THE KING’S BUSINESS
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understood). In that case the unbelieving or unlearned one who did come in would be “convicted” of sin by every speaker (cf. John 16:8), and “judged” (rather, searched out) by every speaker. In this way “the secrets of his heart” would be “made mani fest.” How often it happens that when men speak in the Spirit that the most hidden things in other men’s hearts and lives are laid bare and the listener thinks someone must have told history to the speaker. The result is that the one thus “convicted” and “searched out” would “fall down on his face and worship God, declaring that God is in you indeed.” Would that all our Christian gatherings today were so filled with the Spirit’s presence, that what Paul here describes would occur more often. In a case like this, one coming in would not say, “ye. are mad:” he would say, “God is in you indeed.” Which do men say when they are going away from your gatherings? Having discussed the relative value of various gifts, Paul now gives specific direc tions for the true ordering of the assem bly. In Corinth there was such a richness of gifts that it was difficult for every one who had something to say to get a chance to say it. “Each one had a Psalm, appar ently an extempore hymn of praise inspired by the Spirit like those of Elizabeth, Mary, Zachariah, Simeon, and Anna (Luke 1:41- 45, 46-55, 68-79 ; 2:29-32, 34, 35, 36-39), had a teaching (i.e., of the truth which the Spirit had given himj, had a revelation (something God had directly communicated or revealed to him), or else he had a tongue (i.e., an impulse to speak in a tongue he did not understand and that others would not understand,” or “an interpreta tion (i.e., an interpretation of something that someone else or he had said in a dif ferent tongue).” There seems to have been a sort of rivalry between -them as to who would get his part in first. This same spirit is not altogether unknown today, at least when gifts abound. Such was the -«agerness of each to deliver his psalm, or Monday, December 17. 1 Corinthians 14:26-28.
teaching, or revelation, or tongue, or inter pretation, that Paul felt it necessary to urge them that "all things be done unto edi fying,” and not unto a mere display of gifts and knowledge. He goes on further to say that if there were those in the assem bly who were moved to speak in a tongue, that not more than two or at the very most three, should ever do it in any one meeting and when two or three did “speak In a tongue” they must do it “in turn” (R. V.) not both at once, and, if one had spoken in a tongue, before another should speak, someone who had the gift of inter pretation must interpret; or if there was no one present who could interpret what was said in the tongue in a language that all who were present could understand, then the one who- had a tongue must not speak at all in that gathering of the church but he must “keep silence in the church (i.e., in that particular gathering)”—he might go alone by himself and “speak to himself and to God” Paul in these direc tions does not merely display good sense, he exhibits inspired wisdom. There are assemblies today not only where people are speaking in tongues that neither they nor anybody else understand, but where there are good people who are mightily wrought upon, but no one else gets -any inspiration out of what they say. Yet they insist upon speaking in every meeting and no one dare check them unless they be “grieving” or “quenching” the Spirit. Paul’s words in verse 28 apply clearly to such a case. Such persons should not be allowed to speak in public assemblies. Tuesday, December 18. 1 Corinthians 14:29. If there were persons present in the assembly who boasted the prophetic gift, two or three of them should speak, one at a time (v. 31). Note that Paul does not say in such a case that “two or at the most three” should speak. When the two or three with the prophetic gift had spoken the others were to discern as to whether they were really speaking in the Spirit of God or out of their own hearts (cf. ch.
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