Sermon: The Divine Liturgy Pt. 7 - Tongues & Interpretation

The Divine Liturgy Pt. 7 – Tongues & Interpretation
Sunday, May 25^th, 2025
Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
1 Corinthians 14:1-40

Prayer

O Holy Father we ask that you would now cleanse our tongues and lips from every impurity. Remove far from us vanity and lies, that we might become valiant for the truth on earth. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

For the last two weeks we have been studying the topic of Charismatic Grace. And thus far we have seen from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, that God has given some measure of Charismatic Grace to every person that is united to Jesus Christ, and then each of us are called to steward that grace, our gifts, for the building up of Christ’s body.

• We said that a good way to identify our gifts is by looking for where our Desire, our Ability, and the Needs of others all align. Because as members together of one another, our gifts are not given primarily for our own personal benefit, but rather for other people’s benefit (for the common good).
  • So while Sanctifying Grace is given by God for our own individual salvation, Gratuitous/Charismatic Grace is given to bring other people to salvation.
  • And this is why in between 1 Corinthians 12 and our text of 1 Corinthians 14, the Apostle Paul dedicates an entire chapter to extolling the spiritual gift that is superior to all others, the best gift, which is charity, or supernatural love.
    • Charity is that most special love which comes down from God, leads us up to God, unites us to God, and makes us to desire God for everyone else. God is THE GIFT we want to share.
• So charity is one of those gifts from the Holy Spirit that is both a Sanctifying Grace to us personally, but it is also the grace that is given to inform, guide, and animate all our lesser gifts.
  • So while we have been studying the importance of the gifts of Prophecy, and this morning Tongues, we must not forget that these charismatic gifts are a temporary means to an eternal end, whereas Charity is both a means and an end in and of itself. Charity is the best gift to pursue.
  • This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:1-2, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” And then he says a little later in verses 8-10, “Charity never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.”
    • Meaning, when we see God face to face, when that perfect vision of God comes, there will be no need for prophecy, or tongues, or preaching, or miracles, or apostles, or evangelists. Because we will have arrived at God who is our destination and First Love. And the charity which unites us to God in this life, will continue to unite us to God in the next. So even faith and hope will pass away, but charity/supernatural love shall remain.
    • Paul says something very similar about the importance of physical exercise in comparison with spiritual exercise in 1 Timothy 4:8, “For bodily exercise profits a little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.”
• Summary: So in this life we are to be up early busy in God’s gymnasium, cultivating and exercising our spiritual gifts, our virtues, and most of all love which makes us God-like (godly). If love for God and loving people for the sake of God is what your whole life is aimed it (if that is the reason for your existence), then you will know how to use and steward lesser gifts, like prophesy, tongues, or whatever other gifts you may have.
  • So with all that by way of review and introduction, let us now consider the gifts of Tongues and Interpretation.

Outline

So there are three questions I want to answer in this sermon:

• Q1. What is speaking in tongues?
• Q2. What is interpretation?
• Q3. In what sense are these gifts operative today?

Q#1 – What is speaking in tongues?

