1 Corinthians 14:13-15

“Wherefore let him that speaketh in a tongue pray that he may interpret. 14. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. 15. What is it then? I will pray with the Spirit, but I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the Spirit, but I will sing with the understanding also.”

There are two readings: διό, wherefore, and διόπερ, wherefore indeed; the second is perhaps taken from 1 Corinthians 8:13 and 1 Corinthians 10:14, where Paul also states the conclusions of a discussion.

The ancient Greek interpreters and many moderns, Erasmus, Calvin, Rückert, Hofmann, etc., make the words: that he may interpret, the logical object of the word: let him pray: “Let him ask of God the power to interpret.” But the terms αἰτεῖν or δεῖσθαι would perhaps suit better a positive position than προσεύχεσθαι, which rather denotes the state of prayer; and the use Paul makes of this same term προσεύχεσθαι in the following verses, specially to denote ecstatic prayer, hardly admits of our taking it in 1 Corinthians 14:13 in another sense. The words: let him pray (in tongues) that he may interpret, therefore signify: “In giving himself up to the Spirit who leads him to pray in a tongue, let him do so with the intention and with the settled aim beforehand to reproduce the contents of his prayer afterwards in intelligible language.” So Meyer, Edwards, etc. It does not therefore follow that ἵνα is here taken, as has been thought, in the sense of ita ut, so that. Heinrici rightly observes, that in the exercise of every χάρισμα (gift) the intention of the will remains in force.