14:20 {9} Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.
(9) Now he reproves those freely for their childish folly, who do not see how this gift of tongues which was given to the profit of the Church, is turned by their ambition into an instrument of cursing, seeing that this same cursing is also contained among the punishments with which God punished the stubbornness of his people, that he dispersed them amongst strangers whose language they did not understand.
14:20 Be not children in understanding. Use manly good sense and judgment in the church. To babble in an unknown tongue is like a child.
Howbeit in malice be ye children. To vainly choose a course that would merely excite wonder, and not edify, would seem to partake of malice rather than love.
14:20 Be not children in understanding - This is an admirable stroke of true oratory! to bring down the height of their spirits, by representing that wherein they prided themselves most, as mere folly and childishness. In wickedness be ye infants - Have all the innocence of that tender age. But in understanding be ye grown men - Knowing religion was not designed to destroy any of our natural faculties, but to exalt and improve them, our reason in particular.
14:15-25 There can be no assent to prayers that are not understood. A truly Christian minister will seek much more to do spiritual good to men's souls, than to get the greatest applause to himself. This is proving himself the servant of Christ. Children are apt to be struck with novelty; but do not act like them. Christians should be like children, void of guile and malice; yet they should not be unskilful as to the word of righteousness, but only as to the arts of mischief. It is a proof that a people are forsaken of God, when he gives them up to the rule of those who teach them to worship in another language. They can never be benefitted by such teaching. Yet thus the preachers did who delivered their instructions in an unknown tongue. Would it not make Christianity ridiculous to a heathen, to hear the ministers pray or preach in a language which neither he nor the assembly understood? But if those who minister, plainly interpret Scripture, or preach the great truths and rules of the gospel, a heathen or unlearned person might become a convert to Christianity. His conscience might be touched, the secrets of his heart might be revealed to him, and so he might be brought to confess his guilt, and to own that God was present in the assembly. Scripture truth, plainly and duly taught, has a wonderful power to awaken the conscience and touch the heart.
