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NASB | Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Galatians 3:28 There is [now no distinction in regard to salvation] neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you [who believe] are all one in Christ Jesus [no one can claim a spiritual superiority]. [Rom 3:22; 1 Cor 12:13] |
Subject: sheila, why pray for a lesser gift? |
Bible Note: Greetings Kalos! As you with me, I usually agree with Dr. MacArthur about 95 percent of the time! :-) However, this is not one of those times! :-) I have had read several of his books on this issue, and he is not 'fair and balanced' on this issue as Fox News would say. There are a couple of problems with his interpretation of this passage. First of all, there is a MAJOR textual difficulty. 1 Cor. 14:22 says that tongues are for unbelievers, and prophecy is for believers. Yet, the following verses seem to contradict this statement. V. 23 says that 'tongues' will cause unbelievers to think that the church is out of her mind, while v. 24 says that unbelievers will respond to prophecy. This has led to a couple of suggestions. Some have suggested a textual error in v. 22. However, there isn't really any manuscript evidence for this view. Another, better suggestion is that v. 22 may be another one of the Corinthian 'slogans' to which Paul responds in vv. 23-24. In other words, the Corinthians may have been arguing that estatic displays of tongues would 'impress' unbelievers. Paul then counters with his earlier arguement from chap. 12 that prophecy is more edifying. Another problem with his interpretation is that the context of the passage is a gentile church, not Israel. Israel is mentioned in the OT quote, but it was a common rabbinic practice to string quotes together based on a key word - in this case 'tongues'. For instance, check out the quotes in Rom. 9-11 sometime and see how they are organized around the words 'son' and 'people'. If the previous view is correct that Paul is correcting their mis-statement, then the OT quote may have been used to illustrate that unbelievers, like Israel, would not listen to tongues. Regardless of the position one takes on this passage, it clearly is a difficult passage. Read any commentary on this passage and you will find multiple possible understandings! :-) So, I would not advice basing one's entire approach to tongues on this one passage. Rather, I would use the entirety of Paul's discussion. From that, we can gather the following. 1) We are not to forbid speaking in tongues - 14:39. Thus it cannot be a false gift or an invalid gift. 2) Tongues are one of the gifts of the Spirit - 12:10. 3) Tongues are one element of worship that must be done for the edifying of the church - 14:26. 4) An uninterpreted tongue edifies the individual doing the speaking, but no one else - 14:4. 5) An uninterpreted tongue is one means of speaking to God - 14:2, 14. 6) Paul would have liked for everyone to speak in tongues (14:5), but he prefered that everyone would prophesy (14:5). However, an interpreted tongue was equivalent to prophesy (14:5). 7) Paul spoke in tongues more than the Corinthians (14:18), but he would rather speak intelligible words in the Church (14:18). 8) Tongues should be restricted to two or three messages at the most in a church service (14:27) and must always be interpreted (14:28). If there is no interpreter, than the speaker is be speak only to himself. 9) Finally, everything should be done in order (14:33, 40). There is no doubt that this gift was misunderstood and misused. It was misunderstood in that people saw the 'value' of it in the estatic display itself, while Paul points out that it is in the content of the message where the true value lies. It was misused in that it was over emphasized and uncontrollably exercised. So, it is evident from the very clear passages of Paul’s writing that he was not trying to say that tongues were a fake gift, or that he was trying to devalue them, or that he was trying to forbid their use in worship, or that he was trying to say that they would no longer be a part of worship. Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |