishing list of his sufferings in 2 Cor. 11), this one suddenly provides a remarkable insight into Paul the Christian—an insight of which we would have been ignorant had not the circumstances of a particular church, in the providence of God, elicited these words from him. “But in the church,” he continues, “I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue” (v. 19).

There is no stronger defense of the private use of tongues, and attempts to avoid this conclusion turn out on inspection to be remarkably flimsy.98 If Paul speaks in tongues more than all the Corinthians, yet in the church prefers to speak five intelligible words rather than ten thousand words in a tongue (which is a way of saying that under virtually no circumstance will he ever speak in tongues in church, without quite ruling out the possibility), then where does he speak them? It will not do to suppose Paul is counseling private, quiet use of tongues during the assembly when another is ministering. To adapt Paul’s argument, where then would be the tongues-speaker’s “Amen,” if he or she was not paying attention? We have already seen that Paul envisages praying with the spirit as a form of valid prayer and praise; what he will not permit is unintelligibility in the church. The only possible conclusion is that Paul exercised his remarkable tongues gift in private.

This is a point of considerable significance, from a pastoral point of view; but I shall take up such matters in the final chapter.

Throughout history there have been pendulum swings of various sorts. The church, unfortunately, is not exempt. At times there are enormous pressures to intellectualize and formulate the gospel; at others, enormous pressures to “feel” one’s religious faith and develop passion for God—profound, emotional outbursts of contrition, praise, adoration. At most times in history, of course, groups espousing each of these polarities co-exist, one perhaps on the decline, the other on the ascendancy; and most groups embrace some mixture of the two, without much thought as to their proportion. Only rarely have Christians, such as the early English Puritans, self-consciously committed themselves to wholistic integration of the two. Noncharismatic evangelicals tend to the former stereotype; charismatics tend toward the latter. Both have their dangers.

One lesson, however, comes through these first verses of 1 Corinthians 14 with startling force. Whatever the place for profound, personal experience and corporate emotional experience, the assembled church is a place for intelligibility. Our God is a thinking, speaking God; and if we will know him, we must learn to think his thoughts after him. I am not surreptitiously invalidating what Paul has refused to invalidate. I am merely trying to reflect this conviction that edification in the church depends utterly on intelligibility, understanding, coherence. Both charismatic and noncharismatic churches need to be reminded of that truth again and again.

  

1. G. B. Cutten, Speaking with Tongues, Historically and Psychologically Considered (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927), 157.

2. Robert H. Culpepper, Evaluating the Charismatic Movement: A Theological and Biblical Appraisal (Valley Forge: Judson, 1977), 103.

3. Walter J. Hollenweger, The Pentecostals, trans. R. A. Wilson (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1972), 344.

4. This is widely represented in charismatic literature, and is also recognized by competent observers. C. F. D. Moule, The Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 90, rightly comments: “Those who are familiar with it [i.e., with contemporary tongues-speaking] assure us that it is never ‘ecstatic,’ if that word is taken to mean out of the subject’s control. . . . It is exercised consciously and self-controlledly in such a way that if the gift is available, the use of it can be started or terminated at will.”

5. Cyril G. Williams, “Glossolalia as a Religious Phenomenon: ‘Tongues’ at Corinth and Pentecost,” Journal of Religion and Religions 5 (1975): 16–32.

6. Larry Christensen, Speaking in Tongues and Its Significance for the Church (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1968), 22.

7. Léon-Joseph Suenens, A New Pentecost? (New York: Seabury, 1974), 99.

8. Heribert Mühlen, A CharismaticTheology: Initiation in the Spirit (London: Burns and Oatges; New York: Paulist, 1978), 152–56. See George T. Montague, Riding the Wind: Learning the Ways of the Spirit (Ann Arbor: Servant, 1974), 45: “The gift is primarily non-rational prayer ([The one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God] 1 Cor 14,2). Artless, it uses no phrenetic energy in formulation.”

9. Michael Green, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 162–63.

10. Cyril G. Williams, Tongues of the Spirit: A Study of Pentecostal Glossolalia and Related Phenomena (Cardiff: University of Wales, 1981), especially 25–45.

