but in [the] assembly I desire to speak five words with my understanding, that I may instruct others also, [rather] than ten thousand words in a tongue.
Paul has just said that he speaks in tongues more than anyone in Corinth. Then he weighs five words against ten thousand, and two small phrases settle it: "in church" and "with my mind."
One writer states the rule that governs all speaking when believers meet:
The great aim of speaking in the assembly is to build people up. That aim is only reached when people understand what is said. It is impossible for a man to build me up if I cannot understand what he says. He must speak in a language I understand, and loudly enough to hear, or I receive nothing that builds me up. This is plain, and worth the serious attention of all who speak in public.
Paul's preference could sound like envy from a man who lacked the gift. He removes that suspicion first.
The apostle is careful to show that he had no reason at all to be jealous of others speaking in a tongue. He himself had this gift more than all of them. But in the assembly he would rather speak five words with the understanding than any number in a tongue. He said this because his heart was set on instructing others as well. It is love that should move us, not self-pleasing; and love works with a view to edification.
The phrase covers more than clear delivery. It means the speaker himself takes in from God what he passes on.
He wants the mind to be at work. This remark is of the highest importance when we judge men's claims to the Spirit. He does not deny that they might speak with tongues without the mind being in it at all — and that had clear power and use when people were present who understood no other language, or whose own language it was. But in general it was a lower thing when the Spirit did not act on the mind of the speaker, and so work through it. When the speaker did not understand his own words, there was no communion between souls in a common subject through the unity of the Spirit. The one speaking did not himself enjoy, as from God, what he communicated to others.
So the requirement runs at both ends of the line — in the mind of the speaker and in the ears of the hearers.
He desired to speak of things that he intelligently grasped, in such a way that they were thoroughly intelligible to his listeners.
Paul is not dismissing the gift. He is correcting their taste for display.
The apostle plainly grieves over the Corinthians because they failed with the gifts of God. They loved to make a display before the world, instead of enjoying God Himself in His word and building up His saints, and that grieved him. So he tries to convince them of their mistake, showing them that tongues are one of the lowest forms of the Spirit's working, and prophesying one of the highest... Refreshment, comfort, the lifting up of the heart — the building up of the saints — should be the one great aim of the Christian teacher. The man who ministers Christ and His work to the soul, out of the fullness of his own heart, is the minister who always builds up and never disappoints.
Commentators differ on what this says about the gift itself. One writer weighs the rules Paul lays down in this chapter and concludes:
The use of tongues was tolerated rather than commended, because it was a hindrance rather than a help to the thing that was needed, which is building up in love.
The verse cuts in two directions. It restrains the man who talks past his supply:
Our only warrant for standing up to speak in the assembly is that the Lord Himself has given us something to say. If it is only "five words," let us say the five and sit down. Nothing is more foolish than for a man to try to speak "ten thousand words" when God has only given him "five."... An earnest heart is better than a clever head. A fervent spirit is better than an eloquent tongue.
And it encourages the man who fears he has too little:
It is a waste of time for any of us to go on with what does not profit. You might not be able to say much, but if God's Spirit gives you something to say to His assembly, say it — you have that liberty in God's free church, and the "five words" might help greatly.
- Place. "In church" is the setting — the gathered saints. No one is built up by words he cannot understand.
- Motive. Paul had more of the gift than anyone, so his choice comes from love, not envy. Love builds others up; self-pleasing puts on a show.
- Meaning. "With my mind" reaches both ways: the speaker himself receives from God what he says, and the hearers can follow it.
- Measure. Say the five words God gave, and sit down. Trying for ten thousand when He gave five is folly, not spirituality.
- Result. Five words that are understood teach others. Ten thousand no one can follow leave the room just as it was.
Brethren, be not children in [your] minds, but in malice be babes; but in [your] minds be grown [men].
Paul has just said he would rather speak five intelligible words in the assembly than ten thousand in a tongue, and now he turns from argument to appeal. He calls them "brothers" and asks them to grow up in one area while staying small in another.
The problem at Corinth was not that the gifts were false. The Corinthians used them for display. Paul himself spoke in tongues more than any of them, so this is not envy on his part:
In condemning the abuse of tongues, the Apostle was not moved by jealousy. He himself spoke with tongues more than they all. But he used the gift in the right place, before the right audience, and for a right purpose. In the assembly, five words spoken with the understanding, so that others might be taught, were better than "ten thousand words in an unknown tongue." In their fondness for tongues, the Corinthians were acting like children, who delight in anything that makes a show.
