Worship in the Spirit, Worship with the Mind Text: 1 Corinthians 14:13-19
Introduction: Christ or Chaos in the Pews
The apostle Paul wanted to sing in the Spirit, but he also wanted to sing with the mind. This is a crucial distinction that our generation, steeped in a sentimental soup of expressive individualism, has almost entirely forgotten. We live in an age that prizes authenticity above all else, which usually means an unedited, unfiltered gush of raw emotion. The modern evangelical impulse, particularly in its charismatic quarter, often measures the presence of the Holy Spirit by the intensity of the feeling, the fervor of the experience, and the abandonment of intellectual control. The result is a worship service that can feel more like a spiritual rock concert or a therapy session than a covenantal assembly before the face of the Most High God.
But Paul confronts the church at Corinth, a church that was not lacking in any spiritual gift, and tells them that their pursuit of spiritual experience had made them childish. They were chasing after the flashy, the spectacular, and the private, and in doing so, they were neglecting the central purpose of the corporate gathering: the edification of the saints. They were turning the worship service into a platform for individual performance instead of a place where the body of Christ is built up in love and truth.
What Paul does in this chapter is not to quench the Spirit, but rather to quench the carnal desire to put the Spirit on display in a disorderly and unintelligible way. He is not setting the Spirit against the mind, as though they were enemies. That is a gnostic assumption. Rather, he is teaching us that the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of order, not of confusion. He is a Spirit of love, and love seeks to build up the other person. Therefore, true spirituality is not mindless; it is a Spirit-led routine, a thoughtful, structured, and intelligible engagement with the living God for the good of His people. Anything else is a drift into a mindless routine, which is not Spirit-led at all. It is simply chaos. And the choice is always Christ or chaos.
In our text today, Paul lays down the foundational principle that must govern our worship: intelligibility for the sake of edification. He is not against spiritual fervor; he is against fruitless fervor. He is not against praying in the spirit; he is against praying in a way that leaves the minds of your brothers and sisters in the dust.
The Text
Therefore let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may translate. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What is the outcome then? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also. Otherwise if you bless in the spirit only, how will the one who fills the place of the uninformed say the “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not know what you are saying? For you are giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not edified. I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all; however, in the church I desire to speak five words with my mind so that I may instruct others also, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue.
(1 Corinthians 14:13-19 LSB)
The Goal is Translation (v. 13)
Paul begins with a practical command that immediately frames the issue.
"Therefore let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may translate." (1 Corinthians 14:13)
The apostle does not say, "let him pray for more tongues." He does not say, "let him pray for a more ecstatic experience." He says that the one who has this gift of speaking in a foreign language must pray for the ability to translate it. Why? Because the gift is not for him. Spiritual gifts are not spiritual toys for our private amusement. They are tools given for the construction of the church. A gift that no one else can understand is like a beautiful hammer that is never used to build anything. It is useless in the corporate setting.
The goal is not the speaking; the goal is the understanding. The goal is communication. God is a communicative God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have been in eternal, loving, and perfectly intelligible communication for all eternity. The Word, the Logos, is the second person of the Trinity. God created the world through speech. He saves us through the proclamation of the Word. It should not be surprising, then, that when His people gather, the premium is placed on clear, understandable words.
So, the desire of the one with the gift must be oriented outward. He must desire to serve his brothers. If he has a word from God in another language, his very next thought must be, "How can I make this plain to everyone here?" This immediately corrects the self-centered orientation that was corrupting the Corinthian worship.
Fruitless Fervor (v. 14)
Paul then explains the problem with unintelligible prayer in the assembly by drawing a distinction between the spirit and the mind.
"For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful." (1 Corinthians 14:14 LSB)
Now, we must be careful here. Paul is not setting up a dualism where the "spirit" is good and the "mind" is bad. He is not saying that the height of spirituality is to disengage your brain. That is mysticism, not Christianity. The word for mind here is nous, which refers to the understanding, the intellect. The word "unfruitful" is key. What does he mean by it? He means it produces no fruit for anyone else. My spirit might be engaged in some way, but my understanding is bearing no harvest for the congregation. It is a closed loop.
Think of it this way. A man might be deeply moved by a piece of classical music. His spirit soars. But if he is then asked to lead the congregation in prayer and all he does is hum the tune, his mind is unfruitful. No one is edified. No one can agree. No one is instructed. His experience remains entirely private. In the context of the church gathered for worship, a private experience that cannot be shared is a fruitless experience. The mind is "unfruitful" because it is not producing the crop of edification in the hearts and minds of others.
