Finally, Paul talks also of the benefit of this for unbelievers. It is interesting how he does it. He begins to talk about it in verse 22, saying that tongues are signs, not for believers, but for unbelievers; while prophecy is for believers, and not for unbelievers. What he means by that is that tongues is a miracle, which is something that the unbelieving world will notice, whereas in the experience of Christian people, it would not get their attention in the same way.
However, in contrast to this, Paul refers to what has been going on in the Corinthians’ worship service. If in your worship service you practice a kind of worship in which all over the church, one after the other, and even at times several all at once, people are standing up and babbling away in tongues, when an unbeliever comes into your gathering, he will conclude from all this disorder that the people there are out of their minds. He is not going to get anything out of the service because he cannot understand a word. He is going to turn around and leave, concluding that this particular church is one to stay away from.
On the contrary, Paul says, if an unbeliever comes into your fellowship and, instead of that kind of unintelligible speech, he finds people actually articulating the great truths of the Word of God, showing what they mean and why they make sense and how they apply to the lives of people living today and why they are important, that person is going to go out of there edified. He is going to conclude that God is really among you. And, of course, that is what we desire.
In the last half of this chapter, Paul sums it up and applies it in several areas that he has not spoken about in the first half of the chapter. His essential point is that what we do must be done for edification. So he gives some rules that should be followed if we really take that seriously. He does not say that people must never speak in tongues in church. Rather, he says that if you do, it should be done in a certain way. There should be only two or three who speak in tongues, at the most. Secondly, they should speak one at a time, not all at once. Even if you could understand them they should speak one at a time, because if everybody is speaking at once, you cannot even catch the words. Thirdly, when they speak there should always be someone there to interpret. If what we are concerned about is the edification of the body and the communication of scriptural truth to unbelievers, then it must have interpretation, because something which is unintelligible is no message at all.
Then there is a paragraph in which he applies it to other parts of worship as well. He has been talking about tongues and the principles that should control the practice of the speaking in tongues, but he also says that the same thing applies to preaching. When you have a preaching service, you should have two or three at most. You are going to wear the people out if you have fifteen or twenty people preaching one after the other, on and on and on. Furthermore, they must speak clearly, and one at a time, so they can be understood.
Then Paul has a little paragraph here in which he speaks about women being silent in the church. This does not mean that a woman can never speak in a church building. When he talks about the churches, he is referring to the worship services. We also know that even in such services, there was never the case that women could not say anything because in the eleventh chapter, he talks about a woman praying or prophesying and seems to assume that she can do these in a certain way. So when he speaks of women remaining silent, what is he talking about?
I believe he is talking about the same thing in 1 Timothy 2, where he says women ought to keep silent in the church. He is giving instruction for the ordering of the church, and teaches that a woman is not to usurp authority over a man. What he is referring to is the authoritative teaching and disciplinary role of the session or the ministers in the churches of Jesus Christ. There is a restriction here. It is not to say that women do not have gifts and that there are not places for those gifts to be fulfilled. But in this authoritative teaching and preaching role, which ministers occupy, this is something that should be restricted to men.
He comes to the very end and he sums it up with the three principles that you find in verses 39 and 40. First of all, be eager to prophesy. You see, if prophecy, preaching, or teaching is as good as he says it is, then everyone of us should seek to be able to do that in some way. Second, do not forbid speaking in tongues. Whenever any of us receives enlightenment like that and has something that we suddenly realize is good or better than something else, the first thing we want to do is restrict somebody else’s exercise of the gift. We are all very guilty of that. But Paul says not to do that. Desire the best thing, but make sure that you do not forbid somebody else to do what they are doing.
Then as he concludes, he says, “But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way” (v. 40). That is, it should be done in a way that is appropriate to what we are trying to accomplish because in the final analysis, it is not because of who we are or how spectacular we seem, nor is it even to the extent of how eloquent we can speak about biblical truths or how clear we can be in their exposition, or how wise we may appear. It is not because we do spectacular things in our services, and it is not because we have magnificent stories about God’s intervention in a supernatural way. Rather it is the Word of God and whether we are faithful in the exposition, the teaching, and the application of this Word. That is what God honors. God does not honor your experience. God does not honor your intellectual capabilities. God honors His Word. And where we are faithful and where we teach that, God Himself, who speaks through it as He stands behind it, carries the truth of that Word home to the human heart and brings about that rebirth which is absolutely necessary if one would see the kingdom of God.