The word "malice" may look out of place in a chapter about speaking. But a gift used to impress rather than to help is already turning against the people it was meant to serve:
Their misuse of tongues was childish. Paul urges them not to be children in understanding; yet in malice he tells them to be children. Notice the warning here. Misusing gifts, instead of showing love for others, will tend toward malice, which undermines true unity and love. A little child has no such attitude. In my attitude then let me have the simplicity of a child, but in understanding be "perfect," or mature. And this understanding is not only personal. It is the kind that builds understanding among God's people.
The danger is not confined to spectacular gifts. Hamilton Smith warns that the flesh "can, but for the grace of God, use prayer or ministry to work off a bit of malice against a brother."
The verse asks for two opposite things at once. One writer marks the difference by a single change of word, and points to the Lord Himself as the pattern:
In 1 Corinthians 14:20 we find a truly impressive appeal: "Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature." He had no desire that his readers should be childish, but he longed that they might be childlike. "I am among you as He that serves," said the Lord to His self-important followers (Luke 22:27). Did He not wash their feet that very night? (John 13).
Older versions read "be men" here. One writer points to their margin notes, which give the sense of full growth:
"Perfection" is also used for the mature Christian condition, as a glance at the margin of Heb. 5:14 will show. The term there — "of full age" — is rendered in the margin as "perfect." In the same way, "be men" in 1 Cor. 14:20 is rendered in the margin as "be perfect," or "of a ripe age." … among Christians there are those perfect, or mature, in contrast with being babes.
So the call is not to cleverness but to growth.
Paul does not tell them to acquire something new. He points to what was already theirs, and asks them to develop it:
They should remember, also, that these special gifts were not their chief endowment as believers. "The mind of Christ" belonged to them as a part of their divine birthright. Let them try to cultivate it to full manhood. Let them be babes in the harmlessness of their lives, and in their willing ignorance of the world and its corruptions. But let them show themselves grown men in their knowledge of God and their keeping of His ways.
- Two ages, one person. Paul asks for an infant's innocence and an adult's understanding in the same believer. Corinth had them the wrong way round.
- Childish, not childlike. The Corinthians were not too simple. They were too eager for attention. Paul did not want them childish; he longed for them to be childlike.
- Show breeds malice. A gift used for display, instead of love for others, drifts toward malice. Malice undermines unity, so innocence is the thing to keep.
- Mature means full-grown. The word behind "be men" carries the idea of ripe age or full growth, the opposite of remaining a babe.
- Cultivate what you own. The mind of Christ was already theirs by birthright. Growing up means developing it, while staying willingly ignorant of the world's corruptions.
It is written in the law, By people of other tongues, and by strange lips, will I speak to this people; and neither thus will they hear me, saith the Lord.
Paul has just told the Corinthians to stop thinking like children. He now backs that rebuke with a line from Israel's own scriptures. The words are not a promise but a threat. That changes how the Corinthians should value tongues.
The quotation comes from the prophet Isaiah. Yet Paul introduces it as written in the law. That is not unusual.
The term "law" is sometimes used in the New Testament as a name for other parts of the Old Testament besides the first five books. The Lord said, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I said, you are gods'?" when the quotation was from the Psalms. John 10:34: similarly 1 Corinthians 14:21.
The appeal is made to strengthen an argument he has already been making on other grounds.
"In the law it is written," and so on. This appeal to the law is made (like the earlier one in chapter 9:9) to support his previous reasoning. He had appealed to natural usage and experience; he now makes this general reference to the earlier testimony of the Spirit — not to set up a historical parallel, but to show still more conclusively that the gift of tongues is by its nature unsuited to practical fellowship in the Spirit.
In Isaiah the strange speech was the speech of invaders. God had taught His people in plain words, and they refused it. So He would speak to them another way.
He would punish them, not with the childlike instruction they had despised, but with the foreign tones of enemies. They would not have His words of rest for the weary; they had to have a nation they did not understand. It was a judgment on their unbelief.
A foreign tongue in Israel's ears was therefore never a mark of favour.
Whenever God's people came into contact with foreign tongues, they had gone all wrong. If Israel had stayed faithful, such strange sounds would have stayed far away. They were let loose on them when they left their true place. The Corinthians would do well to consider this. For Israel, foreign tongues had no good connection. They might remind them of their folly and evil. They were in no way an honour to the Jews.
The verse ends with a refusal. God speaks in this startling way, and still the people close their ears. The same thing happened in the days of the apostles.
Verse 21 quotes Isaiah 28:11-12. Those words describe how foreign nations ruled over Israel and humbled them, because of their proud rebellion against God. God would use foreign tongues to humble them, not to exalt them. By this means He sought to wake them from their unbelief, yet they would not hear. Now God had given Israel a fresh sign in the speaking with tongues. Gentile languages now carried the gospel of grace. This showed that the gospel was not only for Israel, but for the whole world. So it was a sign for Jews above all. God gave it for the time being, to establish Christianity as being of God. And unbelieving Israel still would not hear.
Even where the sign did not convert, it settled the hearer's responsibility.
In the day of Israel's failure, when the prophets had erred, God spoke to them in the tongues of foreigners. It was a sign of the unbelief of those who would not hear the plain word of God. So the use of the gift of tongues at the beginning of Christianity was a sign, not to believers, but to unbelievers. It left the hearer without excuse.
The Corinthians were treating as a delight the very thing God had used as a warning to a rebellious nation.
What perversity, then, in the saints at Corinth! God was speaking in prophecy to build them up. They turned away from that to tongues they could not understand! As Christians, they took pleasure in what had been God's solemn threat to His ancient people for their stubborn refusal! The apostle never despises a tongue in its own place and season, here or anywhere. God intended it as a sign for unbelievers. The mistake was to bring it in among believers, who could not profit by it. That was both unintelligent and unloving.
God Himself was the speaker behind these strange sounds. That settles who the sign was for.
It was God who both worked and spoke by this gift. But He did it strangely — just as, in judgment on Israel, He had filled their ears with the foreign speech of the invaders He appointed to punish His land. Tongues, then, were for a sign. But believers need no sign. The truth is in them, and by grace they know the Lord on whom they call. Signs are meant to work by contrast. Their strangeness wakes up attention to truth that was either never known before, or forgotten through unfaithfulness. But prophecy is not a sign. It is instead an expected provision of the God of all grace, to supply His children's spiritual needs.
- Sign in the law. Paul calls Isaiah's words "the law." The New Testament uses that title for other parts of the Old Testament as well, not only the first five books.
- Sign of judgment. In Isaiah, foreign speech meant enemy armies. God's people had refused His plain teaching, so He punished them with strange tongues.
- Sign refused. The quotation ends in failure. Israel would not hear then. Unbelieving Israel still would not hear when tongues came again, and the hearer had no excuse.
- Sign misplaced. God had used tongues as a threat to unbelievers. The Corinthians prized them among believers, and so lost the profit of prophecy.
- Sign for outsiders. Believers need no sign, because they already know the Lord. Signs wake up those outside. Prophecy feeds those inside.
So that tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe, but to unbelievers; but prophecy, not to unbelievers, but to those who believe.
Paul has just quoted Isaiah's warning: God would speak to His people through foreign lips. Now he sorts the two gifts Corinth argued over by their audience — and that decides how a meeting should run.
Commentators see here Scripture's own dividing line. Some gifts build up; others are signs. That difference explains why one kind could be withdrawn and the other never.
Before I go on, note that the gifts are of two kinds. The first kind serves to awaken souls and to gather the Church. The second kind is a sign to the world — a sign that God is present in the Person of the Spirit in the Church... This distinction is important. Nothing needed for the conversion of souls and the building up of the saints can ever fail. But it is easy to see how God might withdraw what was an ornament to the Church, and a sign that she was acceptable to Him, when the Church is unfaithful.
The word "Thus" ties the verse back to Isaiah 28. There, strange speech was no compliment to Israel.
He quotes Isaiah 28:11-12 loosely, to draw a healthy lesson for the Corinthian saints. In that passage God warns the Jews, who were slow to listen to His prophets, that He would speak to them with the stammering lips of foreigners. Such a tongue speaking to Israel was a sign of their humiliation, and of God's judgment. What perversity, then, in the saints at Corinth! They turned away from God speaking in prophecy to build them up, and turned to tongues they could not understand. As Christians they took pleasure in what had been God's solemn threat to His ancient people for their stubborn refusal.
God gave the sign again in a new setting. Israel answered the same way.
