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Posted by 1 Corinthians on Wednesday, 13 January 2016
1 Corinthians 14:2
For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.
14:2. What Paul meant by speaking in a tongue is a matter of considerable debate. One common view is to see Paul’s use of the word “tongue” (glossa) against the background of first-century pagan religions and thus define it as ecstatic speech similar to that expressed by the sibylla, or female prophetesses. The Cumaen sibyl (cf. Virgil Aeneid 6. 77-102) was the most famous of the 10 female prophetesses claimed by various regions. Others see the tongues-speaking in 1 Corinthians as ecstatic speech similar to that of Pythia, the female oracle at Delphi (Plutarch Moralia 5. 409e) or similar to the maenads of Dionysus in their ecstatic frenzy (Ovid Metamorphoses 3. 534, 710-30; cf. Euripides Bacchae). That the Corinthians may have thought of this gift as analogous to the pagan ecstatics is certainly possible, but to suggest that Paul used the term with reference to this pagan background is hardly enlightened scholarship. In fact the seedbed for most of Paul’s theological concepts and the usual source of his terms was the Old Testament. This is evident by Paul’s use of glossa outside of these three Corinthian chapters. He used the word 21 times in 1 Corinthians 12-14 but only 3 other times in his other letters. Each of Paul’s other uses was either in a quotation from the Old Testament (Ps. 5:9 in Rom. 3:13; Isa. 45:23 in Rom. 14:11) or in an allusion to it (Isa. 45:23 in Phil. 2:11). In all three instances he used the word “tongue” as a figure of speech for the statement or confession made. Whether good (Rom. 14:11; Phil. 2:11) or bad (Rom. 3:13) the statement was clearly intelligible.
The same may be said of the meaning of the word glossa elsewhere in the New Testament. Whether it was used literally of the physical organ (e.g., Mark 7:33; James 3:5; Rev. 16:10) or figuratively of human languages (e.g., Acts 2:11; Rev. 5:9; 7:9; 10:11; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6; 17:15), it nowhere referred to ecstatic speech. If it is reasonable to interpret the unknown with the help of the known, the obscure by the clear, then the burden of proof rests with those who find in this term a meaning other than human language.
The context of this verse is the assembled congregation in Corinth (1 Cor. 11:2-14:40, esp. 14:4-5) in which utterance in a tongue was given without the benefit of interpretation (cf. vv. 13, 19). Apparently no native speaker of the tongue was present in the assembly (cf. vv. 10-11), and no one was given supernatural enablement to interpret it. The utterances therefore were mysteries, truths requiring a supernatural disclosure which God had not provided the Corinthians in this particular instance. As a result, the expression of tongues became an exercise in futility for the assembly as a whole, with only the speaker deriving some benefit (v. 4) in his spirit (cf. v. 14), the sentient aspect of his being (pneuma; cf. Matt. 5:3; Acts 17:16; 2 Cor. 2:13).
Excerpt from:
Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-c1985).
The Bible Knowledge Commentary : An Exposition of the Scriptures.
Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
