WWUTT 1606 Pray that You May Translate (1 Corinthians 14:10-15)

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The Apostle Paul says, if you're going to pray in a tongue, then you better pray that you may be able to translate, because if you don't speak words that make sense, the church is not going to understand, and no one is going to be edified when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

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For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of 1 Corinthians chapter 14, is where we have been talking about speaking in tongues, and I'm going to pick up where we left off last week.

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In fact, I'll start with verse 9. That was the last verse we read last week, and I'm going to go through verse 17 here.

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This is in the Legacy Standard Bible the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. So also you, unless you utter by the tongue a word that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken?

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For you will be speaking into the air. There are perhaps a great many kinds of sounds in the world, and none is without meaning.

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If then I do not know the meaning of the sound, I will be to the one who speaks a barbarian, and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me.

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So also you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church.

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Therefore let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may translate.

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For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What is the outcome then?

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I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the mind also. I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the mind also.

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Otherwise, if you bless in the spirit only, how will the one who fills the place of the uninformed say the amen at your giving of thanks, since he does not know what you are saying?

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For you are giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not edified. So we come back to verse 9 again where Paul says,

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So also you, unless you utter by the tongue a word that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken?

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For you will be speaking into the air. This is where we concluded last week, and it's understanding that Paul is telling the church in Corinth to speak clearly.

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He's telling them not to use gibberish, nor should you even be speaking in a foreign language that other people do not understand.

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If that's the way you're going to be in worship, then nobody's going to know what you are saying, and therefore, how can anyone rejoice in God over the word that you are giving unless it is known?

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Now, as I had said previously, as we had started our study in 1 Corinthians 14, where we're talking about speaking in tongues here, we're talking about known human languages.

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That's always been the context. That was the context of what we saw in the book of Acts. That's the context by which

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Paul is addressing it to the church in Corinth. Even if you wanted to argue that these people are speaking gibberish, it's yet a language that is not known.

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It's not understand. Even they don't understand what it is that they are saying, and I'll kind of clarify that here in just a moment.

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But let's say a person has memorized some phrases in a different language, and they come in speaking that other language.

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Well, nobody knows what it is that they're saying. They can't say their amen. They're doing this to look impressive.

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Paul is confronting that here. You have your spiritual gifts because you think it's for you to make you look great.

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That's not the point. The point is to edify the church. If you're speaking a word that's unclear, how will it be known what is spoken?

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You're just speaking into the air. This goes back to even in, well, the example, rather, that Paul gave in verses 7 and 8 about a heart producing a sound.

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If it doesn't produce a distinction in the tones, you don't know what song is being played on the flute or on the heart.

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If the trumpet produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle? So also you, unless you utter a word that is clear.

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How is anybody going to know what it is that you were saying? How do you rally the troops? How does anybody sing along?

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That's the example, the point that Paul's making there when we get to verse 9. So then in verse 10, there are perhaps a great many kinds of sounds in the world, and none is without meaning.

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They're speaking very generally here, whether you're talking about musical instruments in the example that he just gave earlier, or you're talking about words, languages, things that people speak, even different kinds of sounds that might be given to alert a person to a particular event or happening.

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I think of the dinner bell, right? When my mom would come out and ring the triangle and we know, hey, run to the house, run back to the homestead because mom's got dinner on the table.

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Or when you're at school and there is a bell that sounds that signifies this class is over and another one is about to begin.

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You have one bell that announces the class is over. Everybody knows I got about five minutes to go to my locker, change out my books, another bell sounds, and now we're ready to go to class.

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So there are all kinds of sounds in the world. All of them have a particular meaning. If instead of a bell in school on Monday, if the principal has replaced it with an air horn, let's say an air horn sounds when at the end of class.

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Now somebody might go, you know, I think that signifies the end of class, but they won't know for sure because nobody's told them, hey, we've replaced the bell with an air horn.

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So the air horn is going to be, uh, is going to be a little confusing to people now. Why have we changed sounds?

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They knew the bell meant that it was the end of class. The bell means that we're starting another class, but what's up with this air horn?

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It's certainly getting a lot of people's attention. But is it? What's the meaning of it? Are we just supposed to be getting hyped for the football game later this week or, or yeah, well, nobody announced to us or explained to us why we're hearing an air horn.

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So Paul says there's a great many number of sounds in the world. There's a particular meaning to that sound.

