Speech That the Gathered Church Can Understand

“Follow after” is dioko, to chase or pursue, a hunting verb, stronger than the “desire” given to the gifts. The line gathers up 12:31 and the whole of chapter 13 in one breath: chase love, be eager for the gifts, and above all for prophecy.

“Understandeth” is literally “hears”, akouo: the sound reaches the ears and nothing is received. “Mysteries” in Paul usually means God’s purposes now disclosed (2:7, 15:51), but here the sense leans toward things hidden, because no one present can follow them.

Three nouns name what prophecy does: oikodome, building up, a construction word; paraklesis, urging, from calling someone to one’s side; and paramythia, consolation, found only here in the New Testament. Foretelling the future is not among them.

“Edifieth” is oikodomeo, to build a house, and the building picture has run since 3:9, “ye are God’s building”. The same verb in 8:1, “charity edifieth”, has already shown which way building ought to face: toward others.

The wish that all spoke with tongues may echo Moses in Numbers 11:29, “would God that all the LORD’s people were prophets”. Paul does not say who interprets; verse 13 suggests the speaker himself might, which would let a single person carry both halves of the gift.

Paul makes himself the test case: the founding apostle arrives and speaks only in tongues. The four alternatives are often read as two pairs, revelation with prophesying and knowledge with doctrine, the inward gift and its spoken form in each case.

The pipe, aulos, was a reed instrument like an oboe, and the harp, kithara, a lyre; both accompanied Greek worship and theatre. “Distinction” is diastole, a gap or interval: a tune needs separate notes, and without them it is only sound.

“Uncertain” is adelos, indistinct. Armies signalled advance, retreat and assembly by trumpet, and a blurred call leaves the soldier not knowing whether to arm. Israel had its own trumpet codes for marching and war in Numbers 10:1–10.

“Easy to be understood” is eusemos, well marked, clearly signalled, from the same root as the “sign” of verse 22. Speaking “into the air” was a proverbial phrase for wasted effort, close to the boxer in 9:26 who “beateth the air”.

“It may be” renders ei tychoi, “if it should happen so”, the Greek way of saying who knows how many. “Voices” are languages, phonai. Paul grants that every language means something; the trouble is never meaninglessness but a hearer who cannot receive the meaning.

“Barbarian”, barbaros, imitated the sound of foreign speech to Greek ears, a meaningless “bar-bar”. Corinth was proud of its Greek culture, and the word stings: uninterpreted speech makes a Corinthian sound like a foreigner in his own church.

“Zealous of spiritual gifts” is literally “zealots of spirits”, pneumaton, perhaps meaning the Spirit’s manifestations. Paul does not dampen the zeal. “Excel” is perisseuo, to overflow, and he wants them overflowing in the right direction.

The instruction is to pray for the power to interpret, which means a speaker could ask for it and was not bound to wait for someone else. The gifts of 12:10 are treated as open to prayer, not handed out once and fixed.

“My spirit” is Paul’s own spirit, the inward part that prays, set against “understanding”, nous, the mind. “Unfruitful” is akarpos, bearing no fruit: the prayer may be real, but it yields nothing that anyone else can gather.

“Sing” is psallo, originally to pluck a string, the verb behind “psalm”. Singing with the spirit and with the mind implies songs both spontaneous and understood; Colossians 3:16 describes the same practice in “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”.

“Occupieth the room of the unlearned” means fills the place of the idiotes, the layman or outsider, the word from which “idiot” much later came. The Greek says “the Amen”, the congregation’s spoken assent to a prayer, as when all Israel answered “Amen, Amen” in Nehemiah 8:6.

Paul grants the prayer full marks, kalos, well done, and still finds it wanting, because the measure of the gathering is the other person present. It is the rule already given in 10:24: “Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s wealth.”

The only place in his letters where Paul says he speaks in tongues, and he says it as thanks to God, not as a credential. Acts never records him doing so, so this single line is the whole of the evidence.

“Ten thousand” is myrioi, the largest number in ordinary Greek counting, from which “myriad” comes. “Teach” is katecheo, to instruct by word of mouth, literally to sound something down into the ear, the verb behind “catechism”.

“Understanding” here is phren, the thinking of a grown person; “malice” is kakia, badness. “Be ye children” is nepiazo, to be an infant, found only here in the New Testament. It turns 13:11 around: in one respect only should they stay childlike.

The words are from Isaiah 28:11–12, where God warns the scoffers of Jerusalem that he will speak to them through the foreign speech of Assyrian invaders. Paul calls a prophet “the law”, the name for the whole of Scripture, as Jesus does in John 10:34, and his wording matches neither the Hebrew nor the Greek exactly.

