John Wesley

So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air.

“Unless ye utter by the tongue - Which is miraculously given you. Words easy to be understood - By your hearers. Ye will speak to the air - A proverbial expression.”

Otherwise, if you speak a blessing in spirit, how can someone who is uninstructed say “Amen” to your thanksgiving, since he does not know what you are saying?

“Otherwise how shall he that filleth the place of a private person - That is, any private hearer. Say Amen - Assenting and confirming your words, as it was even then usual for the whole congregation to do.”

Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature.

“Be not children in understanding - This is an admirable stroke of true oratory! to bring down the height of their spirits, by representing that wherein they prided themselves most, as mere folly and childishness.”

It is written in the Law: “By strange tongues and foreign lips I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to Me, says the Lord.”

“It is written in the Law - The word here, as frequently, means the Old Testament. In foreign tongues will I speak to this people - And so he did.”

Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers. Prophecy, however, is for believers, not for unbelievers.

“Tongues are intended for a sign to unbelievers - To engage their attention, and convince them the message is of God. Whereas prophecy is not so much for unbelievers, as for the confirmation of them that already believe.”

So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who are uninstructed or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out…

“Yet - Sometimes prophecy is of more use, even to unbelievers, than speaking with tongues. For instance: If the whole church be met together - On some extraordinary occasion. It is probable, in so large a city, they ordinarily met in several places.”

and the secrets of his heart will be made known. So he will fall facedown and worship God, proclaiming, “God is truly among you!”

“The secrets of his heart are made manifest - Laid open, clearly described; in a manner which to him is most astonishing and utterly unaccountable. How many instances of it are seen at this day!”

What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a psalm or a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation.

“Everyone hath a psalm - That is, at the same time one begins to sing a psalm; another to deliver a doctrine; another to speak in an unknown tongue; another to declare what has been revealed to him; another to interpret what the former is…”

The spirits of prophets are subject to prophets.

“Evil spirits threw their prophets into such ungovernable ecstasies, as forced them to speak and act like madmen.”

Women are to be silent in the churches. They are not permitted to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.

“Let your women be silent in the churches - Unless they are under an extraordinary impulse of the Spirit. For, in other cases, it is not permitted them to speak - By way of teaching in public assemblies.”

By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

“Ye are saved, if ye hold fast - Your salvation is begun, and will be perfected, if ye continue in the faith. Unless ye have believed in vain - Unless indeed your faith was only a delusion.”

For I am the least of the apostles and am unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

“This title here, therefore, seems to include the seventy; if not all those, likewise, whom God afterwards sent to plant the gospel in heathen nations. An untimely birth - It was impossible to abase himself more than he does by this single appellation.”

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

“Ye are still in your sins - That is, under the guilt of them. So that there needed something more than reformation, (which was plainly wrought,) in order to their being delivered from the guilt of sin even that atonement, the sufficiency of which God…”

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

“As through Adam all, even the righteous, die, so through Christ all these shall be made alive - He does not say, "shall revive," (as naturally as they die,) but shall be made alive, by a power not their own.”

Then the end will come, when He hands over the kingdom to God the Father after He has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power.

“For the divine reign both of the Father and Son is from everlasting to everlasting. But this is spoken of the Son's mediatorial kingdom, which will then be delivered up, and of the immediate kingdom or reign of the Father, which will then commence.”

And when all things have been subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will be made subject to Him who put all things under Him, so that God may be…

“The Son also shall be subject - Shall deliver up the mediatorial kingdom. That the three-one God may be all in all - All things, (consequently all persons,) without any interruption, without the intervention of any creature, without the opposition of any enemy, shall be…”

If these things are not so, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?

“Who are baptized for the dead - Perhaps baptized in hope of blessings to be received after they are numbered with the dead.”

If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for human motives, what did I gain? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

“If to speak after the manner of men - That is, to use a proverbial phrase, expressive of the most imminent danger I have fought with wild beasts at Ephesus - With the savage fury of a lawless multitude, Acts xix, 29, &c.”

Sober up as you ought, and stop sinning; for some of you are ignorant of God. I say this to your shame.

“To righteousness - Which flows from the true knowledge of God, and implies that your whole soul be broad awake. And sin not - That is, and ye will not sin. Sin supposes drowsiness of soul.”

You fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

“That which thou sowest, is not quickened into new life and verdure, except it die - Undergo a dissolution of its parts, a change analogous to death. Thus St.”

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead: What is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable.

“So also is the resurrection of the dead - So great is the difference between the body which fell, and that which rises. It is sown - A beautiful word; committed, as seed, to the ground.”

It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.

“It is sown in dishonour - Shocking to those who loved it best, human nature in disgrace! It is raised in glory - Clothed with robes of light, fit for those whom the King of heaven delights to honour.”

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

“It is sown in this world a merely animal body - Maintained by food, sleep, and air, like the bodies of brutes: but it is raised of a more refined contexture, needing none of these animal refreshments, and endued with qualities of a spiritual nature…”

So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being;” the last Adam a life-giving spirit.

“The first Adam was made a living soul - God gave him such life as other animals enjoy: but the last Adam, Christ, is a quickening spirit - As he hath life in himself, so he quickeneth whom he will; giving a more refined life…”

The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.

“He himself made the heavens, and by descending from thence showed himself to us as the Lord.”