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If then I do not know the meaning of the sound, this is verse 11, I will be to the one who speaks a barbarian and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me.

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Now we think of barbarians as being like uncultured people, right there. They're the Neanderthals of their day.

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That's typically the way we use barbarian. Just like you might call a big foolish oaf a

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Neanderthal, you might also refer to him as a barbarian. It's just a violent people. They just, uh, they don't have the culture that we have.

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Well, a barbarian was to a Greek speaker, somebody who didn't know or speak

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Greek. Just like you had the dichotomy between Jews and Gentiles, right? Somebody who was not a

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Jew was known to a Jew as a Gentile. So even among the Greeks, there were people, if they did not know

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Greek, they were called a barbarian. Now there, there was certainly like a geographical kind of understanding of who a barbarian was as well.

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They live up there, but they don't speak Greek. So if somebody is making a sound and I don't know what the sound is, if then

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I do not know the meaning of the sound, Paul says, I'm going to be to the one who speaks a barbarian because what are they speaking in this illustration that Paul's giving here?

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They're speaking Greek and I don't understand what it is that they're saying. So what are they going to call me? They're going to call me a barbarian.

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They're going to say, you're not one of us. You don't belong to us. And to the one who speaks, or sorry, rather the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me.

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I don't know his language. So I'm a barbarian to him because I'm not speaking his language. He's a barbarian to me because he's not speaking my language.

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So we're just barbarians to one another. We don't know each other's language. You don't belong to me. You live out there.

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You're not cultured like I am. So think of this now in the context of exercising the spiritual gifts in the church in Corinth.

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Remember they're boasting in themselves. They are exercising these gifts to try to show themselves as being something great.

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So when a person speaks in a tongue to get everybody else to think that they're so impressive, they're filled with the

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Holy Spirit because they're speaking in tongues. They're looking at everybody else as you're not like me.

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Look how much more spiritual I am, or look at how much more of the spirit I have.

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Even to try to make people jealous of him, stirring up feelings that are downright sinful. And this is what it is that Paul is rebuking there in that church, that they would not behave in this manner, that they would not be provoking one another.

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You're using these gifts not to make yourself great. It's for the purpose of edifying the church.

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So also you, he says in verse 12, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church.

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Why are you trying to build yourself up? You say you're for the spiritual gifts. And I think that statement's really being, he's being kind of sarcastic there.

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So also you, since you are zealous for the spiritual gifts, seek to abound.

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Yes, desire the spiritual gifts, abound in those gifts for the edification of the church.

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It's for building up the church. It's for building one another up in love. And I really believe that as Paul is making that statement there, seek to abound for the edification of the church, it's going back to the statement that he made at the end of verse 12.

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And I will show you a more excellent way. And what was that more excellent way?

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He lays it out in chapter 13. It is the way of love. What does he say at the beginning of 14, pursue love yet earnestly desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy and verse three, the one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and encouragement.

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And every other time that he's going to use that word edification here in chapter 14, it's all encompassing with those other words as well.

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It's edifying. It's feeding the church. It is exhorting. It is instructing somebody to do something.

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There's going to be a response to what it is that's being said. And it's encouragement knowing that God is with us.

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He is working through us. He is ultimately accomplishing something great through his church.

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So just as Paul said that in verse three, so he's making the same kind of a statement here in verse 12, since you're zealous for the spiritual gifts, seek to abound, desire the spiritual gifts for the edification of the church.

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Do these things in love, pursue love the most excellent way. I call your attention once again to the beginning of chapter 13 where Paul says, if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love,

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I have become a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. You could have the most incredible sounds in the world that you are making.

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You're speaking languages of people from all over the planet. You're speaking languages, even of the heavenly places, things that man could not comprehend, but the angels speak.

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You can be speaking all of those great languages, but if you don't have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.

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I'm just a racket. There's no meaning or purpose to this sound. And again, everybody's just kind of looking around going, what's with the noisy gong or the clanging symbol?

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What is that supposed to mean? Verse two, and if I have the gift of prophecy and know and fathom all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but I do not have love,

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I am nothing. Now we can make this argument that if a person does not have love, then they're not of the spirit, are they?

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Right? They don't even have Christ, because as John says in 1 John, whoever does not love is not of God.

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So if they don't have love, they don't even have the Holy Spirit either. It's why it's important to recognize here kind of the hyperbolic or sarcastic way that Paul is speaking here.