Now God had given Israel a fresh sign in speaking with tongues. Gentile languages were used to preach the gospel of grace, showing that the gospel was not only for Israel, but for all the world. So it was a sign for the Jews in particular, given for a time, to establish Christianity as being of God. And unbelieving Israel still would not hear.
Why does the verse rule believers out as the audience for a sign?
Tongues then were for a sign. But believers need no sign. The truth is in them, and they know, through grace, the Lord on whom they call. Signs are meant to work by contrast. Their strangeness wakes up attention to truth that was never known before, or that has been forgotten through unfaithfulness. But prophecy is not a sign. It is what the God of all grace is expected to provide, to supply His children's spiritual needs.
The verse is a rebuke as much as a definition. Corinth used the outward gift on the wrong audience, and slighted the gift meant for them.
The Corinthians were using them for display among believers — completely wrong and unintelligent. "But prophesying" — the very thing they really slighted — "does not serve unbelievers but believers." This is its direct use.
Put a stranger in the room, and the two gifts do opposite things.
In contrast to tongues, the gift of prophecy serves not only the unbeliever but the believer. When the saints come together in one place, tongues used without an interpreter would lead an unbeliever, or an untaught person, to conclude that the assembly was mad. Prophesying does the opposite. It would convict the conscience of an unbeliever, bring the secrets of his heart into the open, and convince him that he was in the presence of God.
Translations differ in the second half of the verse. Kelly calls the added verb needless, though he thinks the translators were right not to call prophecy a sign:
The common English version needlessly introduces "serves" in the second half of verse 22. Still, I think it is right not to read "sign" together with prophesying. Prophesying differs in its very nature from the powers that truly bear that name, like a tongue or a miracle... We could just as well say tongues are a sign for the unbelieving, and prophesying for those who believe.
- Two audiences. Scripture splits the gifts in two: signs aimed at the world, and gifts that build up the saints. This verse is the dividing line.
- A sign of judgment. In Isaiah, foreign speech meant humiliation and judgment for Israel. Corinth was taking pleasure in what had been a threat.
- A sign reaches outward. A sign works by strangeness. It wakes up someone who is not listening. Believers already know the Lord they call on.
- Prophecy reaches inward — and further. Its direct object is God's people, yet it can also lay bare an outsider's heart and convince him God is present.
- Misplaced, a gift looks like madness. Tongues used among believers made the assembly look insane. The sign meant for outsiders was wasted on the wrong room.
If therefore the whole assembly come together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and simple [persons] enter in, or unbelievers, will not they say ye are mad?
Paul has just contrasted tongues with prophecy. Now he tests both. He pictures the whole church meeting together, everyone speaking in tongues, and a visitor walking in. That guest would leave sure the Christians had lost their minds.
Paul is not photographing a meeting at Corinth. He sets up a case and asks what would follow.
It is surprising that anyone should fail to see this. The apostle is not describing facts as they were or ought to be. He only supposes a case where "the whole assembly" should meet "together," and by implication that would be in one place. If all were to speak with tongues, it would expose them to the charge of madness. If all were to prophesy, it would force even the unbeliever or the simple man who came in to be convinced that God was indeed among them. It is put here only as a supposition, to correct the lack of spirituality in the Corinthian saints. They preferred the showier sign-gifts to that far higher exercise of divine power which sets the soul morally in God's presence under His grace and truth.
Commentators differ over "the whole church." One writer takes it as a truth that should still shape how God's people gather.
Note those words — "the whole Assembly." Here was God's Assembly in one place. You may say you cannot get that now. Suppose I could not get the whole. I would still seek to be one of those who act on the truth that should bind them all, if they were subject to God's Word.
The ESV speaks of "outsiders or unbelievers." Older translations say "unlearned." That word marks off two different guests.
The "unlearned" persons in verse 23 are those not taught in the word. This is true of an unbeliever, but the text names the unbelievers as well. The word is "idiotes." It described someone with no training in a skill — a private person. It makes two classes: the untaught in the things of God, and the actual unbeliever.
The problem is not the gift itself but its setting.
Verse 23 therefore insists on this. Someone might come into a gathering of the assembly who was untaught or an unbeliever. If he heard the saints speaking in tongues unknown to the assembly, he would think them mentally unbalanced. Of course, if he knew the language spoken, there would be value in this. But when it is clear that all know one language, it is pointless to use a language some do not know. A tongue might be used outside the assembly, where a foreigner could hear his own language. That was certainly a sign, and it would have some effect on unbelievers.
