1 Corinthians 14:23

23. If therefore Paul now shows how a mismanagement of tongues will verify the prediction, (Isaiah 28:12,) they would not hear; and in so doing furnishes in these two verses one of the most vivid and interesting pictures of the process of conversion in a live Church of the apostolic age. We learn how improper management aggravated unbelief and brought obloquy upon religion: and how the vivid presentation of truth searched the life and soul of the hearer though and through, pierced him with conviction, and brought him down in prayer and complete self-surrender on the spot. Paul, no doubt, was familiar with such events, and many a powerful preacher since his day has witnessed the power of truth to convert the soul.

All speak with tongues Not all at once; (just as all prophesy, in the next verse, does not mean all prophesy at once;) but no performer does any thing else but speak with tongues. There is no prophesying, or teaching, or interpreting; nothing but one lofty chant of tongues from different performers through the whole meeting. It is all vox et praeterea nihil. Not one distinct idea for the stranger through the whole.

Unlearned Same word as in 1 Corinthians 14:16 ungifted persons; who neither speak, nor interpret, nor understand charismatically. Their want of share in the gift results in want of sympathy and in unbelief.

Unbelievers Pagans or Jews.

Ye are mad They will pronounce you at once unintelligent fanatics. From all this it would seem to follow that these Corinthian tongues did not express to the unsympathizing foreigner any connected discourse; and this sinking below the pentecostal standard was the reason of Paul’s just disparagement of them. From the Greek word for mad, μαινεσθε , come our words mania, maniac. The Greek word μαντις , a prophet, belongs to the same root, because the sacred mania by which the prophet was possessed was considered as a prophetic influence.