• As we saw with the gift of prophesy, to speak in tongues can refer to multiple and different activities. And if we survey the Scriptures, we discover there are two main senses in which someone can be said to speak in a tongue. One is supernatural, the other can be merely natural.
• 1. First as a supernatural gift is what we find at Pentecost in Acts 2. There, the disciples suddenly and miraculously are able to speak in foreign languages.
  • Let me read to you verses 1-11 of Acts 2 and notice as I read that these are all real human languages they are speaking which other people can understand and interpret. “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.”
  • Observe, this is a sudden and miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit, where without any previous study, these Galilean disciples can now speak in the native tongues of other Jews who had been scattered across the empire for the last 700 years (since the exile and diaspora). And because of that scattering, most did not know Hebrew, some of them knew Greek, but each of them was born and raised speaking their own local dialects, whether Aramaic, Persian, Babylonian, Latin, etc.
  • Observe also the content of what they speak. They hear these disciples speaking the wonderful works of God. The gift of tongues makes you to testify of the gospel and grace of Christ.
  • Summary: The gift of tongues in the most proper sense is the supernatural ability to speak a new foreign language, without previous study, and the content of what you speak in that language is the wonderful works of God, Christ and His gospel.
    • Pentecost is of course a fulfillment of what Jesus promised to his disciples in Mark 16, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature… In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues.”
    • So the whole reason for God giving the disciples this miraculous gift, is so that they can preach the gospel to the ends of the earth as quickly as possible. Christ by His divine power overcomes the natural language barrier between his unlearned Galilean fishermen disciples, and the rest of the known world.
    • The language barrier that once separated and divided all the nations at Babel (and was a mercy to prevent them from uniting in an evil cause), is not obliterated into everyone speaking one language (Hebrew/Greek/etc.), but rather God gathers in every nation, tribe, and tongue, and sanctifies them.
    • This is God’s pattern in redemption. He remakes us by using our natural materials. He is the potter; we are the clay. God breathes supernatural life into our soul so that we become pleasing to Him.
  • So that’s the first and most proper sense in which speaking in tongues is a supernatural gift. You can suddenly speak a new foreign language.
• 2. And then there is a second and much broader sense in which the Bible describes speaking in tongues, and that is what we find here in 1 Corinthians 14. Here, the Apostle expands the definition of tongues to include anything that is spoken without understanding.
  • To speak in a tongue is to say anything that is not understood, either by you, or the person hearing, or both.
• So notice this definition of tongues can include someone using their supernatural gift of tongues, but it extends to anyone saying anything that is not understood.
• We gather this definition from what the Apostle Paul says in verses 9-11, “Except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air. There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification. Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me.”
  • Notice the example Paul gives is of himself hypothetically talking to someone that does not speak the same language as him. They are trying to have a conversation, but they are as barbarians to each other. Perhaps you have experienced this if you have ever traveled to a foreign country.
  • We find further on in verses 23-24 that to speak in a tongue includes even speaking to someone in the same language but using words or concepts that they do not understand. He refers to two kinds of hearers there, 1) the unlearned (ἰδιώτης) and, 2) the unbeliever.
• So the principle is that wherever there is a deficiency or lack of understanding, there the person speaking is as one who speaks in a foreign tongue (whether supernaturally or naturally). And where there is this lack of understanding, the church is not edified.
  • To illustrate this point, let’s say you received from God the sudden and miraculous ability to speak Hebrew and understand Hebrew. And because the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, you can now talk and think and dream in Hebrew like the prophet Isaiah. However, just because you can speak your native tongue, English, and this new language Hebrew, that does not do you any good if the church you are visiting only knows Spanish.
    • Yes, you have the gift of tongues, and yes you are edified when you speak and pray to God in Hebrew, but that does not do the Spanish-speaking church any good. Which is why Paul says in verse 13, “Therefore let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret.”
  • So that was the situation in Corinth. You have multiple churches within the Corinthian church/presbytery, with a bunch of prophets, pastors, teaching, and saints who have these diverse gifts, and also different native tongues within the congregation. And so you have to choose how to conduct a worship service that is decent and with good order in this multi-linguistic environment. Which language are we going to use?
    • Moreover, Scripture itself was written in three different languages Hebrew, Greek, plus a few sections in Aramaic, and so even reading and hearing Paul’s letter to them probably needed translation to some of those who did not speak Greek.
      • We see in Acts 21:37 that not everyone spoke Greek in the ancient world, for the soldier questions Paul as to whether he can speak Greek.
      • Or remember how Pontius Pilate wrote The King of the Jews above Jesus head in three different languages. Because some could speak only Hebrew/Aramaic, some only Greek, some only Latin, etc. And that is normal in large cities even today, they are international hubs, and Corinth was one of these hubs in the ancient world being a port city on the Mediterranean.
    • So that’s the situation in Corinth that Paul is addressing, a multi-linguistic church that also has the supernatural gift of tongues. And if you have ever visited a church that worships in language foreign to you, you know that the language used in worship is a big deal for whether you can be edified or not. You might be able to catch certain words like Amen, or Hallelujah, but beyond that, you don’t know what you are saying Amen to.
    • This is what Paul is referring to in verses 14-16 when he says, “For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. Otherwise, if you bless with the spirit, how will he who occupies the place of the unlearned say “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not understand what you say?”
    • So while tongues is a great and supernatural gift, unless the person you are speaking to understands what is said, they are not built up.
    • This applies in a similar way for speaking words that you yourself don’t understand. For example, there are Psalms we sing in worship, and passages of Scripture that we hear and read in English, and when we pray and sing our spirit (will) is active, we are saying the words, but unless we understand the Scriptures, our mind (intellect) is unfruitful.
      • So this is where words are good, reading and speaking and memorizing the Scriptures are good activities, even if you don’t yet understand what you are hearing or saying or praying. That’s where we all start as baby Christians.
      • But Paul says don’t stay there, “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.”
      • And so what grows us up into mature Christians is hearing God’s Word, from people who can speak with understanding. People who have the gift of interpretation of prophecy, and can explain the Word to us our who are less learned.
• The great and sad irony of the modern Pentecostal redefinition of tongues into a personal prayer language that neither you nor anyone else can understand, is that everyone in the church already speaks English. And then they introduce confusion, by telling people, you are only “spirit-filled” if you can start speaking in gibberish. And then you go to a prayer meeting to “speak in tongues,” and then someone comes up and pretends to interpret by praying in English.
  • And I say pretend, because nobody has ever taken two Charismatics who claim to have the gift of interpretation, and one person who claims to have the gift of tongues, put the two interpreters in separate rooms, and have them right down what the person speaking in tongues is saying, and then compare their interpretations.
  • Paul says in verse 10, “There are, it may be, so many kinds of languages in the world, and none of them is without signification.” Meaning, if it is really the gift of tongues, then it can be consistently translated by someone else. There is a grammar and syntax and a lexicon we can use. But no such lexicon exists for those claim these gifts.
  • And so while many in these churches are simply ignorant and well intentioned, it does great spiritual harm to people to tell them they are not really full of the Holy Spirit, unless they can speak in a language no one can understand.
• That whole practice is properly speaking non-sensical and it is exactly contrary to what Paul teaches in this chapter.
  • G.K. Chesterton, who was alive when Modern Pentecostalism was just beginning (early 20^th century, Azusa Street Revival was 1906-1915), said of his era more generally, “The eighteenth Century thought itself to be the age of reason; the nineteenth century thought itself to be the age of common sense while the twentieth century can only think of itself as the age of uncommon nonsense.” In many ways he spoke truly.
• Summary: There are two kinds of speaking in tongues that we find in Scripture. One is a supernatural ability to speak a new foreign language, and the other is saying anything to anyone that they do not understand.
  • And this brings us to the need for the gift of interpretation.

