As he talks about prophecy here, he does so in three areas. Prophecy is better than speaking in tongues for the church, the individual, and for the sake of unbelievers. In the first place Paul says that prophecy in this sense, that is, communicating the Word of God in a clear and applicable way is better than tongues because it helps the church to grow. Speaking in tongues, unless there is somebody to interpret it, which of course is the principle he lays down, does not edify the church. Someone who sees another exercising this particular gift might be impressed, but the person is not edified by it.
This is not true in the same way of all the miraculous gifts. Paul speaks elsewhere of the gift of healing, which is obviously beneficial to the one who is healed. But he says that is not true of speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues calls attention to the one who is doing it, but it does not edify the church in its assemblies. In verse 3 Paul says, “But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort.” This matter of strengthening means the building up of the church. It is an interesting exercise to go through this chapter and see the number of times Paul speaks of building up, edifying, or strengthening. What he means is that the time that is spent together in Christian worship should be beneficial and should be exercised in such a way that those who leave it go out taught better of the things of God and having received a clearer direction as to how those principles are to be applied in their daily lives.
In other words, what Paul is saying here in 1 Corinthians is the same thing that he says in Ephesians 4, where he talks about the giving of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers. This is a key verse for the function of the church because there Paul explains precisely what should happen. He says that God has given these people for the building up of the body in order that the church might be able to function and do its work of ministry in the world. In this great task in which we are involved, time is of the essence. And when Christians come together, their time must count to those ends.
Secondly, he says that this ministry of prophecy should involve encouragement. It is a pity that we often forget to do that, especially those of us who are so given to the intellectual task of teaching. We think that all that is necessary is to get the doctrine straight. Of course, that’s very important, but Paul was not only a teacher; he was a pastor as well. He recognized that those to whom he spoke were often discouraged in their Christian lives or Christian ministries. Even though we know what we should do, and we try to do it, we often come up against what seem to us to be stone walls. It seems to us, sometimes, that day after day, week after week, or even year after year, nothing seems to happen. We are trying to do the right thing. We are trying to be obedient to Christ. We are trying to preach and share the Word with all of the gifts at our disposal. Still nothing seems to happen, and it is very easy to get discouraged in those circumstances. Paul says that one of the functions of prophecy or preaching in the church is that it should encourage believers in the work that God has given them to do.
One of the privileges I have as I meet pastors in different areas of the country as I travel is to encourage them because I find quite often that they are in difficult situations. They are trying hard to do a good job, but it is not easy. And I tell them they have to hang in there. I talk about some of the difficulties I have had, and say that when you hang in there over a period of years, sometimes it is when things seem most discouraging that God is actually at work. And in the future, you look back on those times and see what God was doing.
The third thing Paul mentions is comfort. He says when we spend time together in our assemblies, there should be a measure of comfort also in what is said. In the last century there was a great preacher in London by the name of James Parker, who often used to speak to seminarians who were training to be ministers. He used to say something like this, “Young men, when you preach in your churches, always preach to broken hearts because when you do you’ll never lack for an audience.” He was recognizing that people, even Christians, come to church with hurts. They come with wounds—sometimes wounds inflicted in the family or in the marketplace. Sometimes great griefs that have come into their lives because of ruptures in the past with other people, or sometimes sickness, or death, or many other things. We only have to look into our own lives to know what that they are going through.
