Hearing for yourself: 1 Corinthians 14:21

In the fourteenth chapter of his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul addresses the issue of speaking in tongues. This phenomenon was first recorded in the scriptures in the book of Acts. On the day of Pentecost, after the Holy Spirit had come upon those present, Luke records that “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance” (Acts 2:4 NASB). Towards the end of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul gives some instructions about the use of the gift of tongues in the church at Corinth. Paul even writes, “I thank God, I speak in tongues more than you all” (1 Corinthians 14:18 NASB). Paul believed that the gift of speaking in other tongues was prophesied in the Law by Isaiah when he wrote, “By men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people, and even so they will not listen to me” (1 Corinthians 14:21 NASB). In reading this in the original Greek language, this final phrase is interesting, “they will not listen to me.”

In Greek, a verb can be spoken using one of three voices. There is the active voice where the subject is doing the action, such as “the professor is teaching the students.” The professor is the subject, and he is doing the teaching. In the passive voice, the action is being done to the subject. For example, “the students are being taught by the professor.” The students are the subject, and the action is being done to them. However, in the Greek language, there is a third voice, the middle voice. In the middle voice, the subject does the action, but they do it for themselves. This is the voice that the future verb “will hear” is spoken in this passage. Paul says that, even with the sign of speaking in tongues, people will not listen to God for themselves.

Not everyone who hears the word of God is changed, healed, and saved by the word of God. Some hear the word of God only to criticize it, judge it, and mock it. Some listen only that they might use the word of God to judge others by it, all the while justifying their own actions. However, in doing so, they never hear the word of God for themselves. They never listen with the intent of obeying or applying the word of God to their own lives. They may hear the word of God, but they never listen for themselves. For such people, Paul writes that “tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers” (1 Corinthians 14:22 NASB) Tongues are a sign for such people because it demonstrates what is happening in their hearts. Because they refuse to listen to God for themselves, the word of God has become as unfruitful and impotent as listening to a message in a language one does not understand. Only when we listen for ourselves, with the intent to obey and apply the word of God to our lives, will the word of God change us and cause us to grow in the grace and love of God.

David Robison