1 Corinthians 14:19-21
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
19 but in the church I would rather speak five words with my mind, so as to instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue.
Functions of These Gifts. 20 [a]Brothers, stop being childish in your thinking. In respect to evil be like infants, but in your thinking be mature.(A) 21 It is written in the law:
“By people speaking strange tongues
and by the lips of foreigners
I will speak to this people,
and even so they will not listen to me,(B)
says the Lord.”
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- 14:20–22 The Corinthians pride themselves on tongues as a sign of God’s favor, a means of direct communication with him (2:28). To challenge them to a more mature appraisal, Paul draws from scripture a less flattering explanation of what speaking in tongues may signify. Isaiah threatened the people that if they failed to listen to their prophets, the Lord would speak to them (in punishment) through the lips of Assyrian conquerors (Is 28:11–12). Paul compresses Isaiah’s text and makes God address his people directly. Equating tongues with foreign languages (cf. 1 Cor 14:10–11), Paul concludes from Isaiah that tongues are a sign not for those who believe, i.e., not a mark of God’s pleasure for those who listen to him but a mark of his displeasure with those in the community who are faithless, who have not heeded the message that he has sent through the prophets.
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