1 Corinthians 14:21 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Corinthians 14:21

Comments

The chief purpose of tongues, but not the only purpose is explained in Isaiah 28 which Paul quotes: ‘With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people [the Jews], and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord.’ In the earliest days of the church, Jews were appealed to by the miracle of foreign language speaking, which proved to them that the Spirit of God was with the new church. So it was pre-eminently something for Jews. Evidently there were Jewish people in Corinth also, and evidently the sign was still being given. 1 Corinthians is the only epistle of Paul where this is mentioned.Isaiah 28 is a prophecy that ‘this people’ – he was speaking to Jews – will be addressed by foreigners, speaking the things of God to them in foreign languages. What an amazing prediction: that there would come a time when the Jews – who thought they were the only people who believed in the one true God – would find themselves learning about the things of God from Gentiles. Gentiles would be converted in large numbers, and the sign that the new age had arrived, was that the Jews would have people preach to them in foreign, that is, in Gentile, languages. What an astonishing thing! The Jews would hear the wonderful things about the coming of a Messiah preached to them in foreign languages. ‘And yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord.’ Even with this powerful sign, only a remnant of the Jews believed. As the apostle to the Gentiles he magnified his office, as he says, ‘If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them’ (Romans 11:14). But in spite of this most did not turn to Christ and the nation as a whole stumbled.

Application

Questions

The first preachers of the gospel were all themselves Jews, who went out from Jerusalem, but soon Gentiles would be converted, and they too would preach, and they would preach to Jews about the Messiah they had failed to recognise. On the day of Pentecost when the gift of tongues was first given, it was the apostles who spoke in unlearned languages, and there was a practical reason for the gift. It allowed Jews visiting Jerusalem from many parts of the world at Pentecost, to hear the word of God in their own languages. At that time, the gospel had not proceeded far and there were no converted Gentiles, and so God gave this gift to Jews to fulfil Isaiah’s prophecy. Jews were hearing the gospel in other languages, and native people of those languages were soon to be converted. Tongues acted as a reversal of the judgment on the Tower of Babel, where God had first introduced languages into the world to disrupt human cooperation in godlessness. The gospel was going to bring men and women from all nations together into the one flock of Jesus Christ, and tongues which reversed Babel was a sign of that unity in Christ.

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Introduction

1 Corinthians 14:21 Commentary and Bible Study