11. Ibid., 26, referring to BAG.

12. Ibid., 26.

13. In particular, J. G. Davies, “Pentecost and Glossolalia,” Journal of Theological Studies 3 (1952): 228–31. See also R. H. Gundry, “‘Ecstatic Utterance’ (N.E.B.)?” Journal of Theological Studies 17 (1966): 299–307.

14. Williams, Tongues of the Spirit, 31ff.

15. Johannes Behm, “γλῶσσα, ἑτερόγλωσσος,” TDNT, 1:719–27.

16. In particular, BAGD.

17. By this I mean utterance without cognitive content, regardless of whether such content is understood by either the speaker or the hearer. See Gundry, “‘Ecstatic Utterance’”; Thomas R. Edgar, Miraculous Gifts: Are They for Today? (Neptune, N.J.: Loizeaux, 1983), 110–21.

18. See T. M. Crone, Early Christian Prophecy: A Study of Its Origin and Function (Baltimore: St. Mary’s University Press, 1973), especially chap. 1, and 220–21; and the excellent treatment by Christopher Forbes, “Glossolalia in Early Christianity” (unpublished paper, Macquarie University, 1985).

19. A. C. Thiselton, “The ‘Interpretation’ of Tongues: A New Suggestion in the Light of Greek Usage in Philo and Josephus,” Journal of Theological Studies 30 (1979): 15–36.

20. M. M. B. Turner, “Spiritual Gifts Then and Now,” Vox Evangelica 15 (1985): 18–19. Moreover, as Forbes has shown (“Glossolalia in Early Christianity,” 23–27), Thiselton’s argument is flawed at several points. His statistics of the use of διερμηνεύω and διερμήνευσις in Philo (“no less than three-quarters of the uses refer to the articulation of thoughts or feelings in intelligible speech” [Thiselton, “The ‘Interpretation’ of Tongues,” 18]) are substantially reversed if one includes the simple verb ἑρμηνεύω and its cognates: 60 percent now stand against his thesis. That the verb can mean “to put into words” or the like, Thiselton has clearly established; that such is the obvious meaning in 1 Cor. 12–14 is less likely. Forbes also demonstrates that Thiselton’s arguments from context are not convincing.

21. Jack W. MacGorman, The Gifts of the Spirit: An Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12–14 (Nashville: Broadman, 1974), 390–91.

22. Turner, “Spiritual Gifts Then and Now,” 19.

23. Ibid., 19–20; Forbes, “Glossolalia in Early Christianity.”

24. Charles R. Smith, Tongues in Biblical Perspective: A Summary of Biblical Conclusions Concerning Tongues, 2d ed. (Winona Lake, Ind.: BMH, 1973), especially 26–27.

25. See D. A. Carson, Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981).

26. Gundry, “‘Ecstatic Utterance,’” 304.

27. Some writers, among them Jimmy A. Millikin, “The Nature of the Corinthian Glossolalia,” Mid-America Theological Journal 8 (1984): 81–107, have argued that tongues in Corinth were a degenerative form of tongues in Acts, a strange mixture of real words and gibberish. But Paul nowhere in 1 Cor. 12–14 treats the gift as if it were itself degenerative. Not the gift, but the weight the Corinthians were placing on it, is the focal point of Paul’s attack.

28. Or, more precisely, that the tongues bore cognitive content, whether or not that content was actually understood by speaker or hearer. See Abraham Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, trans. Henri de Vries (reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 132–38.

29. See especially the much cited works of W. J. Samarin, Tongues of Men and Angels: The Religious Language of Pentecostalism (New York: Macmillan, 1972); idem, Variation and Variables in Religious Glossolalia: Language in Society (London: Cambridge University Press, 1972).

30. J. R. Jaquette, “Toward a Typology of Formal Communicative Behaviors: Glossolalia,” Anthropological Linguistics 9 (1967): 6.

31. See Felicitas D. Goodman, Speaking in Tongues: A Cross-Cultural Study of Glossolalia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972).

32. Ibid., 123.

33. Virginia H. Hine, “Pentecostal Glossolalia: Toward a Functional Interpretation,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 8 (1969): 212.

34. E.g., John F. MacArthur, Jr., The Charismatics: A Doctrinal Perspective (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), especially 156ff.

