1 Corinthians 14:27
KJV
If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret.
NIV
No more than two or three should speak in tongues. They must speak one at a time, and someone must interpret what they say.
The gift of speaking in tongues in a Church meeting should happen two or at the most three times.
All things are to be done decently and in order (Verse 40).
The NIV explains it very well when it says:
1. They must speak one at a time
This ties in perfectly with ‘in order’ and also with (Verse 23) where it warns that we are not to all speak in tongues at once because visitors to our meeting will think we are mad.
Everything is to be done decently and in order. At a set time during the meeting the voice gifts are to be operated in an orderly fashion, one at a time and by course. As excited and as enthusiastic as we might be God has also given us self-control. There is not to be spontaneous outbreaks of people speaking in tongues in a disorderly fashion.
2. And someone must interpret
In between (that by course) each gift of tongues there must be an interpretation by someone.
Should the person who spoke in tongues be allowed to interpret their own gift or should it be left for someone else?
The scripture doesn’t concern itself with this issue. The scriptures just emphasis that someone MUST interpret for the tongues to be beneficial to the Church.
It is interpretation NOT translation
Many are under the false assumption that the person giving the interpretation is giving an exact translation of what was said in tongues.
This is incorrect…
To interpret is to give the meaning.
For example:
In the Old Testament we can read of various examples of people interpreting dreams. The interpretation was the meaning of the dream which was totally different to the dream itself.
For a classic example let’s look at Judges 7:13-15
And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along.
And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host.
And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped, and returned into the host of Israel, and said, Arise; for the LORD hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian.
The dream and the interpretation are totally different.
The interpretation is the meaning of the dream not the literal translation and so it is with the gift of tongues and interpretation.
The length of an interpretation has nothing to do
with the length of a tongue
There has been concern by some people over the years that a short gift of tongues shouldn’t be followed by a long gift of interpretation or vice-versa. They are worried about trying to explain how the translation is longer/shorter then the original message.
However as stated above an interpretation is NOT a translation and the length of either gift has no bearing on the other.
When you interpret any other subject matter in life you are explaining the meaning. And when you explain the meaning (no matter how short or long the original subject matter was) sometimes it can take quite a few words to get the meaning across while other times you only have to utter a few words.
When you fully understand that an interpretation is different to a translation the above concern becomes a non-issue.
