For Teaching

1 Corinthians 14: What the Passage Says

112 claims across 40 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What 1 Corinthians 14 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul compares speaking in tongues with prophesying and argues that what is said when the church gathers should be understood, because understood words build people up. He uses examples of a flute, a harp, and a trumpet, quotes the Law about strange tongues, and describes how an outsider would react to a meeting full of tongues versus one full of prophecy. He then gives rules for order in the meeting: how many may speak in tongues and prophesy, that there must be an interpreter, that women are to keep silent in the churches and ask their husbands at home, and that everything be done properly and in order.

Claim by Claim

14:1
- Pursue love.
- Desire spiritual gifts eagerly.
- Desiring to prophesy is preferable.
14:2
- One who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men.
- One who speaks in a tongue speaks to God.
- No one understands the one who speaks in a tongue.
- The one who speaks in a tongue speaks mysteries in the spirit.
14:3
- One who prophesies speaks to men.
- Prophecy gives building up.
- Prophecy gives exhortation.
- Prophecy gives comfort.
14:4
- One who speaks in a tongue builds up himself.
- One who prophesies builds up the church.
14:5
- Paul wishes all of them spoke in tongues.
- Paul would rather they prophesied.
- The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues.
- The exception is if the tongue-speaker interprets.
- The purpose of interpretation is that the church may receive building up.
14:6
- Paul addresses them as brethren.
- Paul poses the case of coming to them speaking in tongues.
- Paul asks what profit he would be to them in that case.
- The profit would come only if he spoke to them by revelation, or knowledge, or prophecy, or teaching.
14:7
- Lifeless things such as pipe and harp give sound.
- If they do not make a distinction in the notes, what is played cannot be recognized.
14:8
- If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, no one will prepare himself for battle.
14:9
- So also with them: unless they utter intelligible words by the tongue, what is spoken cannot be known.
- Otherwise they will be speaking into the air.
14:10
- There are, it may be, a great many kinds of voices in the world.
- None of them is without meaning.
14:11
- If Paul does not know the meaning of the voice, he will be a foreigner to the speaker.
- The speaker will be a foreigner to Paul.
14:12
- They are zealous for spiritual gifts.
- They are to seek to excel toward the building up of the church.
14:13
- The one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret.
14:14
- If Paul prays in a tongue, his spirit prays.
- If Paul prays in a tongue, his mind is unfruitful.
14:15
- Paul asks what the conclusion is.
- Paul will pray with the spirit.
- Paul will also pray with the mind.
- Paul will sing with the spirit.
- Paul will also sing with the mind.
14:16
- If you bless with the spirit, the one filling the place of the uninstructed cannot say the Amen at your thanksgiving.
- The reason is that he does not know what you are saying.
14:17
- You give thanks well.
- The other person is not built up.
14:18
- Paul thanks God.
- Paul speaks in tongues more than all of them.
14:19
- In the church Paul would rather speak five words with his mind than ten thousand words in a tongue.
- The purpose of the five words is that he might instruct others also.
14:20
- Paul addresses them as brethren.
- They are not to be children in their thinking.
- They are to be infants in malice.
- They are to be mature in their thinking.
14:21
- It is written in the law.
- The written words say: I will speak to this people by men of other tongues and other lips.
- The written words say: even so they will not listen to me.
- The written words are attributed to the Lord speaking.
14:22
- Tongues are for a sign.
- Tongues are not a sign to those who believe.
- Tongues are a sign to those who do not believe.
- Prophecy is not for those who do not believe.
- Prophecy is for those who believe.
14:23
- A case is posed in which the whole church comes together into one place.
- In that case all speak in tongues.
- In that case uninstructed persons or unbelievers come in.
- The question is asked whether they will say that you are mad.
14:24
- A case is posed in which all prophesy.
- In that case one who does not believe or one uninstructed comes in.
- He is convicted by all.
- He is examined by all.
14:25
- The secrets of his heart are made manifest.
- He falls down on his face.
- He will worship God.
- He will report that God is truly among you.
14:26
- Paul asks what the conclusion is, addressing them as brethren.
- When they come together, each one has a psalm.
- Each one has a teaching.
- Each one has a tongue.
- Each one has a revelation.
- Each one has an interpretation.
- All things are to be done for building up.
14:27
- If anyone speaks in a tongue, it is to be by two or at most three.
- They are to speak in turn.
- One is to interpret.
14:28
- If there is no interpreter, the tongue-speaker is to keep silent in the church.
- He is to speak to himself and to God.
14:29
- Two or three prophets are to speak.
- The others are to judge what is said.
14:30
- If something is revealed to another who is sitting by, the first speaker is to stop speaking.
14:31
- They may all prophesy one by one.
- The purpose is that all may learn.
- The purpose is that all may be encouraged.
14:32
- The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.
14:33
- God is not the author of confusion.
- God is of peace.
- This is as in all the churches of the saints.
14:34
- Your women are to keep silent in the churches.
- It is not permitted for them to speak.
- They are to be in submission.
- The law also says this.
14:35
- If they wish to learn anything, they are to ask their own husbands at home.
- It is shameful for a woman to speak in the church.
14:36
- Paul asks whether the word of God came out from them.
- Paul asks whether the word of God came to them only.
14:37
- A case is posed of anyone thinking himself to be a prophet or spiritual.
- Such a person is to acknowledge that what Paul writes to them is the commandment of the Lord.
14:38
- If anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant.
14:39
- Paul addresses them as his brethren.
- They are to covet to prophesy.
- They are not to forbid speaking in tongues.
14:40
- All things are to be done decently.
- All things are to be done in order.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