35. J. I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit (Leicester: Inter-Varsity: Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1984), 207ff.

36. Vern S. Poythress, “The Nature of Corinthian Glossolalia: Possible Options,” Westminster Theological Journal 40 (1977): 131. See also the cautious essay by Francis A. Sullivan, “Speaking in Tongues,” Lumen Vitae 31 (1976): 145–70.

37. Vern S. Poythress, “Linguistic and Sociological Analyses of Modern Tongues-Speaking: Their Contributions and Limitations,” Westminster Theological Journal 42 (1979): 369.

38. Ibid., 375.

39. Ibid., 375–76.

40. See John P. Kidahl, The Psychology of Speaking in Tongues (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 63; idem, “Psychological Observations,” in The Charismatic Movement, ed. Michael P. Hamilton (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 136.

41. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit, 212.

42. Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 2d ed. (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1914).

43. See Hywel Jones, “Are There Apostles Today?,” Foundations 13 (Autumn 1984): 16–25.

44. Jacques Dupont, “La Mission de Paul d’après Actes 26.13–23 et la Mission des Apôtres d’après Luc 24.44–49 et Actes1.8,” in Paul and Paulinism: Studies in Honor of C. K. Barrett, ed. Morna D. Hooker and Stephen G. Wilson (London: SPCK, 1982), 290–99.

45. Jacob Jervell, The Unknown Paul: Essays on Luke-Acts and Early Christian History (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 77–95.

46. The theme is treated repeatedly in D. A. Carson, From Triumphalism to Maturity: An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 10–13 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984).

47. As, for instance, in David E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 202–3.

48. See Robert W. Herron, Jr., “The Origin of the New Testament Apostolate,” Westminster Theological Journal 45 (1983): 101–31.

49. Possibly not even Eph. 2:20 is a genuine exception to this; but see discussion, infra.

50. C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 2d ed. (London: Black, 1971).

51. See Aune, Prophecy.

52. Robertson and Plummer, Corinthians, 306.

53. Ibid., 301.

54. Turner, “Spiritual Gifts Then and Now,” 13.

55. E.g., David Hill, New Testament Prophecy (Atlanta: John Knox, 1980), 108ff. (though he has some legitimate reservations); E. Earle Ellis, Prophecy and Hermeneutic (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 147ff.; Ralph P. Martin, Spirit and the Congregation: Studies in 1 Corinthians 12–15 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 14; E. Cothenet, “Les prophètes chrétiens comme exégètes charismatiques de l’Ecriture,” in Prophetic Vocation in the New Testament and Today, ed. J. Panagopoulos, Novum Testamentum Supplements, vol. 45 (Leiden: Brill, 1977) especially 79–81; and many Reformed writers. Some scholars resort to what I can only call slippery language: e.g., Mühlen, Charismatic Theology, 149ff.

56. E.g., Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit, 215. He writes that “the essence of the prophetic ministry was forthtelling God’s present word to his people, and this regularly meant application of revealed truth rather than augmentation of it. [We may note in passing an odd disjunction here: Packer would be the first to insist that when an Old Testament prophet called the people back to the standards of previous revelation, and his prophetic word was then inscripturated, the result must be labeled some kind of augmentation of revealed truth.] As Old Testament prophets preached the law and recalled Israel to face God’s covenant claim on their obedience, with promise of blessing if they complied and cursing if not, so it appears that New Testament prophets preached the gospel and the life of faith for conversion, edification and encouragement. . . . By parity of reasoning, therefore, any verbal enforcement of biblical teaching as it applied to one’s present hearers may properly be called prophecy today, for that in truth is what it is.”

57. Ellis, Prophecy and Hermeneutic, e.g., 186.

58. Aune, Prophecy, 343–45.

59. Green, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 171–72.

60. Basilea Schlink, Ruled by the Spirit, trans. John and Mary Foote and Michael Harper (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1969), 43.

61. David Prior, The Message of 1 Corinthians: Life in the Local Church (Leicester and Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity, 1985), 235–36.

62. E.g., MacArthur, Charismatics; Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Perspectives on Pentecost: New Testament Teaching on Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1979); Leonard J. Coppes, Whatever Happened to Biblical Tongues? (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Pilgrim, 1977); and many others.

