Follow after love, and be emulous of spiritual [manifestations], but rather that ye may prophesy.
Paul has just shown that love gives up self. Now he turns to the question the Corinthians argued over: which gifts should a church want in its meetings? The verse gives an order — love first, gifts wanted, and prophecy above the rest.
The call to pursue love comes before the instructions about gifts. It comes first because it settles the motive.
If love had been at work in the assembly at Corinth, it would have escaped many serious disorders, even though it had not been taught God's order. Love, as the Apostle has shown, leads a person to give up self. So the call to follow love comes before the call to desire spiritual gifts and before the instructions about using them. Love keeps the motive pure, both in wanting a spiritual gift and in using it. Love thinks not of self but of the good of others. Because they lacked love, the believers at Corinth had been using the sign gifts of healing and tongues to exalt themselves.
Putting love first does not belittle the gifts. It sets them in their right place, where they are worth wanting.
Setting the gifts of the Spirit in this right relation to their purpose does not run them down; it proves their worth. So they are not to be despised, but wanted. Those who know God in His ways will always want what He gives. And if love is followed first, gifts will be sought with love as well as with eagerness. Then they will be in the Church not for show, but to serve the needs of love, each in its own way.
Another writer turns the second half of the verse into a question for the reader:
Who thinks of seeking spiritual gifts? If God has given them, their use may be allowed (within certain limits, sadly); but who thinks of asking God for gifts he does not have? If we seek them to glorify ourselves with them, then we are bound to seek in vain. So the two things are joined together — following after love, and desiring spiritual gifts.
Most translations add the word "gifts" after "spiritual" in this verse. One writer says that addition is too narrow.
The Authorized Version, like almost all others, adds "gifts" after "spiritual" in the first verse. But that is not broad enough. It leaves out the presence of the Spirit Himself, who matters far more than any gift and who is distinct from the gifts: they depend on Him, not He on them... The meaning is the whole range of what belongs to the Spirit.
Prophecy is not mainly the announcing of future events. One writer defines it by what it does to the hearer's conscience.
Prophecy is not necessarily predictive. Prophets do predict, but that is not what makes prophecy. It is also a great mistake to think that prophesying is just building people up in a general way. Prophesying does build people up in the most important way... A man builds others up when he strengthens souls by holding up Christ and making His love better known, and so does the man who exhorts or teaches well. But none of these things is prophesying. Prophesying is that kind of truth which puts a person's conscience in the presence of God. It gives the soul the certainty that God's mind is in what is spoken, and it strips and lays bare thoughts, motives, feelings, everything.
One writer sums up what such ministry does:
"Edification" builds up. "Exhortation" stirs up. "Comfort" binds up. If the ministry is truly prophetic, it will build up and strengthen the Assembly.
A tongue put God's power on open display. That display is not what makes a gift most useful in a meeting.
Even where God's power was working in a tongue in a way no one could mistake, that gift is far from the highest place for the assembly... Prophesying, on the other hand, has the highest value. The one who uses this gift speaks to build up, encourage and comfort people. He builds up the church, which the speaker in a tongue cannot do unless someone also interprets. So God gave the better place to what His Spirit used for the profit of others. Power, though it is plainly God's, ranks below spiritual blessing, order, and love.
- Pursue — love comes first, because love keeps the motive pure both in wanting a gift and in using it.
- Desire — the same verse also tells believers to want gifts. What God gives is worth asking for.
- Prophesy — not mainly foretelling. It is truth that sets a person's conscience in God's presence and lays motives bare.
- Profit — prophecy outranks tongues because power ranks below what helps others. It builds up, stirs up, binds up.
- Order — love, then gifts, then prophecy above the rest. That order would have spared Corinth its disorders, and it still spares a church today.
For he that speaks with a tongue does not speak to men but to God for no one hears; but in spirit he speaks mysteries.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
But he that prophesies speaks to men [in] edification, and encouragement, and consolation.
Paul is comparing two gifts: speaking in a tongue nobody understood, and prophesying. His test is not display but the good done to the hearer, which raises a question — what does "prophesying" mean?
The verse is often read as a dictionary entry for prophecy. One writer says it is doing something narrower. It describes how the gift works next to a tongue no one could understand.
Verse 3 is the way in which prophecy works, rather than a definition of prophecy. It is speaking to people for their building up, encouragement and comfort. It can be that way now, of course. Knowledge and doctrine remain. But no one gives out fresh revelation now, because God has already revealed everything (that is, in the word).
The distinction also guards against a common mistake.
Many people take this to mean that anyone who speaks encouragement and comfort is prophesying. That is to mistake him. You could not turn the sentence around and still have the truth. What the apostle means is this. The man who only speaks in a tongue does not build up, or encourage, or comfort. The man who prophesies does.
The popular picture of a prophet is someone predicting the future. One writer points out that prediction was only part of a prophet's work.
Much of an Old Testament prophet's work was bringing the mind of God to bear on the state of the people. He called them to repentance. It was not only foretelling but also forth-telling. So it was with the New Testament prophets. Special revelation has completely passed away with them. But we still have the prophetic character of their ministry.
So what is prophesying, if not prediction? One writer answers with a scene from the Gospels.
It is not a question of opening up the future, but of bringing God and the soul together. We may see an example of it in the case of the woman of Samaria. What Christ said to her clearly brought God Himself home to her conscience, and she woke up at once to the conviction that the One speaking was a prophet. Prophecy is therefore the most intimate and direct communication of God in dealing with the soul. It gives a person the certainty that God is expressing His mind.
The verse names three results. One writer gives each a picture.
"Edification" builds up. "Exhortation" stirs up. "Comfort" binds up. If the ministry is truly prophetic, it will build up and strengthen the church. And there is more than that — "exhortation," which stirs us up. I ask anyone who looks over the scene today, do you not think the people of God need stirring up? I know I do, and I am always thankful to the man who stirs me up.
No amount of effort or cleverness can produce this kind of service.
This is a challenge to each of us. Zeal in our own strength and human wisdom could never achieve it. So we ourselves need to be enjoying the "comfort of the Scriptures." We need to know, in reality and power, the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit of God, the Comforter. Then any service we give will encourage those we serve.
Those who spoke in tongues had an argument for themselves. Paul answers it.
No doubt those who spoke in a tongue argued that they stood for the rights of Christ, who was glorified in the gift. Theirs, they said, was the divine side — they spoke to God. But the apostle boldly maintains that the failure to speak to men proves speaking in a tongue inferior to prophesying... He sets prophesying far above such a display, without reservation. It brings in not merely power but God — God at work building souls up, encouraging them and consoling them. This does not cast such a halo around man; but it really brings in God in grace, and gives the sense of His presence.
The same writer names what was missing underneath it all.
There is no love in it; and so, as he shows here, there is no comfort, nor anything that works on the soul to build it up. This is the effect of divine love. There can never be real edification without divine love in some way being what acts on the soul.
- Contrast, not definition. The verse shows how prophecy works next to a tongue no one understands. It does not make every comforting word prophecy.
- Toward men. The weight falls on speaking to people. A tongue no one understood gave the hearer nothing.
- Conscience reached. Prophesying is not about unveiling the future. It brings God and the soul together, as Christ did with the woman of Samaria.
- Three needs met. Building up, stirring up, binding up — one ministry strengthens the church, wakes the sleepy and binds up the hurting.
- Love at the root. Without divine love acting on the soul, no one is built up. That is why Paul ranked display of power below this.