the person who speaks in a tongue to ‘pray that he may interpret what he says’ (v. 13). If there is no-one to interpret, the tongues-speaker should ‘keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God’ (v. 28). Paul may not be saying that prophecy is the greatest of the gifts on some absolute scale, but only that it is more important than tongues on the scale of reference adopted.39 The tongues-speaker ‘edifies himself’ (v. 4), but the person who prophesies ‘edifies the church’. Paul does not rebuke
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