Prophecy versus tongues.

Christians, don’t be childish, but be full of understanding, and childish about evil.

In the Law it’s written, “In other tongues, on other lips, I will speak to those people, and even so they won’t understand me, says the Lord.” For this reason, tongues is a sign—not of those who have faith, but those who lack it. Prophecy is the sign of those who have faith, not those who lack it.

So when the whole church meets as usual, and everyone speaks in tongues, if some faithless idiots walk in, they’ll say you’re all maniacs. But when everyone prophesies, if some faithless idiot enters, he’ll be convicted of everything; he’ll examine everything; his secret thoughts will be revealed. He’ll fall on his face in worship to God, proclaiming, “God is actually in you!”

—Paul, 1 Corinthians 14.20-25 KWL

The usual interpretation.

The way Christians usually interpret this passage—and translate it—turns it into a problem passage. And there are many problems. The usual interpretation goes like so.

First, Paul quotes a bit of Old Testament. Though he wrote “in the Law it’s written,” it’s actually not in the Law—scholars have looked for it, and can’t find it there. Usually OT quotes are from, or are similar to, the Septuagint, the Greek OT. This one’s not. The closest language to it is from Isaiah. But we needn’t concern ourselves about where Paul got his bible quotes: Paul didn’t quote the OT in order to teach ideas from the OT, but as allusions for his own ideas. He, and the other writers of the bible, played fast and loose with OT quotes because it was a different era, and besides, they were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write scriptures. That’s why they can misquote bible, and we can’t. (Not every Christian is so particular about the “we can’t.”)

The reason Paul quoted it was to prove his conclusion, that “Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophesying is not for unbelievers but for those who believe.” (1Co 14.22 NKJV) (I know, that’s not how I translated it. But that’s what you’ll find in most bibles.) So because we’re believers, prophesy is a sign for us. Not tongues. Tongues are for pagans. Leave them to the pagans. We must focus on prophecy. Or, if you’re a cessationist, and believe “prophecy” really means “preaching God’s word,” then yeah, we must focus on preaching God’s word. Not tongues.

Next paragraph. When unbelievers come to church, tongues won’t work on them, and they’ll think we’re nuts. But prophecy (or in cessationist-talk, “preaching God’s word”) will work on them, and when they hear God’s word forcefully and mightily proclaimed, they’ll drop to their knees in awe.

What’s never noticed is how that paragraph (vv 23-25) completely contradicts the previous paragraph. (vv 21-24) Paul just wrote, in their interpretation, that tongues are for unbelievers, and prophecy for believers. Yet here are hypothetical unbelievers. If tongues are for the unbeliever, why isn’t tongues working on them? If prophecy is for the believer, why is prophecy making the unbelievers cry out in conviction?

People never see this. I sometimes have to point it out to them several times before they finally realize the contradiction. Then they try to explain it—and their explanations fall apart, ’cause like most optical illusions, once you see it, you can’t unsee it. They can’t explain the flip-flop. Their favorite commentators are no help: They don’t explain it either.

I can tell you why. They (or to be fair, their favorite commentators) have an anti-tongues bias. They want to say, “Prophecy is better than tongues,” and they particularly want Paul to say it for them. In their minds, he has. In the first paragraph, (vv 21-24) prophecy is for the believers, and tongues the unbelievers, and we’re the believers, right? So prophecy is for us. Tongues aren’t. Now, in the second paragraph, (vv 23-25) prophecy convicts the sinners, but tongues doesn’t. And we want to help the Spirit convict sinners, right? So prophecy, again, is for us. Tongues are impractical. It doesn’t look like a contradiction when you keep reaching the same conclusion. And when you’re quite happy with the conclusion, you don’t always question how you got there.

But we need to follow Paul’s advice and not be childish.

The Isaiah quote.

First things first. Let’s assume Paul did quote the bible properly. Yeah, sometimes bible quotes are allusions to the Old Testament, rather than in-context quotes. But we can usually tell when someone’s doing that. When John uses Old Testament language in Revelation, those are allusions. When the writers of the gospels are referring to scriptures that Jesus fulfilled, those are allusions. But when Paul wrote, “It’s written,” those are quotes.

True, Paul didn’t pull this from the Law, but the Prophets. He miswrote “Law.” That’s a minor error; it doesn’t interfere with the truth of what Paul was trying to teach. Here’s the context.

Now, however, Israel is led by drunks who reel with wine and stagger with alcohol. The priests and prophets stagger with alcohol and lose themselves in wine. They reel when they see visions and stagger as they render decisions. Their tables are covered with vomit; filth is everywhere. “Who does the LORD think we are?” they ask. “Why does he speak to us like this? Are we little children, just recently weaned? He tells us everything over and over—one line at a time, one line at a time, a little here, and a little there!”

So now God will have to speak to his people through foreign oppressors who speak a strange language! God has told his people, “Here is a place of rest; let the weary rest here. This is a place of quiet rest.” But they would not listen. So the LORD will spell out his message for them again, one line at a time, one line at a time, a little here, and a little there, so that they will stumble and fall. They will be injured, trapped, and captured.

—Isaiah 28.7-13 NLT

The issue in Isaiah’s day are the prophets and priests who are supposed to be listening to God and leading the people, and they’re not. They’re drunks, who are flubbing their duties. They think God is talking down to them, and not giving them the big, full revelations they want. They lack character, they lack self-discipline, they lack faith—so prophecy isn’t working on them.

So, for them, they get tongues. Foreigners are going to invade Israel and conquer her. They’ll have to listen to the foreigners—and among those foreigners, God will have his followers, and they too are gonna spell out God’s messages in precisely the same way he’d been giving them to Israel.

The conclusion? Prophecy is for believers. But since the prophets and priests weren’t believers, they were gonna get tongues. Tongues are for the unbelievers.

Flipping the meaning of verse 22.

Here’s the problem. The usual translation of verse 22 is, as I quoted from the New King James, “Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophesying is not for unbelievers but for those who believe.” (1Co 14.22 NKJV) Which seems to say the opposite of what the Isaiah quote taught—and for that matter, what the following verses taught.

If we have three verses, and two of them say one thing, and the third another, perhaps we should see whether the third really says another. So it’s time to dig out the Greek text and read it.

Here’s the catch: The words that are interpreted “for believers” and “to believers” (or “believing ones,” tis pistévusin) and “for unbelievers” or “to unbelievers” (tis apístis) don’t have the words “for” or “to” among them. Those prepositions are implied because these words are indirect objects. (For grammar nerds, they’re in the dative—or instrumental or locative—case.) So in translating them, we actually have multiple options:

Dative: tongues a sign not to believers but to unbelievers

Instrumental: tongues a sign not for the use of believers but for the use of unbelievers

Locative: tongues a sign not found among believers but found among unbelievers

Which is it: Tongues are a sign to unbelievers, tongues are a sign for the use of unbelievers, or tongues are a sign found among unbelievers? Well, it depends on the context of the scriptures around it. And since the scriptures before and after it indicate tongues a sign for the use of unbelievers, I gotta go with that interpretation.

Of course you realize it flips the meaning of verse 22 over entirely. “To” means tongues are for unbelievers; “for the use of” means tongues are for Christians. “To” means prophecy is for Christians; “for the use of” means prophecy is for unbelievers. It’s not what we find in most translations of the bible.

Understandably, my doing this is gonna disturb a lot of people. As it should. You don’t just go around flipping the meanings of the scriptures; it’s dangerous. When people want to violate them, they’ll just find some convenient reason to retranslate them completely. I can only justify doing this by the fact that it fits the context, and eliminates a contradiction. Otherwise I daren’t touch it—the simplest translation is usually the right one, and when in doubt, go with that.

Tongues work on us. Not pagans.

You recall, when the Holy Spirit empowered the Christians at Pentecost, the Jews reacted in more than one way. Some responded, “I hear these guys speaking my native language—what’s that about?” (Ac 2.5-12) Others responded, “They’re drunk.” (Ac 2.13) Though they didn’t understand what tongues were about, it was a sign to them and got their attention—but it didn’t convict them of their sins, or prove to them God was among the Christians. That only came after Simon Peter preached at them, and gave them a full dose of prophecy.

Paul pointed out this same idea here: The pagans or the newbies, curious about the tongues, come and listen—and are prophesied to, and get convicted, just as the Jews were convicted by Simon’s message. (Ac 2.37) Tongues might’ve got them to enter the room, but prophecy kept them there. Tongues might’ve got the skeptics to pay attention, but prophecy turned the skeptics into believers.

Now, Paul isn’t offering a foolproof strategy here. There are always much bigger fools. There will always be skeptics. Too many people have minds as closed as a steel door. Neither tongues nor prophecy will get through to them. They don’t want to believe, and will look for any excuse not to. They’ll dismiss tongues and come up with “rational explanations” for prophecy that won’t really be all that rational—but for them any explanation will do. The point, though—as is the point throughout this chapter—is that tongues, alone, by themselves, though great for prayer, aren’t meant to bring people knowledge, or understanding, or revelation, or to Jesus. For that, you need prophecy.

Both practices must be done appropriately—in the right place, at the right time, for the correct purposes. Paul isn’t teaching an outright rejection of tongues, regardless of how this has been taught.