If any one speak with a tongue, [let it be] two, or at the most three, and separately, and let one interpret;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
but if there be no interpreter, let him be silent in [the] assembly, and let him speak to himself and to God.
The rule here is short and practical. A person may have the gift of speaking in a tongue. If nobody present can translate it, the meeting is not the place to use it. Behind that rule sits a bigger question. Who is a meeting for, and what makes something fit to say aloud in it?
The rule is not arbitrary. It follows from one test that covers everything said when believers gather.
The tongue was forbidden if there was no interpreter, and for the plain reason that otherwise it would not build up the church. The object of everything done there must be "for building up." So whatever does not build up is not fit for the assembly of God, and ought not to be allowed there. It may be well meant. The power behind it may really be the Holy Spirit. But if something cannot be understood, and does not build up the saints of God, it is not fit for the assembly. These things might be quite in place outside the assembly; indeed, that was where they belonged, as a testimony to unbelievers.
Genuine power is not enough. Something can come from God and still be out of place, because no one can understand it. Outside the meeting, the same gift had its use.
Tongues impressed people, and that was part of the problem at Corinth.
He begins with what the vain Greek mind was most drawn to, speaking with a tongue, because it was such an open and surprising witness of divine power. It electrified people. But in an assembly, on its own, it did not build anyone up. So if the man who had "a tongue" could not interpret, or no interpreter was there, he had to be silent. He had to be content with speaking to himself and to God. That was an excellent lesson, where there was a desire to show off that gift.
Without translation, the others cannot follow. That leaves only the speaker's own motive for speaking.
Without interpretation, the assembly could not join with him in the use of his gift. So he was to stay quiet. He was not to make a mere display of his tongue out of the vanity of his own heart.
The verse does not ban the gift. It redirects it. Commentators differ on where that speech happens. One takes it as private speech inside the meeting:
If there was no interpreter, then whatever message a man had in a tongue, he was to keep silent. He could only speak under his breath to himself and to God. Only he and God could understand.
Another puts that speech outside the meeting. He draws a sharp line between private feeling and public conduct:
If a man wants to be carried away in ecstasy, let it be in his own room, alone with God. But in the assembly of God he must be sober. In that assembly the Lord is the one who directs, and God is not a God of confusion but of peace.
Some assume that no one can hold back a real work of the Spirit. The command to keep silent says otherwise.
In 1 Corinthians 12 you have gifts in power. The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. So in the case of the gift of a tongue, one may have to hold his tongue. That is power.
The man who holds the gift is answerable for how he uses it.
The holder of a gift is greater than what he holds. Ruling his own spirit is man's natural duty. In the same way, the spiritual man is trusted with the responsibility of self-control. Claiming he had no choice is a common excuse where the gift is only pretended.
This limit sits next to an order for others to speak. So it does not make a rule of general silence.
If what he has to say cannot be made understandable to others, it is of no use — it is excluded. The next verse tells the prophets to speak, two or three, and the others to judge. Not to allow this when the assembly is gathered together is to quench the Spirit.
- Edifying — building others up is the test for everything said in the meeting. What no one understands cannot build, so it stays out.
- Interpretation — without a translator, the rest cannot follow, and the gift loses the one thing that made it useful there.
- Silence — the speaker keeps his gift. He uses it between himself and God, and that shows whether he only wanted to display it.
- Self-control — the ability to hold back is proof of power, not loss of it; the one who holds a gift answers for its use.
- Liberty — the same chapter that limits the tongue also tells the prophets to speak. Silencing one voice must never become silencing the Spirit.