But now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, unless I speak to you either by way of revelation, or of knowledge, or of prophesying, or of teaching? [The gift of tongues had a subordinate use in the church of God, as an evidence of the presence of the Spirit of God. Moreover, it was a reserve of power, liable to be brought into active use at any time by the scattering of the church through persecution. For these reasons, and also to show that he writes in a spirit of generous good-will, Paul expresses a wish that all the churches in Corinth might be endowed with this gift. But, as a more practical wish, he prefers that they shall be able to prophesy, since the church would not be edified by the use of the gift of tongues, unless the foreign language used was interpreted. If Paul came to them as a visitor or missionary, his profit to them would not lie in his speaking with tongues (even though he, a Jew, spake to them miraculously in their own Greek language); but it would lie in the subject-matter of his utterance, in the edification which he conveyed. Paul names the four ways in which men may be edified by the use of words, and all these four manners were as much at the command of prophecy as they were at that of the gift of tongues. Revelation is the unveiling of divine truth to a prophet, and prophecy is the impartation of that truth to others. Knowledge is the divine illumination of the mind as to the bearing and significance of a truth, and doctrine is the impartation to another of the truth thus grasped. These are all matters of sense, and not of sound only. But speaking with tongues in the presence of those not understanding the language spoken, is sound without sense, and fails to convey any prophecy, doctrine, etc. Paul goes on to show that sound without sense is not only profitless, but may even be baneful.]

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Old Testament