This is a direct rebuke to any form of worship that encourages people to check their brains at the door. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and truth is propositional. It is something that can be understood, articulated, and affirmed. God has not given us the Spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (2 Tim. 1:7). A sound mind is a Spirit-given gift, and it is not to be despised in the name of a counterfeit spirituality.
The Necessary Duet (v. 15)
So what is the solution? Paul presents it as a beautiful and necessary integration.
"What is the outcome then? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also." (1 Corinthians 14:15 LSB)
The answer is not to choose one over the other. It is not spirit versus mind. It is both/and. True, God-honoring worship engages the whole person. The spirit and the understanding must work together, like two hands clapping. My spirit must be engaged, fervent, and alive. But that fervor must be channeled through the grid of my understanding so that it can be communicated to others. I will pray with my spirit, with genuine devotion. And I will pray with my mind, with intelligible words.
And notice, he applies this to singing as well. This strikes at the root of much of what passes for worship music today. We are often encouraged to engage in mindless, repetitive chanting, where the emotional atmosphere is everything and the theological content is thin to non-existent. But Paul insists that we sing with understanding. Our singing should be a doctrinally rich, intellectually robust, and spiritually fervent exercise. We are to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom (Col. 3:16). You cannot admonish someone with sounds that have no meaning.
The Corporate Amen (v. 16-17)
Paul now brings his argument to its corporate climax. The problem with a fruitless mind is that it prevents the rest of the church from doing its job.
"Otherwise if you bless in the spirit only, how will the one who fills the place of the uninformed say the 'Amen' at your giving of thanks, since he does not know what you are saying? For you are giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not edified." (1 Corinthians 14:16-17 LSB)
This is intensely practical. The "uninformed" person is simply the layman, the ordinary person in the pew who doesn't have the gift of tongues. How can he participate? How can he give his hearty agreement to your prayer if it is in a language he does not understand? The corporate "Amen" is not a throwaway word. It is a solemn, covenantal act. When the law was read and the curses for disobedience were declared, all the people were to say "Amen!" (Deut. 27:15-26). When Ezra read the law, the people lifted their hands and answered, "Amen, Amen!" (Neh. 8:6). The "Amen" is the congregation's way of saying, "So be it! We agree! We bind ourselves to this truth! We join in this prayer!"
But you cannot agree with what you do not understand. To say "Amen" to gibberish is not an act of faith; it is an act of foolishness. Paul says the man giving thanks in a tongue might be doing it "well enough" from his own perspective. His heart might be in the right place. But it is objectively a failure because the other person is not edified. Edification is the measure of success in corporate worship. Not personal experience, not emotional release, but the building up of the body of Christ. If your brother is not built up, you have failed, no matter how spiritual you felt.
The Pauline Proportion (v. 18-19)
To prevent anyone from thinking he is dismissing the gift itself, Paul concludes with a startling personal claim and a devastatingly clear principle.
"I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all; however, in the church I desire to speak five words with my mind so that I may instruct others also, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue." (1 Corinthians 14:18-19 LSB)
Paul was not arguing from a position of weakness or envy. He was not some stuffy intellectual who was uncomfortable with the supernatural. He says, matter-of-factly, that he excelled in this gift more than any of them. This gives his argument tremendous weight. He is not forbidding what he does not have. He is regulating what he has in abundance.
But then he gives us the Pauline proportion, the divine exchange rate. In the church, when the saints are gathered, five words that can be understood are of more value than ten thousand words that cannot. Five words that instruct are better than a torrent of unintelligible speech. The ratio is 1 to 2,000. This is not a subtle hint. This is apostolic buckshot. The supreme value in the gathered assembly is intelligible instruction that builds up the people of God.
Conclusion: Building the House
The principle here is clear and it is foundational. The church is the house of God, and we are being built together into a holy temple (Eph. 2:21-22). When we gather for worship, we are not gathering for a series of private, mystical experiences. We are gathering for a construction project. Every element of the service, every prayer, every song, every sermon, is meant to be a brick, a board, a nail, used to build up the structure.
An unintelligible tongue in the assembly is like a pile of beautiful lumber dropped in the middle of the job site with no blueprints and no instructions. It helps no one. It gets in the way. But five clear words, "Christ died for our sins," is a foundation stone. "Love one another" is a crossbeam. "He is risen" is the ridgepole on the roof.
Therefore, we must insist that our worship be thoughtful. We must insist that it be biblical. We must insist that it be understandable. We must pray with the spirit, yes, with all the fervor and passion we can muster. But we must also pray with the mind, so that when the prayer is concluded, the whole congregation, from the oldest saint to the youngest child, can thunder a corporate, covenantal, and completely comprehending "AMEN!" To the glory of God the Father.