1 Corinthians 14:1

“Follow after charity; but desire spiritual gifts, and especially to prophesy.”

The general rule is this: Every one should seek, above all, the gifts most fitted to contribute to the common good. Such is the principle Paul applies first of all to the valuation of the two gifts which seem at that time to have played the most considerable part in the life of the Church of Corinth, glossolalia and prophecy. And as what is intelligible is evidently superior, with a view to edification, to what is not so, he concludes without hesitation for the superiority of prophecy, and even for the exclusion of glossolalia, unless there be some way of rendering it intelligible.

There is a contrast between the terms διώκειν, to follow, and ζηλοῦν, to desire. The former refers to something indispensable, the latter to a faculty which is simply desirable; see on 1 Corinthians 12:31. The evident relation between our verse and that does not allow us to restrict the meaning of πνευματικά (spiritual gifts), as Rückert, Ewald, etc., have done, to glossolalia. Prophecy cannot be put outside of the pneumatica, as if it was to be sought more than they. It is comprehended in this expression, which denotes spiritual gifts in general (1 Corinthians 12:31); the apostle has particularly in view, no doubt, glossolalia, prophecy, and teaching. The word μᾶλλον, rather, does not therefore exclude the pursuit of these two last gifts; on the contrary, it implies it.

Instead of ἵνα, that, Paul might have put simply: “Especially desire prophecy.” But his thought is strictly speaking this: “Seek states of inspiration, and that especially with the view of attaining to the possession of the best of gifts, prophecy.”

Why among these gifts, all desirable, does prophecy occupy the first rank? This is what the following passage explains, in which Paul shows the inferiority of the gift of tongues as compared with prophecy; and that first as to the edification of the Church (1 Corinthians 14:2-20), then as to the conversion of persons outside of the Church (1 Corinthians 14:21-25).