1 Corinthians 14:23

“If therefore the whole Church be come together into one place, and all speak in tongues, and there come in novices, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?”

This is the first case: an assembly in which only glossolaletes speak.

Into one place is related to the whole. These plenary assemblies were held doubtless only at more or less considerable intervals; they attracted more strangers and others out of curiosity than the more private gatherings. Those whom Paul here calls ἄπιστοι, unbelievers, and ἰδιῶται, novices, are people who do not yet belong to the Church. By the second, Meyer and others understand Christians who have neither the gift nor the knowledge of tongues. But how, Rückert rightly asks, could these people be contrasted with the whole Church? Meyer supports his view by the use of ἰδιώτης, 1 Corinthians 14:16, where he holds that this term denotes the members of the Church themselves. But this is a mistake. What is said in 1 Corinthians 14:16, that the glossolalete makes the members of the Church play the part of ἰδιῶται, proves precisely that the ἰδιῶται are not members of the Church. The impropriety consists in giving the members of the Church a part which is not theirs. On the other hand, Hirzel, Rückert, and Holsten thereby understand non-Christians. But how distinguish them in that case from the ἄπιστοι, unbelievers? Hirzel proposes to apply the first term to non-Christians of Jewish origin, the second to those of Gentile origin. But this distinction is unfounded. Starting from the simple meaning of ἰδιώτης (1 Corinthians 14:16), we get at a perfectly natural distinction. The ἄπιστος is an unbeliever whom curiosity has attracted, but who has not yet given any sign of faith; the ἰδιώτης is a novice, an apprentice in the domain of faith, a man who has already received some impression and some instruction, but who is not yet baptized, we should say nowadays: a catechumen. Such people, in the exercise of plain common sense, will ask how, if God dwelt there as a Father in the midst of His children, He could speak to them in an unintelligible language: “You shall appear to them madmen, not subjects of inspiration.”

Edwards, with some ancient commentators, thinks that the πάντες, all, means that the glossolaletes speak all at once, and that the confusion which follows, no less than the unintelligibility of the tongues, is the cause of the impression made on the visitors. But the perfectly analogous expression in regard to prophecy, 1 Corinthians 14:24, proves that it is not necessary to give this so improbable meaning to the πάντες of 1 Corinthians 14:23. Paul wishes to describe an assembly where there is room for nothing except manifestations of glossolalia, succeeding one another without interruption during the whole meeting. Then the opposite example: