1 Corinthians 14:28

Corinth was a busy port and trading city, with people of many nations, much wealth and loose morals, and its young church carried some of that into its meetings. Pagan worship in the city included ecstatic rites in which a worshipper was thought to be overcome by a spirit and to speak beyond his own control, and public assemblies among Greeks and Romans were often loud places of display. Believers who had lately come out of that world were using their gifts, tongues above all, several at once and with nobody to explain what was said, and some may have treated the more spectacular gifts as a mark of standing. The same church was troubled by factions, lawsuits and abuse of the Lord’s Supper, so the disorder in worship was one part of a wider immaturity.

Paul has been answering this throughout 1 Corinthians 12–14. In 1 Corinthians 12 he teaches that one Spirit gives many gifts, and that each is given “to profit withal” (1 Corinthians 12:7). In 1 Corinthians 13 he sets love above every gift, the love that “seeketh not her own” (1 Corinthians 13:5). In 1 Corinthians 14:1–25 he compares tongues with prophecy and keeps in view the unbeliever who may walk into the meeting and needs to understand what he hears (1 Corinthians 14:23–25). With verse 26 he moves from principle to practice, and the rules that follow carry on to the end of 1 Corinthians 14.

“How is it then, brethren?” is the question of a pastor who is correcting people he loves. It asks the Corinthians to look at their own meetings and to see that something is wrong with the way they gather. Paul then describes those meetings: “every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation.” The word for “every one”, hékastos, means each one of the whole number, and the verb échō means to have or hold. “Hath” stands five times in verse 26, once for each thing brought, and the repetition lets us hear a room in which each person is holding something and wants to give it.

The five things are these:

• A psalm. A song of praise, quite possibly one given by the Spirit in the moment.
• A doctrine. The Greek is didachḗ, a teaching or piece of instruction.
• A tongue. The Greek is glōssa, speech in a language the speaker has never learned.
• A revelation. The Greek is apokálypsis, an insight or message disclosed by God.
• An interpretation. The Greek is hermēneía, the Spirit-given ability to translate or explain what was said in a tongue.

Paul treats all five as real gifts, and the list stands for everything a believer might bring to worship. The meetings in Corinth were full of people who took part, and Paul leaves that in place. What he adds is a purpose: “Let all things be done unto edifying.” The whole rule is seven words in English. The verb gínomai, “be done”, means to come about or come into being, and here it stands as a command, so that building up is something the worshippers are to bring about on purpose.

“Edifying” is oikodomḗ, a word made from the words for “house” and “to build”, and it means a building or the act of building. The church is a house under construction, with Jesus Christ as its chief corner stone (Ephesians 2:20–22), and every song, teaching and message in the meeting is meant to add to that building. Paul has already said that the one who prophesies edifies the church (1 Corinthians 14:4) and has urged the Corinthians to seek to excel in building it up (1 Corinthians 14:12). Elsewhere he tells believers to pursue the things by which one may edify another (Romans 14:19), and he says that Christ gave gifts to his church for the building up of his body until we all come to maturity in him (Ephesians 4:11–13). Peter says the same of every gift: each of us is to use what he has received in serving the others, so that God is glorified (1 Peter 4:10–11). A gift is given for the good of the people around the one who has it.

“If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret.” The word “unknown” was supplied by the KJV translators, and it gives the sense well. Glōssa means the tongue and so a language, and the verb laléō is the ordinary word for talking or uttering words. In this chapter the tongue is a language that the people listening do not understand. It may be a human language the speaker never learned, as on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4–11), or an utterance given by the Spirit that those present can follow only through the gift of interpretation. Either way the hearers are left outside the meaning until someone explains it.

Paul sets three conditions for its use in the meeting. Two people may speak in a tongue, or three at the most. They speak “by course”, aná méros, which means in turn, one after another. And one person interprets, whether the speaker himself or another with that gift. The verb is diermēneúō, to explain thoroughly or to translate.

“Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge.” A prophet, prophḗtēs, is a foreteller and more broadly an inspired speaker, a person who brings a message from God. In the New Testament church such a message might foretell what is coming or reveal something hidden, and Paul has said that its ordinary work is to build up, to exhort and to comfort (1 Corinthians 14:3). The verb for speaking is laléō, the same verb used of the tongue-speaker in verse 27, so prophecy in the meeting is spoken aloud for the whole church to hear. Two or three prophets may speak, one after another, which gives the congregation time to take in each message.

Then “let the other judge”. The verb is diakrínō, built from diá (“through” or “apart”) and krínō (“to judge”), and it means to separate thoroughly, to discern, to evaluate. “The other” may be the other prophets, mature believers, or those in the congregation with a gift of discernment. Their task is to distinguish what is truly from God, measuring the message against Scripture, the character of God and the witness of the Holy Spirit. The whole church therefore shares in guarding its own teaching. Paul tells the Thessalonians to honour prophecy and to test all things, holding on to what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:20–21). John tells believers to try the spirits (1 John 4:1), and the Bereans are remembered as noble in Acts 17:11.