Q#2 – What is the gift of interpretation?

This is a much simpler gift to define, because it is what it sounds like. The gift of interpretation is the supernatural ability to interpret, understand, and translate from one language to another.

• Paul says in verses 27-28, “If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God.”
• So in Corinth there were people who had the gift of tongues, but not the gift of interpretation. And if they had the gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation, then they would be functioning like a prophet, speaking and explaining to others the Word of God.
• This is why Paul begins this chapter by saying, “I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you prophesied; for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets, that the church may receive edification” (vs. 5).
• So tongues + interpretation cashes out to prophecy and as Paul says in verse 3, “He who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men.”
• So when you think of the gift of interpretation, just think of being able to translate from one language to another, or from something hard to understand to something easy to understand. That is a great gift that Paul wants them to have.

Q#3 – In what sense are these gifts operative today?

To answer this, we want to distinguish the way the Bible distinguishes, and that is between sudden and extraordinary gifts of the spirit, like we see at Pentecost in Acts 2, and then the more ordinary and natural gifts that we have also from God to speak, communicate, translate, and give understanding to others.

• As for the extraordinary and sudden gift of being able to speak or understand a new foreign language, I am not personally aware of anyone who has received this gift today, but I don’t know every Christian, and I have heard stories from others about missionaries being able to communicate in seemingly miraculous ways.
• So as with the gifts of miracles and healing, you don’t ever want to tell God what He cannot do. And God has not said in His Word that miracles or healing, or tongues and interpretation were only for the apostolic age, or only until Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, or only until the Canon was closed. Some have tried to argue for each of those positions, but I don’t think they stand up to scrutiny.
• What the Bible does tell us is that the Apostles and Prophets (in the proper sense) were a one time and unique phenomena that laid the foundation of the church, and miraculous signs accompanied their ministry to confirm their divine authority.
  • It says in Acts 5:12-13, “And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon’s Porch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly.”
  • Paul says in Ephesians 2:20 of the church, “And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.”
  • And then he says in 1 Corinthians 3:11, “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
• So the outpouring of the spirit at Pentecost was a unique event to help lay the foundation for the church, and you only lay a foundation once. That foundation was laid 2000 years ago, and today we are now building upon it, trying to grow up into mature manhood in Christ.
  • And so we might ask ourselves, what is more miraculous? What brings more glory to God? That you can suddenly speak a new language, or that you are patient and kind to people who are rude to you.
  • Jesus says in Matthew 12:39, “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.” And so we need to be careful to make God’s priorities our priorities, and it brings glory to God when you work the miracle of charity, of loving people who are not naturally lovely.
• Now there is I think a more ordinary sense in which these spiritual gifts are operative today. And that is in the many Christians who are working to translate the Bible from Greek and from Hebrew, or from English, into languages that do not currently have the Scriptures in their native tongue.
  • According to Wycliffe Bible Translators, there are 7,396 known languages in the world.
    • 756 of those languages have the whole Bible in their native tongue.
    • Another 3,000 have either the New Testament or some other portions of Scripture that have been translated.
  • The people who are doing this painstaking, difficult, and sometimes dangerous work, are using their God-given gifts to study, learn, and translate between languages, so that every tongue can speak the wonderful works of God.
  • So it is in this more ordinary sense that tongues and interpretation are being used today.

Conclusion

The incarnation and death of the Son of God is the greatest act of charity the world will ever know. And God did this because He wants to communicate with us, and he knows we are hard of hearing. He knows we are ignorant and unlearned, and as Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?”

• And so Jesus did by His actions, what our words struggle to express. And as John says at the very end of his gospel, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.”
• So behold upon the cross the death of Christ for sinners. Behold the empty tomb that justifies the ungodly. For that is the content, the message and the wonderful work of God that purchases our salvation. And may every tongue confess this truth, to the glory of God the Father.
• In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.