harp be known?
014:008 If the bugle--to take another example--gives an uncertain sound,
who will prepare for battle?
014:009 And so with you; if with the living voice you fail to utter
intelligible words, how will people know what you are saying?
You will be talking to the winds.
014:010 There are, we will suppose, a great number of languages
in the world, and no creature is without a language.
014:011 If, however, I do not know the meaning of the particular language,
I shall seem to the speaker of it, and he to me, to be merely
talking some foreign tongue.
014:012 Therefore, seeing that you are ambitious for spiritual gifts,
seek to excel in them so as to benefit the Church.
014:013 Therefore let a man who has the gift of tongues pray for the power
of interpreting them.
014:014 For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays, but my
understanding is barren.
014:015 How then does the matter stand? I will pray in spirit,
and I will pray with my understanding also. I will praise God
in spirit, and I will praise Him with my understanding also.
014:016 Otherwise, if you bless God in spirit only, how shall he who is
in the position of an ungifted man say the `Amen' to your giving
of thanks, when he does not know what your words mean?
014:017 Rightly enough you are giving thanks, and yet your neighbor
is not benefited.
014:018 I speak in a tongue, thank God, more than all of you;
014:019 but in the Church I would rather speak five words with
my understanding--so as to instruct others also--than ten
thousand words in an unknown tongue.
014:020 Brethren, do not prove yourselves to be children in your minds.