63. See the bibliography in Turner, “Spiritual Gifts Then and Now”; and especially Aune, Prophecy, 247ff. I confess, however, that I am not persuaded of the reliability of Aune’s five criteria for identifying prophetic oracles in the New Testament, even with the stipulation that all five do not have to be present in every instance. For instance, the fourth criterion, that the putative oracle must be prefixed by a statement of the inspiration of the speaker, works out rather poorly in the passages Aune adduces; and the fifth, that the saying or speech must not sit easily in the literary context, is an appeal to aporias by another name—a notoriously slippery approach.

64. Ibid., 339.

65. Wayne A. Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in 1 Corinthians (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982), 115ff., especially 139–43.

66. J. Panagopoulos, “Die urchristliche Prophetie: Ihr Charakter und ihre Funktion,” in Prophetic Vocation in the New Testament and Today, ed. J. Panagopoulos, Novum Testamentum Supplements, vol. 45 (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 27: “Das prophetische Wort wird unmittelbar durch Offenbarung ermittelt oder gegeben und zwar durch Tram, Vision, Audition oder direkte Offenbarung der Herrn, eines Engels oder anderer Vermittlungsorgane; der Prophet empfängt es ohne sien Zutun und verkündet es weiter. . . . Die propheten können aber nicht von sich aus allein solche prophetischen Worte aussprechen, sondern wo und wann Gott selbst will.”

67. See Kevin Giles, “Prophecy in the Bible and in the Church Today,” Interchange 26 (1980): 75–89, who points out that there are very few instances where a New Testament prophet quotes God or the exalted Jesus directly (as in Rev. 2–3)—rather unlike most modern charismatic claims to prophecy, a point to which I shall return in the last chapter.

68. E.g., H. A. Guy, New Testament Prophecy: Its Origin and Significance (London: Epworth, 1947).

69. See Grudem, Gift of Prophecy, 58–59, 64–66; and 263ff., a reprint of his article, “A Response to Gerhard Dautzenberg,” to which reference has already been made. Grudem demonstrates that the verb διακρίνω commonly (though not consistently) bears in Hellenistic Greek the connotation of sifting, separating, evaluating; whereas the simple form κρίνω is used for judgments where there are clear-cut options (guilty or innocent, true or false, right or wrong), and never for evaluative distinction.

70. Turner, “Spiritual Gifts Then and Now,” 16.

71. J. Panagopoulos, Ἡ Ἐκκλησία τῶν προφητῶν. Το προφητικὸν Χάρισμα ἐν τῇ Ἐκκλησίᾳ τῶν δύο πρώτων αἰώνων (Athens: Historical Publications, Stefanos Basilopoulos, 1979), insists that New Testament prophets were faithful to the apostolic tradition.

72. Gaffin, Perspective on Pentecost, 70–71.

73. Grudem, Gift of Prophecy, 82–105. One crucial point is the construction τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ προφητῶν (the second noun anarthrous), which groups the two nouns together in some way. Such grouping can of course preserve distinction between the two members (e.g., Acts 23:7); but, argues Grudem, it can also identify them (e.g., Col. 1:2). Which it is must be determined from the context, and Grudem offers an admirable list of contextual factors to support his view. His list of more than twenty examples where a single article governs two substantives that have the same referent includes few instances of two plural nouns in this array: for instance, in Col. 1:2, just cited, we read τοῖς ἐν Κολοσσαῖς ἁγίοις καὶ πιστοῖς ἀδελφοῖς, but strictly speaking the former is a substantivized adjective. In the expression τοὺς δὲ ποιμὲνας και διδασκάλους (Eph. 4:11), it is not entirely certain that the referent is the same for both nouns. But there are certainly convincing examples where plural participles are involved; and similarly for singular nouns. Of course, Grudem does not argue that this construction demands that the two substantives have a single referent; but it certainly allows for it, much more so, it might be added, in the Pauline corpus than elsewhere in the New Testament. For an exhaustive list of the occurrences of this construction in the New Testament, see D. A. Carson, Paul A. Miller, and James L. Boyer, A Syntactical Concordance to the Greek New Testament (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming).

