Verse 5 says, “Now I desire that you all speak in tongues, but rather that you may prophesy; now greater is he who prophesies than he who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, that the church may receive building up.” This shows us that in the building up of the church, prophesying is greater than other gifts. If we do not prophesy in the church meetings, the building up of the church will suffer a great loss. But if we do prophesy, the building up of the church will receive great benefit.
Verse 12 says, “So also you, since you are zealots of spiritual gifts, seek that you may excel to the building up of the church.” The “spiritual gifts” here, according to the original text, should be “spirits.” This shows us that at that time, those Corinthian believers with a Gentile background had confused the unique Holy Spirit, that is God Himself, with the many evil spirits in the matter of their spiritual pursuits. They were not clear nor did they adequately keep the uniqueness of the Holy Spirit. The apostle’s word here does not imply an acknowledgment of their confused pursuit, but he was admonishing them, amidst their confusion, to seek to be transcendent in order to excel. The word “excel” in the original language implies filling, abounding, overflowing, as well as denoting excelling. According to the context, this word here does not refer to overflowing to abound, but to excelling above the ordinary. This implies that the Corinthian believers had confused the Holy Spirit with the evil spirits in their pursuit of spiritual gifts. According to the apostle, this mixed-up pursuit is very base and can cause the pursuers to be considered by others as Gentiles. Therefore, the apostle admonished them not to seek those undiscerned, confused spiritual things for their own enjoyment and exaltation, but to seek to excel, that is to transcend above those base pursuits, for the building up of the church. This is also our need today. For the building up of the church, we need to desire earnestly the excelling gift, that is, to speak for the Lord and to speak forth the Lord in the meetings.
Verses 23 through 25 say, “If therefore the whole church comes together in one place, and all speak in tongues, and the unlearned or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are insane? But if all prophesy and some unbeliever or unlearned person enters, he is convicted by all, he is judged by all; the secrets of his heart become manifest; and so falling on his face, he will worship God, reporting that God is really among you.” In the church meetings, if we all would prophesy, speak for the Lord and speak forth the Lord, that would convict people and judge people, because this way of speaking has God as the content. It supplies the hearers with God and also leads them to turn to God. In other words, the church meetings should be filled with God, and all the activities in the meetings should transfuse and infuse people with God so that they may be saturated with God. In order to have this, all must prophesy in the meetings.
Verse 26 says that whenever the whole church comes together, “each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.” This implies that when we come to the church meetings, we should have something of the Lord to share with others. We may have a hymn for praising the Lord. We may have a teaching of the teacher to supply people with the riches of Christ for edification and nourishment. We may have a revelation of a prophet to show people the vision of God’s eternal purpose concerning Christ being the mystery of God and the church being the mystery of Christ. We may have a tongue for the unbelievers as a sign that they may know and receive Christ, or we may have an interpretation to make the tongue concerning Christ and His Body understandable. All these are things we receive from the Lord, things out of the Lord, which we possess before we come to the meetings through our experience of the Lord, our enjoyment of His word, and our fellowship with Him in prayer. These are not instant inspirations, but a regular accumulation; these are not accidental activities, but are acquisitions that come through much learning.