Question concerning 1st Cor. 14 – Pastor John's House.com

Pastor John,

If Paul proclaimed that tongues are for a sign to those that don’t believe, and if those unlearned unbelievers observe congregation speaking in tongues, they would think we were crazy, doesn’t that seem like a contradiction? If the sound of the spirit is given as “a sign” for unbelievers to know the right way of God, then why would they think we were insane?

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Hi Brad. Good question.

Just because tongues are a sign to unbelievers of the way to eternal life does not mean that unbelievers will take it that way. Most will not. Sadly, hearing God’s people speak in tongues makes some of them upset. Nevertheless, it is a sign to them.

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Then Paul says that prophesying is for the believers in the assembly, not for the ignorant unbelievers. Yet, Paul goes on to say that if a congregation prophesies to an unbeliever (an unlearned person) that person would be convicted of their sins and would fall down and worship God. Why the discrepancy?

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Such prophesying encourages believers. The sinner who is exposed is being loved and offered mercy from God. But again, some sinners will refuse the Spirit’s truth concerning where they are. Do you remember Brother Coy looking into the eyes of a visitor one Sunday morning and saying, “There ain’t no Trinity!” Coy knew nothing about that man, but God did. Coy said that in perfect innocence. That was the kind of prophecy Paul was talking about. God did that, not Coy.

Prophecy is more than telling the future; it is revealing things that man cannot of himself know. For example, when Jesus was arrested and taken to The house of the high priest, he was blindfolded. Then he was beaten with fists, and those beating him mocked him, saying, “Prophesy! Who hit you?”. They were not demanding the he tell the future, but that he demonstrate supernatural knowledge.

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It makes me wish that we all could prophesy more than we speak in tongues so freely, so that new visitors to our meetings would be convicted more deeply.

Why am I confused by these scriptures?

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Hopefully, you no longer are. But if questions remain, please feel welcome to send them to me.

Pastor John

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Wendell was the first person I had ever heard speak in tongues and I was around 40 years old. When I went home that day, I looked up speaking in tongues and the scripture I read was that tongues was not a sign to the believer but to the nonbeliever. I remember talking to the Lord and my response was “Lord, I thought I believed, but he has something from you that I don’t have”.

Randell

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Comments welcome:

https://x.com/WitnessofSpirit/status/1915382242248970704