Why the Church Needs Speech People Can Understand

A listener belongs within our concern

A believer may listen earnestly to a message yet struggle to follow its words. The speaker may be sincere, and the gathering may be full of spiritual expectation. Still, the listener needs enough understanding to receive what is being said. Paul brings that person into the church’s attention.

His concern is deeply practical. In 1 Corinthians 14 he asks what a contribution gives to other people. Can they recognise its meaning? Can they agree with a thanksgiving? Can they learn and be encouraged? These questions belong within his account of the Holy Ghost’s gifts and the love that should shape their exercise. ¹

The church can receive this concern with confidence. Meaningful speech helps a neighbour participate in the gathering. A person who understands a testimony can recognise the truth it communicates; a person who follows a thanksgiving can join in gratitude. Attention to the listener gives love a concrete expression.

Paul joins desire for spiritual gifts with love and the building up of others. ⁶

The same Spirit gives different gifts

Chapter 12 begins with spiritual gifts and directs attention to the confession that Jesus is Lord. Paul then names varieties of gifts, administrations and operations, while speaking of the same Spirit, Lord and God. The church’s unity rests in its shared dependence on the Lord, alongside the differences between its members. ¹

The lists of gifts have a communal purpose. Their variety expresses the breadth of service within the body, whose members need one another. A congregation can receive different contributions as belonging to its shared life, with each gift directed toward the good of the people God has brought together. ⁷

Variety also matters when reading the questions at the end of chapter 12. Paul distinguishes roles and gifts within the body. The passage calls for attention to those different functions, rather than an assumption that each believer exercises every gift in the same way. ³

The Spirit’s gifts bring believers into mutual dependence. Their shared source does not remove their differences. Receiving the gift of another person can deepen the church’s life, while the person who contributes remains a member of the same body and a recipient of other people’s service. ¹⁶

This gives room for gratitude rather than rivalry. A believer who teaches clearly, another who offers a testimony, and another who contributes through a spiritual gift can attend to the good of the same people. The importance of their contribution appears in what others can receive from it.

Love gives the discussion its direction

Chapter 13 belongs between the discussion of gifts and the instructions for their exercise. Paul names tongues, prophecy, knowledge and faith while explaining the necessity of love. He describes patience, kindness and a love that seeks another person’s good. These are qualities of the church’s life together. ¹

Love directs gifted people toward the common good. A contribution can be impressive and still fail to serve another person well. Attending to a neighbour’s need helps spiritual gifts take their place within the shared life of the congregation, where the good of others matters alongside the speaker’s experience. ¹⁵

A person may need patience to explain a familiar expression, or kindness to notice that another believer has not understood it. Such attention can deepen participation. The listener is a person to be welcomed into the meaning of the message, with time and care enough to receive it.

Paul’s transition into chapter 14 joins following love with desiring spiritual gifts, especially prophecy. He then explains that the one who prophesies speaks to people for edification, exhortation and comfort. His argument keeps the purpose of a contribution close to the needs of the people who hear it. ¹

A meaningful sound can be recognised

Paul uses an ordinary musical comparison: “And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped?” A pipe or harp must give distinguishable sounds for a listener to recognise what is being played. The example concerns the relation between a sound and the person who hears it. ¹

The musical comparison makes communication concrete. Notes can be heard without a tune being recognised. A signal can sound without its purpose becoming clear. In the same way, speech needs to communicate meaning to its hearer if that person is to receive the benefit of what is said. ¹³

Meaning does not remove the feeling carried by music or speech. Recognisable sounds allow people to respond together, and clear words can carry deep conviction. Paul’s illustration gives understanding a place within participation: the hearer can receive what the speaker intends to communicate. ²⁰

Verse 9 applies the comparison to words easy to be understood. Its Greek phrase describes speech that is clear or distinct. The examples around it show why that quality matters: listeners need to recognise what is being communicated if the contribution is to reach them with meaning. ²

This can help a believer value ordinary explanation. A speaker who gives the meaning of a biblical expression makes room for another person to follow it. Familiarity with a phrase can be shared through explanation, so that the listener receives its substance and can respond thoughtfully.

Tongues and interpretation belong in the argument

Paul says that the person speaking in an unknown tongue speaks to God, and that no one understands him. He also says that the person who prophesies builds up the church. Interpretation changes the comparison, because a tongue can then bring a benefit that others are able to receive. ¹

The settings of Acts and 1 Corinthians require careful attention. Pentecost describes people hearing speech in their own languages, while Paul’s instructions address tongues and interpretation within a gathering. Reading each account in its own context preserves the particular question that its language and events bring before the reader. ⁵

Our Pentecostal reading distinguishes baptism in the Holy Ghost as empowerment for witness from conversion, and receives tongues as its initial evidence. Paul’s present instructions concern how gifts serve the gathered church. The different settings matter. ¹⁸

Within this gathering, the tongue speaker is told to pray that he may interpret. Later instructions limit the number of speakers, require them to speak by course, and require interpretation. Where there is no interpreter, the person is to keep silence in the church and speak to himself and to God. ¹

The instruction to remain silent when interpretation is unavailable assumes that the speaker can govern the public contribution. Spiritual speech is therefore brought within responsible participation in the gathering. Attention to the other people present belongs with the exercise of the gift. ¹¹

