Speaking In Tongues (part 26)

However, as has been said, this rather commonplace religious practice, to this point, has been limited in its performance.  One simply did not see entire groups of people speaking in tongues.  Not only would this have been counter-productive, whether within Christian associations or other gathered groups, this would also have run afoul of the honor system and its embedded functionality for society. 

Now, one might try to take this particular point and argue that an entire church speaking in tongues would serve to uproot the standardized systems of honor and shame, as this was certainly a portion of the missional ideal of the church and the kingdom of the covenant God (the first becoming last and the last becoming first, willingly taking the lowest place, ascribing all honor to a man that had suffered the most shameful ordeal of that age), but Paul’s words do not allow for any such thinking. 

If this was truly a desired goal, Paul would not write things like “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you, but in the church I want to speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, rather than then thousand words in a tongue” (1 Corinthians 14:18-19).  Also, since Paul also goes on to write “If someone speaks in a tongue, it should be two, or at the most three, one after the other, and someone must interpret” (14:27), any such argument that speaking in tongues should encompass the entire congregation falls flat. 

It is the limited performance of tongues, and the limited number of people who spoke in this way within a society accustomed to witnessing a person engage in ecstatic speech that could be the key to understanding the whole of verse twenty-three.  Though he begins with “So if the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues,” he quickly digresses from any sense that this is going to be a positive thing by adding “and unbelievers or uninformed people enter, will they not say that you have lost your minds?” (14:23) 

Now this is not to say that the unbeliever or the uninformed should determine how Christian gatherings are conducted, but if someone in Corinth were to walk in on such an assembly, with knowledge about glossolalia, with knowledge that interpretation is a necessary feature of the practice, with knowledge that it is a limited good, and with knowledge that speaking in tongues was a component of the never-ending competition for honor, then it is quite simple to see why Paul might say such a thing. 

Unbelievers or the uninformed, not knowing that Christ-worshipers do not compete for honor in their world or in their assemblies and association as do everyone else, would see a massive honor-competition taking place.  Along with that, since glossolalia was believed to be the way that a god sometimes chose to communicate to his worshipers, presumably through one particularly devout worshiper, the unbeliever might wonder what kind of a god would need to speak in such a way through each person in an assembly? 

This immediately leads to the idea that if there were multiple people all doing the same thing at the same time, it could be presumed that there was more than one god speaking through those people, which would then run counter to the claims of the Christians there gathered.

Speaking In Tongues (part 8)

Given the high value placed on public opinion, one can understand the high value placed on the use of rhetoric in the ancient world, as skilled speakers could do much to shape consensus, dragging public opinion concerning that which should be understood to be truly honorable in the direction desired by those that wished to either gain in status or cement their positions.  It is the importance of the orator in this regard, as not only would the orator have his own honor while also being employed in ways that would gain honor for others, that stands in the background and informs Paul’s words about eloquence and wisdom and status and identification with certain individuals in his first letter to Corinth. 

Eloquence, which was associated with wisdom, was also associated with honor.  A highly effective public speaker would be viewed with much honor and could be employed to achieve the same for others by either “singing their praises” or shaping the consciousness of the community in such a way that they found themselves wishing to bestow honor in accordance with the actions of the one being so praised.  One cannot pass this by without acknowledging Paul’s focus on eloquent speech, understanding its function within the culture.  An observer must also acknowledge that glossolalia is a speech act as well.  This particular type of speech act, which was intimately associated with the gods, when performed publicly, was yet another means by which honor would be accrued. 

Paying attention to the value of the orator, it is worth perusing a papyrus fragment dating from 110 A.D., roughly fifty years beyond the time of the writing of Paul’s letter.  That fragment reads “Pay to Licinius the rhetor,” rhetor being a specific type of orator (short for rhetorician---one specifically skilled in the art of rhetoric, which was a foundational component of the education system of the day and a valued tool for the shaping of opinion well employed by Paul), “the amount due him for the speeches in which Aurelius… was honored… in the gymnasium in the Great Serapeion, four hundred drachmas of silver.”  According to the first century Roman historian by the name of Tacitus, the amount of money that was paid to Licinius exceeded the wages paid to a Roman soldier for a year’s worth of service.  This serves to demonstrate the high value that was then placed on this skill.  

Accordingly, as there was much money to be made, especially because the skill was put to use in connection with the pursuit of honor (or the conferring of shame---it served a dual role), training in such speech and writing was central to the education provided in the institutions of the day.  Indeed, the mastery of rhetorical speech was a potentially lucrative enterprise, serving to assist in the accrual of both wealth and public honor. 

Again, the gaining of position in society, and by extension within the institutions and associations of that society whatever those may be, is connected to public speech acts.  Those that were more charismatic, outgoing, engaging, and comfortable with public speech were able to serve themselves quite well.  Because of this, rhetorical speech was prized almost universally in the ancient world.  Romans, Greeks, and Jews, rich and poor alike, slaves and free, men and women, all enjoyed listening to the presentation of an eloquent speech riddled with lofty rhetoric.  In this way, the people in Corinth and in the church in Corinth were no different (and there is nothing wrong with that).