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"Pursue love as you aim. Strive for spiritual gifts, and specially that you may
prophesy" (14: 1, C. K. Barrett).
Love must be sought for with the eagerness of pursuit. No half-hearted regard will do.
This comes first always in importance where Christian witness and service is concerned.
It is quite obvious from what follows, that Paul is down-grading the gift of tongues; not
that it had no value, but it was not the most important gift, and the Corinthian believers
were over-rating it.
We must first of all point out there is no justification for the word "unknown" in the
A.V. throughout this chapter. The word is not in the original and should be omitted as in
the R.V. and modern translations for it is misleading. How are we to understand the
word "tongue"? There are two divergent views on this. One is that it refers to
languages. Another is that the reference is to ecstatic speech. The best way to decide
this is to go back to the inception of tongues at Pentecost, and here there is no doubt
whatsoever that languages or dialects are meant. The opening verses declare that there
were Jews gathered at Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost from "every nation under
heaven" (Acts 2: 5). Luke goes on to tell us that they were confounded because "every
man heard them speak in his own dialect (language)". They ask, "how hear we every
man in our own dialect (language), wherein we were born?" (verses 8 and 11).
The Lord had told the eleven disciples that they were to be witnesses for Him "in
Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth"
(1: 8).
In order that this should be rapidly accomplished, God removed the speech barrier to
the spread of the Gospel and the Kingdom message. This was a reversal of the confusion
of tongues at Babel. Seen in this light, the gift of tongues makes sense and was one of
the miraculous signs that accompanied the earthly Kingdom ministry in the Acts, first to
Israel and later on to the Gentiles who were admitted as wild olive grafts into the true
olive tree, Israel, in order to "provoke them to jealousy" and stir them up to obey the
Divine command to repent and turn to God (Acts 3: 19-26) so that, through their
mediation, the restoration of the earthly Kingdom to them might become a fact and then
be realized all over the earth, with the Lord's Second Advent an accomplished fact.
Some insist that the gift of tongues at Pentecost was recognized languages, but at
Corinth it was different, being akin to ecstatic speech. But this is by no means proved;
Corinth was a port and would have a mixed flow of races passing through it. That
strangers visited the assembly is clear from I Cor. 14: 23, where the Apostle refers to
"unlearned and unbelieving" coming in. These would certainly need a message in their
own language if of foreign extraction, and a believer with the gift of tongues could
minister this, followed by another with the gift of interpretation so that the whole
assembly could benefit. It is interesting to note that hermeneuo can mean "translate" as
well as "interpret" (see Arntd and Gingrich). The New Bible Dictionary states that the
Greek words for "interpret" always mean "translate" except Luke 24: 27 (p.1287). It
is a good principle of interpretation that the unknown should be interpreted by the known,