14:1: "Charity" in 1611 meant love of any kind; it had not yet narrowed to mean giving money to the poor. The Greek word is agape. "Prophesy" in this chapter means speaking a message believed to come from God to the gathered congregation. It is not mainly about predicting the future.
14:2: The Greek word glossa means both the tongue in the mouth and a language. Most KJV editions print "unknown" in italics because that word is not in the Greek; the translators supplied it. "Mysteries" means things kept hidden and not yet disclosed, not puzzles to be solved.
14:3: "Edification" is a building word. To edify is to build a structure up, and Paul uses it throughout this chapter for whatever strengthens the congregation.
14:4: "The church" translates a Greek word for an assembly, a group of citizens called together for a meeting. It means the gathered people, never a building; there were no church buildings for centuries after Paul wrote this.
14:5: To "interpret" means to say the same words again in a language people know.
14:6: "Doctrine" in 1611 simply meant teaching, without the modern sense of a fixed system of belief.
14:7: The "pipe" is a reed flute, heard at feasts, funerals and festivals. The "harp" is the kithara, a lyre whose strings were plucked by hand.
14:8: The trumpet here is the salpinx, a military signal instrument. Armies formed up, advanced and withdrew on its calls, so a blurred or ambiguous call left soldiers not knowing what was being ordered.
14:10: "Voices" here means languages, and "signification" means meaning. Corinth was a busy port where many languages were heard every day.
14:11: "Barbarian" did not mean savage or brutal. Greeks called any non-Greek speaker a barbaros, a word imitating how foreign speech sounded to them, something like "bar bar." It meant foreigner, a person whose speech you cannot follow.
14:13: "Interpret" is the ordinary word for translating, or putting something into speech others can follow.
14:14: "Understanding" translates nous, the mind. "Unfruitful" is a farming word: the mind yields no crop, nothing anyone can gather in.
14:16: To "bless with the spirit" is to give thanks aloud to God, a Jewish table and synagogue custom the early churches carried over. "He that occupieth the room of the unlearned" means whoever fills the place, or sits in the seat, of the outsider; "room" meant position or place in 1611. "Unlearned" translates idiotes, an outsider or non-specialist, someone not in on it, with no suggestion that he is stupid. "Amen" is Hebrew for "truly" or "so be it," said by the congregation to make another person's prayer their own, which they cannot do if they did not follow it.
14:18: "I speak with tongues more than ye all" is Paul heading off the obvious comeback, that he is criticizing a gift he does not have.
14:19: "Ten thousand" translates myrioi, the largest unit in Greek counting, used much as we use "countless."
14:20: "Malice" in 1611 covered wickedness and the will to do harm in general, not just the narrow modern sense of spite. "Be men" means be fully grown, mature.
14:21: "The law" here means the Hebrew Scriptures as a whole, not only the books of Moses. The quotation is from Isaiah 28:11-12, where the strange speech was the language of Assyrian invaders that Judah would be made to hear. "LORD" printed in small capitals marks the personal name of God, Yahweh, in the Hebrew being quoted.
14:22: A "sign" is something that points to something else, like a signpost on a road.
14:23: "Mad" translates a Greek verb used of the raving of ecstatic worshipers. Visitors in Corinth would have known cults whose devotees behaved that way, and the point is that they would put the church in the same category.
14:24: "Convinced" in 1611 meant convicted, shown to be in the wrong, not merely persuaded. "Judged" here means examined, put to the question, called to account.
14:25: Falling face down on the ground was the standard posture of submission before a king or a god in that world, a deliberate act rather than a collapse.
14:26: A "psalm" is a song sung to God, whether taken from the book of Psalms or newly composed. The verse describes a meeting in which members each contributed something, rather than one speaker leading throughout.
14:27: "By course" means in turn, one after another rather than several at once.
14:29: "Judge" here means to weigh and sift what has been said and decide what to accept. The Greek verb is the ordinary word for telling things apart.
14:30: "Hold his peace" is the KJV idiom for stop talking and fall silent. It has nothing to do with peacemaking.
14:31: "Comforted" translates a Greek word that covers encouraging, urging on and consoling, so it is stronger than modern "comfort" and less soothing.
14:32: Greek and Roman religion expected an inspired speaker to lose control of himself, as the oracle at Delphi was said to. This sentence says the opposite of prophets: the prophet's spirit remains under the prophet's own control, so he can stop speaking and wait his turn.
14:33: "Saints" translates hagioi, holy ones. In Paul's letters it means the ordinary membership of the churches, not an elite group or people formally canonized later.
14:34: The Greek word gyne means both "woman" and "wife," and aner in the next verse means both "man" and "husband," so it is genuinely unclear whether the instruction addresses women in general or wives in particular. No specific text is quoted for "as also saith the law"; readers have connected it with Genesis 3:16 and with Jewish custom, and the letter itself does not say. A number of early manuscripts place verses 34 and 35 after verse 40 instead of here, which makes this one of the most disputed passages in the letter.
14:35: "A shame" translates a word meaning disgraceful or dishonorable. Honor and shame were public property in that culture, matters of standing in the eyes of the city rather than private feeling.
14:36: "What?" is not a request for information. It is an exclamation of rebuke, close to "Really?" The "you" is plural throughout the verse, addressed to the whole congregation.
14:37: "Spiritual" here means led by God's Spirit.
14:38: The Greek turns on one verb used twice: if anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. Manuscripts differ over whether the second verb is a command ("let him be ignorant") or a plain statement that he is not recognized, and the passive form may mean not recognized by God.
14:39: "Covet" in 1611 was a neutral word for wanting something strongly. It is the same verb translated "desire" in verse 1 and carries no suggestion of wrongdoing.
14:40: "Decently" translates a word meaning in good form, presentable in public. "In order" uses taxis, a word used of troops drawn up in formation.

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