1 Corinthians 14:39

Therefore, brothers, desire earnestly to prophesy, and don’t forbid speaking with other languages.

World English Bible
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Other translations

WEBBE

Therefore, brothers, desire earnestly to prophesy, and don’t forbid speaking with other languages.

BSB

So, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues.

KJV

Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues.

ASV

Wherefore, my brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues.

BBE

So then, my brothers, let it be your chief desire to be prophets; but let no one be stopped from using tongues.

Original Greek

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The early church

Then, as he is ever wont to do, unto the former subject whence he digressed to say these things, he brings back his discourse as follows: "Wherefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues." For this too is his wont, not only to work out what is before him, but also starting from that to set right whatever seems to him in any way akin to it, and again to return to the former, so as not to appear to wander from the subject. For so when he was discoursing of their concord in their banquets, he digressed to their Communion in the Mysteries, and having thence put them to shame, he returns again to the former, saying, "Wherefore, when ye come together to eat, wait one for another." (1 Cor. 11:33) And here, accordingly, having discoursed of good order in their gifts, and of its being a duty neither to faint in the lesser, nor to be puffed up on account of the greater; then having made an excursion from thence to the sobriety becoming women and having established it, he returns again to his subject, saying, "Wherefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues." Seest thou how to the end he preserved the difference of these? And how he signifies that the one is very necessary, the other not so? Wherefore of the one he saith, "desire earnestly," but of the other, "forbid not."
John Chrysostom · d. 407Homilies on 1 Corinthians

Commentary

Matthew Henry · Verses 34–40

When the apostle exhorts Christian women to seek information on religious subjects from their husbands at home, it shows that believing families ought to assemble for promoting spiritual knowledge. The Spirit of Christ can never contradict itself; and if their revelations are against those of the apostle, they do not come from the same Spirit. The way to keep peace, truth, and order in the church, is to seek that which is good for it, to bear with that which is not hurtful to its welfare, and to keep up good behaviour, order, and decency.

Read Matthew Henry on 1 Corinthians 14 →

Cross-references

6

Topics

Cross-references: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. Hebrew and Greek data from STEPBible.org (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0. Library: sources.