Ancient comparisons also need care. Accounts of inspired speech in the wider Greek world do not justify a simple equation between the Corinthian gifts and uncontrolled frenzy. Different practices and descriptions must be examined in their own settings before a claim of direct borrowing can be established. ¹⁰

The mind can join the prayer

Paul states his intention: “What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.” Prayer and singing with the spirit are joined to prayer and singing with understanding. He gives the church a positive pattern in which the person’s spiritual participation and meaningful expression can belong together. ¹

The next verses consider thanksgiving. A person may give thanks well, yet another person cannot say Amen because he does not understand what has been said. Paul’s concern reaches beyond the sincerity of the speaker to the other person’s ability to join the response. ¹

That is a generous way to think about communication. The listener can become a participant rather than simply a person present in the room. Understanding allows that person to recognise the truth, share in gratitude and receive the contribution as something that concerns the church’s common life.

The Spirit’s work can include insight, teaching and ethical guidance alongside charismatic expression. Attention to these dimensions gives the believer’s mind a place within spiritual life. Receiving the Spirit’s help and seeking to understand what is being communicated can grow together. ⁹

A church can therefore value both earnest prayer and clear explanation. A person’s desire to help others understand can itself express care for the people gathered. The meaning of the contribution is made available to them, giving them room to receive it with their own faith and attention.

Five words can give more to the church

Paul writes: “Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.” He has just thanked God that he speaks with tongues more than they all. The preference for five understood words in church therefore belongs alongside his positive acknowledgment of tongues. ¹

His comparison measures a contribution by what it gives to others. The gathered church needs instruction that can be received. A shorter contribution with meaning can serve that purpose better than a much longer contribution whose meaning remains unavailable to the people listening. ¹⁹

The contrast can help a gifted believer receive correction without feeling that every gift has been dismissed. Paul addresses the use of a gift in a particular setting. His aim is the good of the congregation, and his own gratitude for tongues keeps that aim beside serious spiritual expectation.

The same concern can guide ordinary preaching and testimony. A familiar religious phrase may carry different associations for different listeners. Explaining its intended biblical meaning helps people hear what is being affirmed and gives them a clearer opportunity to receive the truth being communicated. ⁴

This is especially valuable when a person is new to the church’s language. Clear speech can welcome that person into the meaning of a message. The speaker’s care appears in making the truth accessible, while the listener remains free to attend, consider and respond.

Prophecy serves people and receives discernment

Paul’s description of prophecy includes building up, encouragement and consolation. These purposes give the contribution a relation to the church’s actual life. Prophetic speech is received within a community whose people need strengthening and care, rather than being measured only by the unusual character of the experience. ⁸

Chapter 14 also tells the church to judge prophetic contributions. It permits speakers to take turns so that all may learn and be comforted, and states that the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. Spiritual expectation therefore appears within an ordered life of mutual attention and discernment. ¹

Continuing expectation of prophecy can be joined to its testing by received apostolic teaching. The church’s reception of a spiritual contribution involves discernment within its allegiance to the Gospel. A prophetic claim does not become an independent authority that displaces the truth through which the congregation knows Christ. ¹⁷

This can encourage a believer to offer a contribution humbly. The church’s attention to its meaning and faithfulness belongs within care for the gift and for the people who hear it. Teachability gives room for spiritual service to mature within the community.

The visitor also needs to understand

Paul considers what may happen when the whole church comes together and an unlearned person or unbeliever enters. His examples contrast the effect of everyone speaking with tongues with the effect of prophecy that brings conviction and recognition of God’s presence. The visitor’s experience belongs within the argument. ¹

The quotation from Isaiah 28 also brings difficult speech into view. One interpretation sees an analogy between speech that alienates its hearers in Isaiah and uninterpreted tongues in Paul’s example. This is a proposal about the sign’s force, whose details remain debated within the passage’s argument. ¹²

Paul’s account can be read as directing the church toward speech through which a visitor may recognise God’s presence. Intelligibility matters within that encounter. The scenario encourages attention to what the visitor can receive, while an actual person’s response remains more than a result the congregation can guarantee. ¹⁴

A visitor may need the meaning of an expression that long established believers recognise immediately. Giving that meaning can be an act of hospitality. The truth is offered in words the person can follow, with enough patience to let understanding grow.

The church’s witness remains centred on Jesus Christ. Paul’s letter begins with the message of the cross and the people called into fellowship with the Son. The gifts discussed later belong within that Gospel and within the life of the body that receives its hope from him. ¹

Spiritual expectation can grow with clear speech

Paul ends the chapter by telling the church to covet to prophesy and not to forbid speaking with tongues. He also directs that all things be done decently and in order. The conclusion holds desire for gifts together with care for how they are exercised among other people. ¹

Our Pentecostal expectation can receive that whole movement. Believers can seek the Holy Ghost’s help, welcome his gifts and pray with faith, while attending to the people who need to understand the contribution. Spiritual vitality and thoughtful communication can strengthen the same congregation.

The listener at the beginning of this article belongs within that hope. Clear meaning gives that person room to say Amen, learn, receive comfort and recognise the Gospel being proclaimed. The speaker’s gift finds a fuller place in the church’s life as another person receives its benefit.

A congregation grows through many such acts of care. Words are explained, contributions are interpreted, prophetic claims are discerned, and the good of others remains in view. Paul’s instruction gives gifted believers a generous purpose: to serve the people God has brought together with truth they can receive.