1 Corinthians 14:12-26

¹²So you too, since you are eager to possess spiritual gifts, strive to excel for the edification of the church.

¹³Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue is to pray that he may interpret. ¹⁴For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unproductive. ¹⁵What is the outcome then? I will pray with the spirit, but I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit, but I will sing with the mind also. ¹⁶For otherwise, if you bless God in the spirit only, how will the one who occupies the place of the outsider know to say the “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not understand what you are saying? ¹⁷For you are giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not edified. ¹⁸I thank God, I speak in tongues more than you all; ¹⁹nevertheless, in church I prefer to speak five words with my mind so that I may instruct others also, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue.

²⁰Brothers and sisters, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature. ²¹In the Law it is written: “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,” says the Lord. ²²So then, tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophecy is not for unbelievers, but for those who believe. ²³Therefore if the whole church gathers together and all the people speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are insane? ²⁴But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all; ²⁵the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you.

²⁶What is the outcome then, brothers and sisters? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. All things are to be done for edification.