1 Corinthians 14

3. Management in the use of Gifts, 1 Corinthians 14:1-40.

This chapter closes the triad upon spiritual gifts. See Introductory Note to chaps. 12 and 13. Paul, in exercise of apostolic authority, now pronounces the relative rank of the charismatic exercises, and gives rules for their regulation. 1. On the principle of utility, tongues are inferior to prophecy, as less building-up the Church, 1-21. 2. This illustrated by a picture of the comparative effects of the two, 22-25. 3. Directions for the most orderly and effective exercise of both gifts, 26-33. 4. And this order must not be disturbed by the garrulity of the women, 34, 35. 5. A silencing conclusion pronounced on all who gainsay these apostolic directions, 36-40.

There belongs to man’s nature a side by which he stands in relation to the supernatural world. In different ages and countries, and under various religions, the preternatural dream, trance, ecstasy, revery, clairvoyance, and presentiment, have appeared, especially in seasons of excitement. These indicate the elements in man preparing him for a future state. Even in ages of pure Theism, as in Judea, and also among Mohammedans; or Polytheism, as in Greece; or Pantheism, as in the Neo-Platonists; men self-consecrated to the contemplation of the supernal have found themselves wrapped into preternatural frames, in which they exhibited phenomena impossible to the ordinary human conditions. Socrates not only had his demon, but, as Plato informs us, was subject to the contemplative trance. The Protestants of France, under the bloody persecutions of Louis XIV., abounded in prophetic gifts. Nor is it any wonder that in the powerful excitements that aroused these gifts unseemly events should take place. Such took place in Corinth, where the divine Spirit had to struggle with the lower nature of man. That the phenomena here were not merely preternatural but supernatural that they were not merely the excitement of the human susceptibilities but the touch of the blessed Spirit upon those susceptibilities, inspiring them into action, we know, because we know that the Head of the Church after his resurrection promised such gifts, and declared that he was on high dispensing them to his followers. The susceptibility and the inspiration are correlatives of each other. Man is thereby capable of communion and cooperation with God.