Paul's Method of Witnessing

There are two considerably difficult passages in 1 Corinthians which don’t seem to make much sense to the reader because we today are not the original recipients, so there are some bridges of time and culture among other things that need to be built, and these particular verses touch on subjects so briefly that there is little room for interpretation. I am speaking solely of 1 Corinthians 13:1 and 1 Corinthians 15:29.

1 Corinthians 13:1 says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

I want to discuss the phrase, “the tongues of men and of angels” in this verse. What does it mean to speak in the tongues of angels? What interpretations are out there concerning this phrase that just seems out of place?

I have heard several different interpretations on this particular phrase, all the way from the idea that Paul was using it as a hyperbole to show that the languages of angels is simply out of reach for human beings,[1] to the idea that the Corinthians knew a special type of tongues beyond what was already known at the time, and several other interpretations on top of these. I am not quite convinced with these interpretations, so I will offer another solution to this issue.

It appears that the above interpretations are logical, but they just do not fit the relationship that Paul seems to have with his wild brothers and sisters in Christ known as the Corinthians (See 1 Cor. 1:4; 1:11-12; et. al.). Pentecostal believers today would like to think that they have some kind of esoteric insight into the world in which they seek to produce. It seems that everyone wants to be an expert, and if you make your own world, then of course you would be an expert. When the presuppositions of what tongues should be are rampant before a deep study of what the Bible is actually saying, will only cause further confusion and destruction. The point is that this phrase, “tongues of angels” is not talking about the tongues mentioned in Acts chapter 2. It is totally different. We can know this from the context. There is no mention of angelic tongues anywhere else in the Bible with an exception of this verse. This is why it is difficult to know what it means. We can eisegete other texts, but this would be incorrect.

For instance, let’s look at a popularly eisegeted verse: “For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 14:2). We could insert the meaning that “because no one understands them it is because it is an angelic language.” The problem here is that it could also be the case that there is no one around who understands the human language that is being spoken. This verse realistically teaches that Tongues does not tell other people miraculously the gospel, because that is not what it was for. The miracle in biblical tongues is that other people can understand the language being spoken that the speaker does not know himself. So the miracle is that someone does not know a language, yet is giving praise to God in this unknown language. This is why it requires an interpreter (i.e. a native speaker).

With this aside, it seems that we can continue moving forward. We are still left with the idea that the tongues of angels does not fit the context. The same goes for our next passage:

1 Corinthians 15:29 says, “Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?”

Excuse me, uhh… what? “Baptized for the dead?” Again, this does not fit the context of the letter because we are not the original recipients.

Mormons, who are changing their name to something even more deceiving (Church of Jesus Christ), believe that this teaches a doctrine that people should be baptized for other people who have died so that those who died may get another shot at entering the pearly gates (There are numerous problems with this, which I address HERE, so I will now only briefly discuss it). This is why you could research your ancestral history through their archives. The Mormons know every person since the beginning of Mormonism because they need to be baptized for them so they have a chance to be in heaven. This is how they “work” to feel good about themselves. This helps the Mormons feel saved from their sins. They invent a pseudo-grace that gives them pseudo-peace.

The problem here is that if this is not what 1 Corinthians 15:29 is talking about, then what does it mean? There are several interpretations that we could get lost in, and I have my own educated opinion, but I think that with an unconsidered device for interpreting these two texts, we will be able to make some more sense of it all.

In 1 Corinthians 9:20-22, which I feel the need to point out that this is earlier than these two verses chronologically speaking, Paul says to the Corinthians,

“To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”

It seems that with our verses in question, Paul is using his own method of reaching the people with whom he shares his method of reaching people. In other words, Paul is saying these things to the Corinthians because they know exactly what he is referring to, and these things will be strong arguments for the points that he is trying to make and that he is trying to get them to see. He is meeting them where they are. Paul recognized that meeting people where they are is what God did by becoming a man and coming to earth in the body of Jesus Christ.

“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels…” I have heard that the Corinthians had an obsession with death and the afterlife, and that the “tongues of angels” were some kind of paganistic gibberish type of language that the Corinthians claimed they knew. If something like this were the case, then Paul reaching to their level, possibly saving addressing that issue for a different letter to the Corinthians, then it makes sense that he would bring it up to them because he is simply trying to speak their language.

If a people group is super invested in their culture, they will not hear you if you make them feel stupid or ashamed or wrong when it comes to what they believe about their culture. Not only is this wrong, but it is highly ineffective. I know this because I live on an Indian Reservation as a foreigner (1 Peter 2:11-12). This is why the Bible is replete with phrases like “gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15) and “great patience and long suffering” (2 Timothy 4:2) in regard to sharing the gospel. Paul knew what he was doing. He knew that it took these things in order to win people to Christ. He was talking to the Corinthians in a way that they could understand. This is how we today can justify know knowing exactly what Paul was referring to when he mentions these things. If we one day find out through archaeological discoveries then that is great, but because there are so many interpretations about both of these verses and are not fully satisfying to some, we can benefit by knowing that Paul was using his method of basic witnessing in order to reach the Corinthians with the truth of Jesus.

Written by Nace Howell through the grace of the Lord Jesus

[1] David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. (Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, 2003) 611.

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