On 1 Corinthians 14:2

Mark Wilson emory2oo2 at hotmail.com
Sun Sep 22 12:15:07 EDT 2002



Waldo:


>>hO GAR LALWN GLWSSHi OUK ANQRWPOIS LALEI ALLA QEWi,
>>OUDEIS GAR AKOUEI, PNEUMATI DE LALEI MUSTHRIA
>>
>>I am trying to understand OUDEIS GAR AKOUEI.
>>
>>So far, I have something like, "The one speaking with
>>a (particular) tongue or language does not speak to
>>men but to (some, a) god."

Rather than restate what has already been said, I might point out that your 
understanding of "a god" has much to commend it, but only if you
begin with the presuppositions that many of these Corinthians were
out of line in this practice.

Under this view, the practice we see today for example, known as
speaking in tongues, which I find to be some silly manufacturering
of the biblical tongues (speaking a known Gentile dialect) we
see on Acts. Everyone heard and understood what was being said when
the legitimate gift was being used; no interpreters were needed on
the day of Pentecost.

Some solve this contradiction by suggesting that the tongues in
1 Corinthians is different than that of Acts, an argument I find
totallly devoid of merit. And yet, I've not completely figured
out what this phenomena that Paul is trying to stop in Corinthians
was all about either. He was fine with a particular tongues speaking,
but very opposed to another kind of tongues speaking. This latter
kind he speaks very harshly against in this chapter.

I think what you do have is this silly non-sense of gibberish
being humanly manufactured to compete with the legitimate gift
of speaking a known Gentile dialect (comproble today of being
able to speak French, German, Chinese, etc without learning it)
in 1 Corinthians. I think this only explains the stinging rebuke
that Paul levels against these imposters.

So, yes, some of these Corinthians, because they are not speaking in the
divinely inspired gift of tongues, they are talking into air. They
have joined the ranks of those within the mystery religions of
Corinthian and are speaking in some crazy gibberish that Paul seeks
to rebuke them for. He is very careful not to rebuke the legitimate
gift that surely some still had by this time. Like those in mystery
religions, who worshiped and spoke to a god, Paul puts some of these
Corinthians in the same ranks.

I do think that much more needs to be studied on this text, and with
an entirely different set of biblical presuppositions. Otherwise, you
arrive at this contradictory conclusion that the legitimate gift of
tongues was to be used to speak to God! I find that intolerable, or
better yet, without biblical precedence.

So, the reference to "the god" would be a reference back to this
same god of verse 2 in Clay's example. If you interpret 1 Corinthians
14 with these mystery religions in mind, you may make far more
progress than positing some "unknown language to be used when speaking
or praying to God."

I would recommend reading Dr. John MacArthur for more on this
position that I have probably poorly misrepresented. Suffice it to
say that what was going on in 1 Corinthians was something that Paul
was trying to stop, at least the illegitimate "speaking in tongues"
that can easily be distinguished in this chapter from the legitimate
gift (which only rarely appears, and then, Paul reminds them that this
gift is for the unbeliever, not the believer [vs. 22]).

Some thoughts,

Mark Wilson


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