Using the gifts of prophecy and tongues
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📚Follow after love✭, and desire✭ spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy✭. 2 📚✭For he who speaks in an unknown tongue✭ does not speak to men, but to God✭, for no man understands him. However in the spirit he speaks mysteries✭. 3 📚✭But he who prophesies speaks to men for their edification, and encouragement, and comfort. 4 📚He who speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself✭, but he who prophesies edifies the church. 5 📚✭I wish you all spoke with tongues, but would prefer that you prophesied. For he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets✭, so that the church may be edified.6 📚Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking in tongues, what benefit✭ will I be to you, unless I speak to you either by way of revelation✭, or knowledge, or prophesying, or doctrine? 7 📚✭Even lifeless things making a sound, whether a flute or a harp, unless they give out a distinction in the notes how will it be known what is being played on either flute or harp? 8 📚And if a trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself for the battle? 9 📚Just so with you. Unless you speak easily understandable words with your tongue, how shall it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air. 10 If there are many kinds of languages to be met with in the world, not even one of them is without meaning. 11 📚Therefore, if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the one speaking, and the one speaking will be a foreigner to me. 12 📚✭Just so with you. Since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, seek to excel in gifts that will edify the church.
13 📚✭Therefore the one who speaks in an unknown tongue should pray that he may interpret what he says. 14 📚✭For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. 15 📚What is the way then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. 16 📚Otherwise when you praise with the spirit, how will he who has his place among the uninstructed say “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not understand what you are saying? 17 📚For you indeed give thanks well, but the other person is not edified✭.
18 📚I thank my God, I speak in tongues✭ more than all of you. 19 📚Yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, so that I might teach others✭, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.
20 📚Brethren, do not be children in understanding. In regard to evil be children, but in understanding be mature. 21 📚✭In the Law it is written,
With men of other tongues
and other lips I will speak to this people;
and yet for all that they will not listen to me,
says the Lord.
22 📚Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to believers, but to unbelievers. But prophesying is not for unbelievers, but for believers. 23 📚✭Therefore if the whole church has met together in one place, and all speak in unknown tongues, and some who are uninstructed or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are insane? 24 📚But if everyone prophesies, and an unbeliever or uninstructed person✭ comes in, he is going to be convicted✭ by everything, he is going to be judged by everything, 25 📚and so the secrets of his heart are going to be laid bare. And so, prostrating himself, he will worship God, and declare that God is really in you.
26 📚✭How is it then, brethren? When you meet together, each one of you has a psalm, or has a teaching, or has a tongue, or has a revelation✭, or has an interpretation. All things should be done to edify✭. 27 📚If anyone speaks in an unknown tongue, it should be done by two, or, at the most, by three, and that by turn✭, and someone should interpret✭. 28 But if there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church, and speak to himself✭ and to God.
29 📚Let the prophets speak, two or three of them, and let the others judge✭ what is said. 30 📚✭If anything is revealed to someone else sitting there, the first speaker should be silent. 31 📚✭For you may all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn, and all may be encouraged. 32 📚✭And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. 33 📚For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
34 📚✭Your women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but are to be in submission✭, as the law also says. 35 📚And if they wish to learn something, they should ask their husbands✭ at home. For it is shameful✭ for women to speak in the church.
36 📚What? Did the word of God come from you? Or did it reach only you? 37 📚✭If any man thinks he is a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. 38 📚✭But if any man is ignorant, let him be ignorant.