74. Gaffin, Perspectives on Pentecost, 93–95.

75. Grudem, Gift of Prophecy, 79–82.

76. Gaffin, Perspectives on Pentecost, 65–67.

77. Peter Jones, “Y a-t-il deux types de prophéties dans le NT?,” Revue Réformée 31 (1980): 303–17. Similarly, Joseph Brosch, Chrismen und Ämter in der Urkirche (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1951), 80–81, makes a distinction between the major Old Testament prophets and the “schools of the prophets” in Samuel’s time, and suggests that New Testament prophecy is closer to the latter.

78. See Turner, “Spiritual Gifts Then and Now,” 16.

79. Ibid.

80. For the discussion on the relation of 14:1 to chaps. 12 and 13, and defense of the view that 14:1 begins with imperatives, see the second chapter.

81. See Thomas W. Gillespie, “A Pattern of Prophetic Speech in First Corinthians,” Journal of Biblical Literature 97 (1978): 83–84; R. A. Harrisville, “Speaking in Tongues: A Lexicographical Study,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38 (1976): 35–48.

82. Watson E. Mills, A Theological/Exegetical Approach to Glossolalia (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985), 99.

83. The second chapter deals with Martin’s reconstruction of this verse, including a perceived quotation from the Corinthian letter.

84. See further Robert Banks and Geoffrey Moon, “Speaking in Tongues: A Survey of the New Testament Evidence,” Churchman 80 (1966): 288.

85. μᾶλλον δέ. See BAGD s.v. 3.d.

86. E.g., Robert L. Thomas, Understanding Spiritual Gifts: The Christian’s Special Gifts in the Light of 1 Corinthians 12–14 (Chicago: Moody, 1978), 205–6.

87. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians.

88. Grudem, Gift of Prophecy, 181–84.

89. Some commentators find the notion of self-edification so difficult that they interpret this in malem partem: Paul is actually rebuking the tongues-speaker for edifying himself (e.g., Thomas, Understanding Spiritual Gifts, 207–8). But this scarcely fits the context, when Paul goes on to encourage tongues-speaking (v. 5), which here must be tongues-speaking without interpretation, and therefore in private and for self-edification, since once tongues are followed by interpretation there is no difference between this pair of gifts and prophecy, so far as the functional scale Paul is using is concerned. Moreover, contra Thomas, 1 Cor. 10:23–24 is no parallel. Paul is not there prohibiting the Christian “from misusing his Christian liberty by seeking his own profit or edification” (p. 208), but in the context of chaps 8–10 doing so at someone else’s expense. See further my comments on 12:7 in the first chapter.

90. Charles E. Hummel, Fire in the Fireplace: Contemporary Charismatic Renewal (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity, 1978), 151.

91. See Grudem, Gift of Prophecy, 138–39. He also points out that this pairing might be seen to generate an abab structure: revelation is communicated by prophecy, knowledge is communicated by teaching. But this may be too schematized.

92. On the unexpected πνευμάτων, instead of the expected πνευματικῶν, see K. S. Hemphill, “The Pauline Concept of Charisma: A Situational and Developmental Approach” (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1976).

93. Compare Charles Hodge, I and II Corinthians (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), and Thomas, Understanding Spiritual Gifts, 210.

94. There is another way to understand this verse. The man who speaks in a tongue should go ahead and pray (in a tongue), in order that an interpreter, presumably some person other than the tongues-speaker, may interpret. In that case, the ἵνα clause does not constitute the prayer’s content but its purpose. See Thomas, Understanding Spiritual Gifts, 210–11. But that presupposes that speaking in a tongue is different from praying in a tongue—a postulate refuted infra. Moreover, with no interpreter in the context, it is much more natural that the subject of the verb interpret is the tongues-speaker himself.

95. So Martin, The Spirit and the Congregation, 70–71.

96. ἰδιώτης.

97. See Henry Chadwick, “‘All Things to All Men’ (I Cor. Ix.22),” New Testament Studies 1 (1955): 268–69.

98. See Edgar, Miraculous Gifts, 171ff.; well rebutted by Turner, “Spiritual Gifts Then and Now,” 22–23.