Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

1 Corinthians 14:1

As we will see in this chapter, the Corinthian Christians looked at miraculous spiritual gifts in the wrong way.  They apparently placed a higher priority on being able to miraculously speak in other tongues or languages, to the point that no one in their worship assemblies was being edified due to not being able to understand what was being said in the language which was different than their own native tongue.  Other spiritual gifts were being misused in similar fashion.

Thus, the apostle Paul had started addressing the proper usage and place of miraculous spiritual gifts in the early church (12:1ff).  He had just pointed out that having faith, hope, and especially godly love would be much more spiritually profitable than being able to perform miracles since having Spirit-given miraculous ability would cease upon the completion of divine revelation in the form of the New Testament canon (13:1-13).  He now returns his attention to instructing them on the proper perspective and practice of their spiritual gifts by exhorting them to “pursue love” and “earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy” (14:1).

Paul gives his reasons.  First, all they would be doing is “utter(ing) mysteries in the Spirit” if they miraculously spoke in languages from other countries which no one in the assembly could understand except God (14:2; cf. Acts 2:4-11).  “Mysteries” (mysterion) refers to things which are hidden or secret.  Paul uses this term elsewhere to refer to the gospel which God had kept hidden in earlier times but had now revealed through the Spirit-inspired apostles and prophets (2:7; 4:1; 13:2; Rom. 16:25; Eph. 1:9; 3:3-4, 9; 6:19; Col. 1:26-27; 2:2; 4:3; 1 Tim. 3:16).  However, in this context he might simply be saying that they would, by the miraculous power of the Spirit, be doing nothing more than uttering “mysteries” (mysterion, things which are kept secret and hidden) from the perspective of those in their worship assemblies who listen to them speaking in languages which they did not understand.

“On the other hand,” Paul goes on, “the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation” (14:3).  To “prophesy” (propheteuo) means to speak a message from God on his behalf (cf. Acts 2:4b; Matt. 10:19-20; 1 Pet. 4:11; 1 Thess. 2:13); it was one of the miraculous spiritual gifts listed earlier, similar to the gifts of knowledge and wisdom (12:8-11).  To have the miraculous gift of prophecy would mean that God would directly give the Christian who had this gift a message to share with the listeners in the worship assembly (cf. 14:29-32).  Such messages from the Lord would of course be very spiritually “upbuilding” and provide much “encouragement and consolation” for these Christians who were undergoing trials and hardships.  To miraculously speak in an unknown language would accomplish none of this.

This is why the apostle then states, “The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church” (14:4).  The one given the miraculous ability to speak in a language from a different country or region would of course know what he was saying and thus be spiritually uplifted himself, but the rest of his brethren would not be able to say the same due to not understanding his language.  However, the entire church would be built up by the one who “prophesies” by giving them a message from God (and doing so in their own language).  For these reasons Paul wanted all of them to miraculously speak in other languages (14:5a); doing so would certainly help them fulfill Jesus’ command to bring the gospel to the whole world (Mk. 16:15; Matt. 28:19-20).  However, he wanted “even more” for them “to prophesy” and considered “the one who prophesies” to be “greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up” (14:5b).

Although they deal with miraculous ability which has long since ceased, the principles given here still provide needed guidance for those who teach God’s Word today.  We must understand that the primary goal of all preaching and teaching is to spiritually strengthen the listener, something which cannot happen if we make our message too difficult for the average listener to understand (cf. Neh. 8:8).

— Jon