The verse is built as an exact mirror, tongues with unbelievers and prophecy with believers, and “serveth” is supplied in italics, since the second half has no verb. The next three verses seem to run the other way, and J. B. Phillips found the tension so sharp that he suspected a copyist’s slip and reversed the verse in his translation.

“The whole church” meeting “into one place” implies that Corinth’s house groups sometimes gathered all at once, perhaps in the house of Gaius, “mine host, and of the whole church” (Romans 16:23). “Mad” is mainomai, the word Festus threw at Paul in Acts 26:24.

“Convinced” is elencho, to expose or convict, the verb Jesus uses of the Spirit in John 16:8. “Judged” is anakrino, to examine, the verb of 2:15, “he that is spiritual judgeth all things”. The outsider is examined by what everyone says, not by one gifted speaker.

Falling on the face is the posture of Israel at Carmel when the fire fell (1 Kings 18:39). “God is in you of a truth” echoes Isaiah 45:14, where foreigners come to Israel saying “Surely God is in thee”, so Isaiah answers Isaiah: the foreign speech of verse 21 gives way to foreigners confessing.

The most detailed picture of an early Christian gathering in the New Testament: each person brings something. “Psalm” may mean a song from the Psalter or a new composition; “doctrine” is teaching. No presiding officer is mentioned at all.

“By course” is ana meros, in turn, one after another. The limit is two, or three at most, in a meeting. “Let one interpret” may mean a single interpreter for all of them, so that every rendering passes through one tested voice.

“Keep silence” is sigao, the same verb used of the prophet in verse 30 and of the women in verse 34, so the chapter lays it on three groups in turn. Speaking “to himself, and to God” assumes the speaker can choose when to use the gift.

“The other” may be the other prophets or the congregation at large; commentators divide. “Judge” is diakrino, to sift or discern, the verb behind “discerning of spirits” in 12:10, so the gift that tests prophecy is here put to work.

The picture is of prophets seated and one standing, as in the synagogue at Nazareth where Jesus stood to read and sat to teach (Luke 4:16, 20). If a revelation comes to someone seated, the one standing yields, so two voices never compete.

“One by one” gives every prophet a turn over time, if not in a single meeting. The purpose clause is doubled, “that all may learn, and all may be comforted”, and the comfort is paraklesis, the word rendered “exhortation” in verse 3.

The prophetess at Delphi was said to be seized by the god and to speak beyond her own control. Paul denies Christian prophecy that excuse. “Subject” is hypotasso, to arrange under, the verb that returns in verse 34 for the women, so one word governs the order asked of both.

“Confusion” is akatastasia, disorder or unrest, the word Luke uses for “commotions” in Luke 21:9. The last clause, “as in all churches of the saints”, may close this sentence or open the next; many modern editions print it with verse 34.

“Churches” means the assemblies, the gatherings, not buildings. Some early manuscripts in Greek and Latin place verses 34 and 35 after verse 40 instead of here, and a minority of scholars take the movement as a sign the lines were a later addition; most keep them as Paul’s.

“Learn” is manthano, the verb of discipleship, so learning is assumed and only the setting for questions is moved. “Shame” is aischron, disgraceful, the word used of a woman shorn in 11:6; both passages lean on the customs of public honour in a Roman city.

“What?” renders the Greek particle e, which introduces an indignant question. The second question asks whether the word came to them “only”, monous, a masculine plural, so it is addressed to the whole church and not only to the women of the verses before.

“Spiritual”, pneumatikos, is the Corinthians’ own prized word from 12:1 and 2:15. Paul makes it a test: a truly spiritual person will recognise his letter as the Lord’s command. Many manuscripts read the singular, “a commandment of the Lord”.

A play on one verb: agnoei, agnoeito, roughly “if he ignores it, let him be ignored”. Many manuscripts read the passive, meaning such a person is not recognised, perhaps by God; the King James follows copies with the permissive form, leave him in his ignorance.

“Wherefore” and “brethren” mark the summing up of three chapters. Prophecy gets the strong verb, zeloo, covet; tongues get only a double negative, “forbid not”. Both are kept, and the difference between the verbs is the ranking.

“Decently” is euschemonos, becomingly, the opposite of the “unseemly” behaviour ruled out in 13:5 and a cousin of the “comely” parts of 12:23. “In order” is kata taxin, in proper arrangement, a phrase used of troops drawn up in their ranks.