A Concluding Postscript
Prayer in the Spirit
One final matter central to prayer and Spirit needs to be noted, what Paul calls “prayer in the Spirit.” Here is an especially sensitive area in Pauline spirituality that needs to be faced squarely both by New Testament scholarship and by the church at large, and not tip-toed around because of generations of theological uneasiness or prejudice.
In Eph 6:18, in the context of spiritual warfare (“our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,” etc.), Paul urges this congregation to “pray in the Spirit.” Since this is the same language Paul uses about his own prayer habits in 1 Cor 14:13-16, one may legitimately assume that in using this language, at least one form such prayer would take would be praying “in a tongue.” The argument in 1 Cor 14:1-19 gives clear evidence for the fact that praying in the Spirit, in tongues, held a significant place in Paul’s own prayer life. Four texts are significant for our understanding this dimension of Pauline spirituality, three of which come from the argument in 1 Corinthians 14.
(1) 1 Cor 14:2. It is clear from the outset — and from the argument throughout — that Paul is trying to curb the practice (apparently highly regarded by the Corinthians themselves) of praying out in tongues without interpretation in the gathered community.20 The concern of the argument throughout, as w. 18-19 make certain, is what happens in the community at worship; and for Paul intelligibility is the key to edification when the church assembles. This is why Paul can offer such positive words about “tongues,” while at the same time trying to curb it in the community, at least without interpretation. Thus in trying to stifle it as a community activity, he is careful not to quash it as a form of personal spirituality, precisely because it held a significant role in his own spiritual life.
The first word about “tongues” in this passage (14:2) is therefore both a positive one and one that sets what else he has to say in perspective. Here we learn two things about his understanding of this phenomenon. First, the person who “speaks in tongues” does not speak to people but to God. That is, such “speech” is obviously prayer speech. This is further confirmed by the explicit collocation of the verb “pray” with “in tongues” in v. 14, as well as by the implication in v. 28, let such a person “speak to himself [=privately] and God.”
Second, such speech to God is not understood by the “mind” of the one praying. Rather “no one understands, but one by the Spirit speaks mysteries.” For many in the West, of course, this is to damn Paul — and others who so speak to God — because only what passes through the cortex of the brain is allowed value in the age of enlightenment. Such “enlightenment,” however, is simply the ultimate form of rationalism, where value is to be found only in what is “rational” (= having to do with the thinking processes) and where almost no value at all is given to the non-rational (indeed, it is often perceived as irrational).
But Paul and the early church had not been tampered with by the mind-set of rationalism, and he found great value in prayer that was from the heart, from within, but which did not necessarily need approval from the mind to be uttered before God. Indeed, in v. 4 Paul insists that such prayer is edifying to the one who so prays.
(2) 1 Cor 14:14-17. In this passage we are given yet further insight into prayer in the Spirit. By prayer and singing “with my spirit,” Paul almost certainly means that the Holy Spirit prays through his own spirit.21 Both the context and the explicit language of v. 14 demand that “praying in tongues” is what is in view. Two further matters are noteworthy.
First, Paul insists that he will do both, that is, he will pray and sing both with his understanding and in the Spirit, where his own understanding is not “fruitful.” Whatever else, therefore, “prayer in the Spirit” is neither the most important nor the only kind of praying Paul will do. But it is obviously for him a part of the whole. What he disallows is such praying in the public assembly without interpretation, because it edifies only the speaker, not the others.
Second, w. 16-17 indicate that such prayer in the Spirit may take the form of “blessing God” and “thanksgiving,” which we have noted above is a key element in Paul’s understanding of prayer.
(3) 1 Cor 14:18-19. Here is an unfortunately much abused text, which in fact lifts the curtain just a little, so that we may look in on Paul’s own personal life of prayer. It is purely prejudicial, and an as-sertion that should be forever laid to rest, that Paul is here “damning tongues with faint praise.” How he could have known he prayed in tongues more than all of them is an irrelevancy. What is relevant is that Paul could make such an assertion to a community that so highly prized this gift as evidence of “heavenly spirituality.” Had he not been able to justify the assertion, the entire argument comes aground. Probably to their own great surprise, he prizes their prize as well — but as having to do with “praying to himself” (v. 28, = in private), not in the congregation. In church he will only pray “with his mind,” since congregational utterances, whatever form they take (i.e., to God or to others), must be intelligible so that the whole community can be edified. Otherwise, why gather; why not simply pray and sing only in private with no public expression of corporate worship? Thus this passage tells us that Paul can make a distinction between private and public prayer, and that in his own private prayer, he prayed in the Spirit more than all of them.
(4) Rom 8:26-27. Here is another much discussed text, especially as to whether or not it refers to “speaking in tongues.”22 Against such lie the facts (a) that Paul does not explicitly speak about “tongues,” and (b) that the words στεναγμoῐς ἀλαήτoις, “with groans that words cannot express,” should properly mean “without words” or “unexpressed.”
On the other hand, the parallels with 1 Corinthians 14 are equally striking: (a) as in 1 Cor 14:2 and 14-16, the Spirit prays (in this case, intercedes) through the believer; and (b) the believer who so prays by the Spirit does not necessarily understand what the Spirit is saying. Despite the words στεαγμoῐς ἀλαλήτoις, it is difficult to imagine this passage as arguing that there is no articulation in prayer; therefore, Paul probably means not so much that the words “cannot even be spoken,” but that even though spoken they are inarticulate in the sense of not being understood by the speaker.
In any case, even if not referring directly to tongues as such, here is yet another text, appearing at a crucial point in an argument, which gives certain evidence for a kind of praying in the Spirit that is not “praying with the mind.”
All together these texts indicate that Pauline “spirituality” included, as an integral part, prayer that was Spirit-inspired and Spirit-uttered, which included both praise/thanksgiving to God and intercession (presumably on behalf of others as well as for oneself). This is not the only form of prayer for Paul, but it formed a significant part of prayer for him. All of which is but one more indication that for him, “spirituality,” even in our sense of that term, was primarily “Spirit-uality.”