Corinth had the gift, but used it on the wrong audience.
The Corinthians were using them for display among believers. That was most wrong and unintelligent. In verse 23 he puts the case in a pointed form. Such would be the effect, supposing they were all speaking with tongues; and if it was good for one, it was good for all.
Paul's picture assumes an open meeting. Anyone there may have something to give. Freedom like that calls for discretion.
God's Spirit has His home in the assembly, so each of those present is likely to have some gift. Are they, then, to use them without restraint? Or should they show godly discernment and discretion? That is what this passage implies. If they all spoke with tongues, an ungifted worshipper would suspect they were mad — and an unbeliever still more. It would stumble the ignorant and stir unbelief into contempt.
The warning is not a museum piece. Where meetings produce noise and confusion, the outsider's judgement stands.
In the meetings of the modern advocates of the gift of tongues, the greatest disorder often prevails. That is a fact. Men and women have fallen down in convulsions. Hysterical laughter, unpleasant shrieks and other displays have not been uncommon. An unbeliever would be perfectly right to give the verdict "they are mad."
- Supposed — Paul sets up a case; he is not reporting one. He asks how a room full of tongues would strike a visitor, and answers it himself.
- Outsider — two guests are in view: the person untaught in God's word, and the unbeliever. Neither can follow a word.
- Misplaced — the fault lies in the setting, not the gift. A tongue is a sign only where someone knows the language. Among people who all share one language, it achieves nothing.
- Display — a gift meant for unbelievers became a show among believers. Having a gift never gave the right to use it at will.
- Verdict — the outsider's reaction is the test. Where he cannot follow a word, he calls it madness. Where God's word is spoken clearly, he is convinced God is among them.
But if all prophesy, and some unbeliever or simple [person] come in, he is convicted of all, he is judged of all;
Paul has just pictured a room where everyone speaks in unknown languages, and a visitor walks out calling them mad. Now that same visitor walks in on a room where everyone prophesies, and everything changes.
One reference work starts from the word itself, then defines the gift by its effect:
The word comes from a verb meaning "to speak forth," so we can describe a prophet as a spokesman of God. Prophecy of this kind is a gift in the church for the building up of the saints, bringing God's word with power upon their consciences and hearts. It is the gift of most importance in the church.
It also sets prophesying apart from evangelizing and teaching. Kelly adds that Paul is supposing a case, not reporting one:
This is what marks prophesying. It is not the announcement of the good news, as in evangelizing. It is not the unfolding of doctrine, as in teaching. It is God using His word to deal with the soul, so that the soul is conscious of it. … Paul does not describe this as a fact that ever took place. He describes the natural effect under such circumstances.
Kelly sets the two outcomes side by side, then points to a woman who met a stranger able to tell her own life story:
Suppose they all speak in tongues in full assembly, in front of simple people or unbelievers. What impression will that make? That the saints were mad. Now suppose they all prophesy. How would such a person feel when he came in and heard? His heart's secrets are uncovered to him, and God deals with them through all of the speakers. He is left with the deepest conviction that God is truly among the saints. The woman of Samaria met One who had never seen her before, and He set out her life in a few words. She confessed, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet." His words made her feel and admit that everything was out, and that God was speaking to her conscience.
Being "convicted" and "called to account" is not a public interrogation. Nobody in the room learns anything about the visitor:
Such a one, convicted and judged, will "worship." He worships because he finds God working in this way, and he falls down and owns Him. The presence of God acts on his spirit and bows it, and reaches his conscience. He hears the secrets of his own heart told out to him. God's presence brings it all to light for him, without his saying a word to anyone. It is the power of the Spirit of God on a man's conscience.
This ministry was never designed for the outsider. Believers were speaking to believers, and he happened to be there:
Truth given honestly, and pressed home with sober reality to believers, can bring the secrets of an unbeliever's heart to light before him. It reaches his conscience, though the Word is not aimed at him.
Darby points out where the visitor's conclusion lands, and where it does not:
The passage assumes that the whole body could act in this way, in the most public and obvious gifts. The unbeliever does not fall down and confess that God is in this or that gifted person. Still less does he admire or look up to the spiritual attainments of one individual. He confesses that God is in the assembly, among the Christians. And is this to be lost, and not even sought, and individual attainment put in the place of the presence of God in the assembly?