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Yeah, you can claim to speak with the tongues of men and angels. Maybe you even actually can. But if you don't have love, it's not going to mean anything to anybody.

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It's not going to produce a result in anything because you are not speaking really the language of God.

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The words of God, according to what we have in the scriptures, because it is only by this word that we are saved and we even grow in that salvation.

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Verse two, if I have the gift of all prophecy and no mysteries and all knowledge. Now nobody does, right?

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No one can possibly have this prophetic gift predicting the future, and they also know all the mysteries of God.

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It's just been revealed to them. They know all knowledge. If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, that's more faith than anybody could ever have.

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But if I do not have love, I am nothing. We would say that faith is a dead faith. It's empty. Just as James talks about, we would say whatever that thing is that they claim is prophetic is either revelations that come from Satan or they're just faking it.

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And it's really not prophecy at all. And if they have all knowledge, it could be the smartest man on the planet.

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But if they do not have love, most especially the love of God, because God is love again, going to first John, if they do not have love, then they're nothing.

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We've seen some brilliant minds in the world, have we not? Some people who are very gifted, very smart, can fathom all kinds of mysteries and knowledge that I can't even,

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I can't even keep up with their line of thought. It's so deep, but they don't know God. You think of Einstein.

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Now, Einstein did acknowledge the existence of some kind of divine power, but he was very deistic.

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He did not believe that we could know that person, and he certainly did not acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ. So for all the amazing things that Einstein could think of, and even many of his theories have since been proven true, yet it amounts to nothing because he did not know

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God. All of our scientific accomplishments, even from Einstein's ideas, ultimately come to nothing.

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It's building another tower of Babel to try to reach the heavens, but it doesn't lead anywhere.

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It doesn't save anybody. There's no eternity in any of that. It's going to perish along with the rest of the world.

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Yeah, even Einstein's theories are going to come to nothing ultimately when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead and all of creation will be burned up with fire.

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It amounts to nothing. You think of Elon Musk, and recently there was that interview right at the end of 2021 between Elon Musk and the guys of the

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Babylon Bee who did not share the gospel with him. And Elon said that he believed in the

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God of Spinoza, which is basically just this idea that all matter or all thought and idea kind of coalesces and becomes

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God or something like that. He did not believe in Jesus Christ either. And for whatever

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Elon Musk is able to accomplish in his lifetime, if he's able to make it to Mars like he wants to, again, it's just another tower of Babel.

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It accomplishes nothing. He will have made it only as far as Mars and still got no closer to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. You can have all wisdom and all knowledge, but if you do not have love, the love of God that is given to us by faith in our

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Lord Jesus Christ, then it amounts to nothing. And so with that in mind, as Paul has been appealing to the church in Corinth to be filled with love, so he says to them, as you desire these spiritual gifts, now you'll never have gifts as great and as big as what

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Paul was hyperbolic hyperbolically explaining there in in verses one and two of chapter 13, you'll never get that high, but certainly desire the spiritual gifts.

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And what should your desire be for those spiritual gifts? It should be so that you edify the church so that we are building one another up in love.

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Therefore, let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may translate. So given all of this that Paul has said here, there's a great many kinds of sounds in the world.

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None is without meaning. But if you don't know what it means, then what's the point? You're going to be a barbarian to that other person, and they're going to be a barbarian to you.

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So be zealous for the spiritual gifts, but seek to abound for the edification of the church. That's the point.

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So that you wouldn't be strangers and aliens to one another, that we even in our language and our conversing with one another, we're speaking the language of the kingdom of heaven.

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It's not angelic languages that are mysterious, and we don't know what they are. They're things that we understand and can therefore rejoice in as we hear the promises of God and delight in them.

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And our desires are pointed heavenward to Christ, seated at the right hand of God.

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So therefore, let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may translate. If you say that you're speaking in tongues, like this isn't just an act, you haven't just memorized phrases in another language, and that's what you're regurgitating.

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You're not just speaking this gibberish nonsense that doesn't mean anything. You're claiming that there's a meaning to that, that there's a purpose to that.

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Great. Then pray that you may translate. Have God give you the translation to that phrase that you were saying so that you can speak the language of the church.

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And by that, I mean the language that everybody else is speaking. Paul is saying here, don't carry on in that way.

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Speak the language that everybody understands. That's what verse 13 means.

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Let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may translate. Speak the language everybody knows.

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He's not saying speak in a tongue, ask for translations, and then translate.

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He's not saying that. He's being sarcastic here once again. So if you're going to speak in a tongue, great, then pray for a translation, because really the way that this is going to work out is it's going to expose that a person is actually faking it.

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If it cannot be translated, then it isn't real. Sit down and shut up. You don't really have that spiritual gift because you're not edifying the church.

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If the Holy Spirit was really giving it to you, then you would be using it for the edification of the church. So Paul issues this challenge.

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If you're speaking in a tongue, pray that you may translate, and if there's a translation to that, it's going to be for the edification of the church.

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But if you can't translate it, then stop doing that. Verse 14, for if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.

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Once again, we have this statement of tongue in the singular, and if you'll remember back, this is a few lessons ago, but there's times when

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Paul refers to speaking in tongues, and that's other known human languages, and then some will take the singular tongue as being that glossolalia, the gibberishness that even the pagans would practice.

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This isn't anything that is exclusive to the Holy Spirit. He doesn't grant this to anybody. But even what you see pagans doing when they're speaking that gibberish nonsense and claiming that they're experiencing some sort of spiritual ecstasy, that's the singular tongue that Paul refers to.

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So tongues is known human languages, and tongue is therefore the glossolalia. I'm not saying

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I necessarily agree with that, but that is one interpretation of that. So Paul says, for if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.

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You're claiming that you're doing this in the spirit, and you're experiencing some sort of spiritual thing. Okay, well, granting that that's what's going on, well, then your spirit is experiencing something, but what's your mind doing?

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You don't even know. You can't explain what it is that you're saying, so therefore, even your own mind is unfruitful.

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You're supposed to be exercising your spiritual gift for the benefit of the church. Well, if you're exercising the spiritual gift on yourself, you're not even benefiting from that, because it's a language, it's nonsense that nobody can understand.

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Verse 15, what is the outcome then? What is the result of this? How shall we now respond?

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Paul says, I will pray with the spirit, of course, with my soul.

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The spirit is lowercase s here. I will pray with the spirit, lowercase s, so talking about my own soul, my own spirit, in my heart.

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I will pray in my heart, and I will pray with the mind. I know what it is that I'm praying.

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I'm not praying nonsense. I'm praying words of sense. That's the way that Jesus taught us to pray.

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Every prayer of Christ that we see in the gospels, it's clear prayer that the disciples understood and therefore wrote down in the

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Bible for our benefit. Jesus never prays in nonsense language that his disciples could not understand, and so therefore, we should not be praying in nonsense language that not even we can understand.

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So Paul says, I'm going to pray with my spirit, and I'm going to pray with my mind also, because then I'm edifying to others, and even his own soul is edified.

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I will sing with the spirit, he says, and I will sing with the mind also, and I think this kind of calls back to attention the illustration of the musical instruments that he was giving earlier in verses seven and eight.

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I'm going to sing, and the words that I'm going to sing are going to make sense. It's not just an indiscernible sound or tone, or I'm not just humming along.

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Even when we get together as Christians and we sing, it's not just la, la, la, la, la.

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There's actual words that we are articulating and singing. When the instruction is given in Ephesians chapter five, or in Colossians chapter three, to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in your hearts unto

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God. This is singing words that are glorifying of God, and Paul is saying,

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I'm going to pray words that make sense, I'm going to sing words that make sense. I'm going to sing with the spirit, and I'm going to sing with the mind also, so that he may be edified, but most especially that the whole church may be edified.

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That's where I'm going to stop. We'll pick up in verse ... I'm going to read that verse again tomorrow, okay?

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We'll pick up there, verse 15, and I think it looks pretty good for us to be able to finish chapter 14 later on this week.

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Heavenly Father, I thank you for leading us into all truth, that we may know these things, your mind and your heart, even in this rebuke that the

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Apostle Paul is giving to the church in Corinth. May we understand the instruction that is given to all of us as saints, as members of the household of God, that we have been called to edify one another.

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We've been called to preach the gospel to the world. We've also been called to grow one another in these gospel truths, and how can we do that if they don't make sense?

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So help us to make sense of the words that we are reading, and then speak the sense, give the sense to others that they may hear and believe and be edified as well.

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We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt .com and click on the

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Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study, When We Understand the