05/12/2021 CONNECTING THE MIND
1 CORINTHIANS 14:13-15 Therefore, he who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also. Otherwise, if you bless with the spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say the “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? [Revised Standard translation]
1 CORINTHIANS: 14-16-17 [F]or if you praise and thank GOD with the spirit alone, speaking in another language, how can those who don’t understand you be praising GOD along with you? How can they join you in giving thanks when they don’t know what you are saying? You will be giving thanks very nicely, no doubt, but the other people present won’t be helped. [Living Bible translation]
Summary: The significance of Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 13-17 provides much mental food for thought.
Some consider these verses as Paul’s desire to provide some “guidelines” regarding the use of the Spiritual gift of tongues. There is the suggestion that those who possessed this unusual spiritual gift were so caught up in their own ability to speak “in a tongue” that was only edifying themselves, especially if they did not understand what they were saying and no one else understood what they were saying either. To Paul, while the tongue speaker may gain a lot of “charisma” in having the gift unless it actually “benefits” “the church body or someone in the church,” the gift serves no one. And, in order to benefit someone, including the speaker, someone needs to interpret. Therefore, Paul suggests that the gift of speaking in tongues and the gift of the interpretation of the tongue should go hand in hand. Without both, there is no mental understanding.
Others view this passage as a reminder of the importance of all spiritual gifts and that gifts are not our own personal “property,” but given to “Glorify GOD” and “to benefit the church body.”
Still, others may see 1 Corinthians 14: 13-17 as Paul making a connection between prayer, spirit, and mind. Sometimes people try to segregate their spiritual experience from their thinking. Sometimes people have the spiritual experience when they sing or pray, often not thinking of the implications of what they are saying because they have “disengaged their minds.” For example, when we pray or sing, “THY Will Be Done” or “LORD, I’m Available To YOU,” do the words reach the mind, or are we just “caught up” in the spirit? Do we think about what it would mean for GOD to ask me to “bear a cross” or for GOD to send me on a mission for HIM? Can we “have the mind” of CHRIST (See Philippians 2:5) such that we have the “humility” and “servant nature” to allow GOD to take control?
1 Corinthians 14: 13-17 reminds us that prayer and communion with GOD require us to
connect the mind and the spirit, when we pray to glorify and edify GOD.