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1 Corinthians 14:1-2
New Catholic Bible
1 Corinthians 14:1-2
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 14
Seek the Gifts That Build Up the Community.[a] 1 Make love your aim, but strive earnestly after the spiritual gifts, especially for that of prophecy. 2 If anyone speaks in tongues, he is speaking not to men but to God, and no one understands him, for he is speaking mysteries in the Spirit.
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- 1 Corinthians 14:1 The Corinthians aimed especially at a spectacular gift that Paul calls the gift of tongues. The reference is to a type of ecstatic prayer: the inspired person speaks in the midst of the assembly, using incomprehensible words, in a kind of religious rapture; he or she sings the praises of God, either in foreign languages that an inspired interpreter can translate, or by repeating litanies of hardly articulated words, without any order, in a state of ecstasy.
In v. 14, Paul contrasts “spirit” and “mind”: the spirit is the innermost part of the soul, where the Holy Spirit acts in mysterious ways; the mind is the soul insofar as it reflects and analyzes itself; it is the level, that is, of self-consciousness and the communication of thought.
When inspiration disregards the mind, the way is opened to enthusiasm and disorder, instead of fraternal exchanges and communion.