“And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.” A prophet can wait because the gift God gives him stays under his own control. Pneûma means breath or wind, and from there a spirit, whether human, angelic or divine. Here it is plural (pneumata), and it refers to the prophetic impulses or inspirations given to the prophets, the spiritual enablement through which they speak. The Holy Spirit himself is one, and Paul is saying nothing about him being placed under human will.

“Subject” is hypotássō, to subordinate or put under. “Prophets” comes twice in the verse, first as those who receive the impulse and then as those who govern it. A prophet who is truly inspired keeps the use of his mind and will. He can choose when to speak, wait for his turn, or stop for another, which is exactly what verses 29 to 31 ask of him.

This set Christian prophecy apart from the ecstatic worship the Corinthians had known, in which the worshipper was thought to be carried away by a power he could not resist. Believers fresh from that background may have assumed that the Spirit’s gifts worked the same way, and the verse corrects them. God’s Spirit works through people whose faculties he respects. Paul writes to Timothy, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7), and the fruit of the Spirit includes self-control (Galatians 5:22–23). The same Paul who urges the church to “desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy” (1 Corinthians 14:1) holds each prophet responsible for how he uses the gift. Because the prophet answers for what he says and how he says it, his words can be weighed by others, as verse 29 requires.

“For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.” With this sentence Paul gives the reason for every rule before it, and the reason is who God is. The words “the author” were supplied by the translators to make the sense plain in English: confusion does not come from God as its source.

“Confusion” is akatastasía, instability, disorder and tumult, a word strong enough to describe a commotion or an uprising. It names what a meeting becomes when several people speak at once and nobody can follow. Where such disorder is found in worship, it comes from human failing and misunderstanding. “Peace” is eirḗnē, from a verb meaning “to join”. It means tranquillity and harmony, and in Scripture it reaches further, to wholeness, well-being and right relationship. Where God is at work, people are joined together and things hold. He is “the God of peace” (Romans 15:33). His peace “passeth all understanding” and keeps our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7), and Paul tells the church, “let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body” (Colossians 3:15).

“As in all churches of the saints” widens the rule from Corinth to every congregation. Ekklēsía is again the assembly, and the saints, hágios, are the people God has set apart as holy. What Paul asks of Corinth is what God expects of his people everywhere.

The principle reaches past tongues and prophecy. Since peace belongs to God’s nature, it is the standard for the whole life of a church, including its leadership, its decisions and the way its members treat one another. It leaves room for spontaneous and varied worship, since the verses just before it allow several people to take part in one meeting. What it asks is that all of it be orderly, clear and upbuilding.

Jesus is God’s clearest word to us. He is the Word made flesh (John 1:14) and the Son by whom God has spoken in these last days (Hebrews 1:1–2), and he has made the Father known (John 1:18). He taught the multitudes in parables (Matthew 13:34), the people were astonished at the authority of his teaching (Matthew 7:28–29), and he comforted the weary with the promise of rest (Matthew 11:28–30). In him we see the learning and the comfort that Paul wants prophecy to give. Every message that claims to come from God is therefore measured by the person, work and teaching of Jesus.

The gifts themselves come from him. Having been exalted, he poured out the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33), and the Spirit guides his people into all truth and glorifies Christ (John 16:7–15). Christ is the head of the body, the church (Colossians 1:18, Ephesians 5:23), and the gifts serve to bring that body to “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ”.

He is also the pattern of the humility these rules ask for. Being in the form of God, he “made himself of no reputation”, took the form of a servant and was obedient as far as the cross (Philippians 2:6–8). He held his peace before his accusers (Isaiah 53:7). In Gethsemane he yielded his will to the Father (Matthew 26:39), praying, “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). His power was always under control and used for others, as when he healed the leper (Mark 1:40–42).

And the peace of verse 33 is his. He is the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). Through him we have peace with God (Romans 5:1), a peace made by the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:20), and he says to his disciples, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you” (John 14:27).

These verses give us a simple test for anything done when believers meet, whether a song, a sermon, a prayer or a testimony: does it build up the people who are there? Paul assumes that every believer has something to give, so the passage honours each member’s part, and it asks each of us to offer that part for the good of the others. Clear words serve everyone in the room, including the visitor who is still finding out who Christ is.

The passage also shows us that listening is work given to the whole church. We weigh what we hear against Scripture, and we receive what is true with gladness. Those who speak can do so with humility, ready to wait or to give way, because the Spirit who gives a gift also gives the self-control to use it well.

Above all we are shown who God is. He is the author of peace, and a church that gathers in order, where people take turns, understand one another and are comforted, is showing the world something true about him. The same peace is his gift for our homes, our work and our dealings with each other, wherever his people carry it.