Study Desk

The ones who speak in different languages are helping only themselves, but those who prophesy are helping the whole church.

I wish all of you had the gift of speaking in different kinds of languages, but more, I wish you would prophesy. Those who prophesy are greater than those who can only speak in different languages—unless someone is there who can explain what is said so that the whole church can be helped.

But unless I understand the meaning of what someone says to me, we will be like foreigners to each other.

If I pray in a different language, my spirit is praying, but my mind does nothing.

So what should I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind. I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.

You may be thanking God in a good way, but the other person is not helped.

But in the church meetings I would rather speak five words I understand in order to teach others than thousands of words in a different language.

Brothers and sisters, do not think like children. In evil things be like babies, but in your thinking you should be like adults.

It is written in the Scriptures: "With people who use strange words and foreign languages I will speak to these people. But even then they will not listen to me," Isaiah 28:11–12 says the Lord.

But suppose everyone is prophesying and some people come in who do not believe or do not understand. If everyone is prophesying, their sin will be shown to them, and they will be judged by all that they hear.

But if there is no interpreter, then those who speak in a different language should be quiet in the church meeting. They should speak only to themselves and to God.

God is not a God of confusion but a God of peace. As is true in all the churches of God's people,

women should keep quiet in the church meetings. They are not allowed to speak, but they must yield to this rule as the law says.

So my brothers and sisters, you should truly want to prophesy. But do not stop people from using the gift of speaking in different kinds of languages.

But let everything be done in a right and orderly way.

After that, Jesus was seen by more than five hundred of the believers at the same time. Most of them are still living today, but some have died.

But God's grace has made me what I am, and his grace to me was not wasted. I worked harder than all the other apostles. (But it was not I really; it was God's grace that was with me.)

And also, we are guilty of lying about God, because we testified of him that he raised Christ from the dead. But if people are not raised from the dead, then God never raised Christ.

But Christ has truly been raised from the dead—the first one and proof that those who sleep in death will also be raised.

Death has come because of what one man did, but the rising from death also comes because of one man.