Kelly separates two senses of the word, and keeps only one of them for today:
Prophesying is not predicting something you must wait for, to see whether it comes to pass. I do not believe that a person predicting things now would fit the way the Holy Spirit acts, for the simple reason that the predictions that matter for God and for man are already given in the written word. But there remains the other sense of it — bringing out the truth of God so as to deal with man's conscience, and give him the full conviction that it is God who is speaking to him through a man. I see no reason to doubt that God still grants this — in feeble measure perhaps, and in rare cases; but still, I cannot doubt that the principle is true, and that it will not fail as long as God has work and testimony on the earth.
- Speak forth. Prophesying is speaking for God so that His word lands on the conscience. It is not foretelling, evangelizing, or lecturing.
- All, not one. Paul supposes a whole company able to speak, so no single gifted person gets the credit.
- Conscience, not argument. No one argues the visitor down. His own hidden secrets come out to him, and he bows.
- Overheard, not targeted. The ministry was for believers. Truth meant for them convicts the outsider anyway.
- God, not the speakers. The verdict he leaves with is about who was present in the room, not about who was impressive in it.
the secrets of his heart are manifested; and thus, falling upon [his] face, he will do homage to God, reporting that God is indeed amongst you.
A stranger with no faith walks into a gathering of Christians. He hears the word of God spoken plainly, and he ends up on his face, worshipping. This verse shows what that word did inside him, and what he then said about the people he had walked in on.
The whole result turns on the kind of speaking described in verse 24. One commentator draws a sharp line between it and other useful ministry:
Prophesying is the spiritual application of God's word to the conscience. It puts the soul in His presence. It shows the mind of God to the hearer, clear as light. Much valuable teaching, encouragement, and application has no such character. It is all very true, but it does not put the soul in the presence of God.
Nobody in the room knows this visitor's history. The disclosure runs one way — inward.
Such a one, convinced and judged, will "worship," because he finds God working like this, and falls down and owns Him. The presence of God acts upon his spirit and bows it, and his conscience is reached. The secrets of his heart are told out to himself. God's presence finds it all out to himself, without his speaking to others. It is the power of the Spirit of God on a man's conscience.
The believers were not preaching to him at all. They were speaking to each other.
The truth itself (not necessarily the simple gospel) would convict the man's conscience. That is even more so when believers press the truth home to one another's hearts and consciences — not at all with the unbeliever in mind. Truth given honestly, and applied to believers with sober reality, may show an unbeliever the secrets of his own heart. His conscience is reached, though the Word is not directed at him.
The same thing had already happened to one woman, face to face:
One who had never met the woman of Samaria before set out her whole life in a few words. She confessed, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet." His words made her feel and admit that everything was out, and that God was speaking to her conscience.
His verdict is not about a gifted speaker. It points at the company as a whole. Older translations read "God is in you" here:
In verse 25 "God is in you" is collective. The Greek preposition covers both "among" and "in" when the noun is collective. "In you" is perhaps better, because it looks at the assembly as a whole.
What he found there, he found nowhere else in the city:
Detected and exposed by the prophetic ministry, the man's heart is reached. He worships God. He has proved that God had a temple at Corinth, and he met God in His temple there. Suppose we all walked in the truth of this and were gathered like this today. A worldly man coming in would find such power that he would say, "There were a lot of Christians there, but God was there too."
Paul writes the verse as a supposition, not a report. Commentators differ over how far the gift behind it continues. One says it belonged to the time before Scripture was complete:
Some of the prophetic gift in reaching the conscience may still survive. But when God's Word was completed, everything He meant to reveal through prophecy had already been brought out. So the foundation part of the prophetic gift had to disappear.
Others expect the same result wherever God is present among gathered believers:
In this supposed case, all the prophesying would bring the conviction home to him, and he could not resist it. It would also produce the report he makes and the homage he pays at that moment. This effect is not meant to come from one man preaching in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. It comes from God's presence in His saints as they prophesy like this in the assembly. The apostle does not describe it as a fact that ever did take place, but as the natural effect under the circumstances.
- Presence, not performance — prophesying is more than good teaching; it applies God's word to the conscience and sets a soul in front of God.
- Presence exposes — the visitor's hidden things surface. God tells them to him, and to no one else.
- Presence convicts without aiming — believers spoke the truth to each other, not at the visitor. His conscience was reached anyway.
- Presence is collective — his verdict is about the whole company, not a speaker: God is among you.
- Presence produces worship — the outcome is not applause but a man on his face, who met God and says so afterwards.