Be Wise about Using Spiritual Gifts

Scripture

Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy.

1 Corinthians 14:1 KJV

Big idea

Summary

Paul had already ranked love above every spiritual gift; now he ranks the gifts themselves by a single measure — how much they build up the gathered church. Prophecy, which communicates God’s truth in words the whole congregation can understand, outranks tongues, which without interpretation edifies only the speaker. The Corinthians, drawn to the more dramatic gift, had inverted this priority and needed to be turned back toward whatever actually strengthens the body.

The chapter’s middle section presses the point through a series of everyday illustrations — an out-of-tune instrument, an unclear bugle call, a foreign language — all making the same case: communication that isn’t understood accomplishes nothing, however sincere or spiritually charged it might feel to the speaker. Whatever happens in public worship, Paul insists, must be intelligible to those present, including any outsider who happens to wander in and needs to be able to recognize conviction, not confusion.

Paul closes with practical instructions for order: no more than a few speakers in tongues per gathering, always with interpretation; prophetic messages tested and weighed rather than accepted uncritically; and the whole gathering conducted so that God, who is not a God of confusion, is recognizably at work. The underlying conviction is that self-control is itself evidence of the Spirit’s presence — a genuinely Spirit-led meeting will never be chaotic, because “the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.”

Key points

• Spiritual gifts should be ranked and exercised by one primary measure: how much they build up the whole congregation, not how impressive or exciting they feel to the individual.
• Prophecy outranks uninterpreted tongues precisely because it can be understood by everyone present, including newcomers and outsiders.
• Communication that isn’t understood — however sincere — accomplishes nothing in a gathered worship service.
• Public worship must remain orderly: a limited number of speakers, always accompanied by interpretation, with every message weighed rather than simply accepted.
• Self-control in worship is itself a mark of the Spirit’s genuine presence, since God is not the author of confusion.

Illustrations & analogies

• Paul compares an unclear spiritual message to a poorly tuned musical instrument or an ambiguous bugle call in battle — in both cases, no one knows how to respond.
• He describes visiting a service where an organ’s pitch drifted so gradually with the weather that by the meeting’s end it could no longer be played alongside the piano — a picture of how easily clarity can be lost without anyone noticing at first.
• He recounts evangelist D. L. Moody redirecting an overlong public prayer by starting a hymn — “While our brother finishes his prayer, let us sing a hymn!” — an example of a leader gently keeping order without shaming anyone.
• He notes that an unbeliever wandering into a chaotic, overlapping service might reasonably conclude the whole congregation had lost its mind, while a clear, orderly gathering can bring real conviction.

Notable lines

A ministry that does not build up will tear down, no matter how ‘spiritual’ it may seem.

Warren W. Wiersbe Be Wise, ch. 11

The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.

Warren W. Wiersbe Be Wise, ch. 11, quoting 1 Cor. 14:32

For reflection and discussion

1. Have you ever been part of a gathering, spiritual or otherwise, where enthusiasm outran clarity? What was lost?
2. Why might Paul have cared so much about what a visiting outsider would experience in a worship service?
3. What does self-controlled, orderly worship look like in your own church tradition, and how does it differ from what Paul describes correcting in Corinth?