Today's reading from the Chronological OT/NT Reading Plan is 1 Chronicles 20-22, 1 Corinthians 14:1-25
Happy Monday Everyone! I'm going to focus on the New Testament reading today as it's on speaking on gifts of the spirit and that's a super interesting topic for me.

¹ Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy. ² For anyone who speaks in a tongue^[a] does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. ³ But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort. ⁴ Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves, but the one who prophesies edifies the church. ⁵ I would like every one of you to speak in tongues,^[b] but I would rather have you prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues,^[c] unless someone interprets, so that the church may be edified.

The tone of this whole reading made me think that there must have been some kind of trouble with some "over the top" speaking in tongues and that maybe this passage is a bit of a reality check. I looked up what John McArthur had to say:

But as we come to the Corinthian situation, we find that they had counterfeited the real gift of tongues and substituted a pagan, ecstatic kind of speech. The true gift had been confused with ecstatic tongues, which was the counterfeit.
Such ecstasies and ecstatic speech is very common in pagan religion. I'm not going to take the time this morning to go from one end of the world and one end of history to the present to prove that, but I want you to understand that. This is a very common thing in pagan religion. I was reading an article this week about how common it is among the Zulus in Africa, this kind of ecstatic, gibberish speech. We've discussed that in the past...

The Greeks even had a word for this ecstatic religious experience, and you'll be interested to know what it was. It was the word eros. Remember that word? We sometimes translate it as sensual love, but the word erosis a bigger word than that; it has a broader meaning. It means 'the desire for the sensual, or 'the desire for the erotic,' or 'the desire for ecstasy,' or 'the desire for the ultimate experience or feeling.' The kind of religion they had was an erotic, sensual, ecstatic religion, designed to be felt. In fact, you'll remember if you studied those religions, that when people went to those temples and visited those priestesses to worship, they would actually enter into orgies.
So the whole idea of erotic, sexual, sensual, ecstatic, and gibberish that went on with divine utterances - all was rolled into one big ball under the mystery religions, which had been spawned in Babylon, had come into the Corinthian society. I'm not going to take the time to read you all of the information on that, but there is tremendous historical information that tells us that this did occur...

You say, "John, it says in verse 4 that you can speak in an unknown tongue and edify yourself." Well, but that doesn't edify the church. That's the whole point. You say, "But if the tongues are translated, they edify the church." Yes, but it was the gift of interpretation that edified, not the gift of tongues. The gift of tongues is useless to edify the church, because nobody knew what is being said. That's what he said to the Corinthians. "With all of that going on, even if the real gift happened to be used, even if someone popped up with the real thing, it wouldn't edify anybody in and of itself. It would have to be translated. That's what he says at the end of verse 5, "Except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying."
It's wonderful to know that when the true gift of tongues was used as a sign and when God did want to use the true gift, and it was used with other Christians present, God would always have somebody there with the gift of interpretation to interpret so that it would not go without meaning to the church. Because even when the true gift was used which couldn't edify, God gave the gift of interpretation so that the church would be edified. You see, God never wanted anything going on in the church that didn't edify and build up. The way the Corinthians were using the gift was chaotic. They had determined that it would edify the church in and of itself. It won't. When people use it for their own sake, they are trying to edify themselves.

This confirmed my beliefs around speaking in tongues. I like how it is outlined so clearly that the interpretation is more important than actually speaking in tongues. And... be careful! In all our gifts, let us seek out the edification of Christ and the church first! Beware of self-edification in our worship and seek with our hearts AND our minds.

What are your beliefs on speaking in tongues? Have any of you ever experienced or witnessed the speaking or interpreting of tongues?

Tomorrow's passage:   1 Chronicles 23-25, 1 Corinthians 14:26-40