1401 God, get me out of here, away from this evil; protect me from these vicious people. 2 All they do is think up new ways to be bad; they spend their days plotting war games. 3 They practice the sharp rhetoric of hate and hurt, speak venomous words that maim and kill. 4 God, keep me out of the clutch of these wicked ones, protect me from these vicious people; 5 Stuffed with self-importance, they plot ways to trip me up, determined to bring me down. These crooks invent traps to catch me and do their best to incriminate me. 6 I prayed, "God, you're my God! Listen, God! Mercy! 7 God, my Lord, Strong Savior, protect me when the fighting breaks out!
8 Don't let the wicked have their way, God, don't give them an inch!" 9 These troublemakers all around me - let them drown in their own verbal poison. 10 Let God pile hellfire on them, let him bury them alive in crevasses! 11 These loudmouths - don't let them be taken seriously; These savages - let the Devil hunt them down! 12 I know that you, God, are on the side of victims, that you care for the rights of the poor. 13 And I know that the righteous personally thank you, that good people are secure in your presence.
1411 God, come close. Come quickly! Open your ears - it's my voice you're hearing! 2 Treat my prayer as sweet incense rising; my raised hands are my evening prayers. 3 Post a guard at my mouth, God, set a watch at the door of my lips. 4 Don't let me so much as dream of evil or thoughtlessly fall into bad company. And these people who only do wrong - don't let them lure me with their sweet talk!
5 May the Just One set me straight, may the Kind One correct me, Don't let sin anoint my head. I'm praying hard against their evil ways! 6 Oh, let their leaders be pushed off a high rock cliff; make them face the music. 7 Like a rock pulverized by a maul, let their bones be scattered at the gates of hell. 8 But God, dear Lord, I only have eyes for you. Since I've run for dear life to you, take good care of me. 9 Protect me from their evil scheming, from all their demonic subterfuge. 10 Let the wicked fall flat on their faces, while I walk off without a scratch. A David prayer - when he was in the cave.
1421 I cry out loudly to God, loudly I plead with God for mercy. 2 I spill out all my complaints before him, and spell out my troubles in detail: 3 "As I sink in despair, my spirit ebbing away, you know how I'm feeling, Know the danger I'm in, the traps hidden in my path.
4 Look right, look left - there's not a soul who cares what happens! I'm up against it, with no exit - bereft, left alone. 5 I cry out, God, call out: 'You're my last chance, my only hope for life!' 6 Oh listen, please listen; I've never been this low. Rescue me from those who are hunting me down; I'm no match for them. 7 Get me out of this dungeon so I can thank you in public. Your people will form a circle around me and you'll bring me showers of blessing!"
141 Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it - because it does. Give yourselves to the gifts God gives you. Most of all, try to proclaim his truth. 2 If you praise him in the private language of tongues, God understands you but no one else does, for you are sharing intimacies just between you and him. 3 But when you proclaim his truth in everyday speech, you're letting others in on the truth so that they can grow and be strong and experience his presence with you. 4 The one who prays using a private "prayer language" certainly gets a lot out of it, but proclaiming God's truth to the church in its common language brings the whole church into growth and strength. 5 I want all of you to develop intimacies with God in prayer, but please don't stop with that. Go on and proclaim his clear truth to others. It's more important that everyone have access to the knowledge and love of God in language everyone understands than that you go off and cultivate God's presence in a mysterious prayer language - unless, of course, there is someone who can interpret what you are saying for the benefit of all.
6 Think, friends: If I come to you and all I do is pray privately to God in a way only he can understand, what are you going to get out of that? If I don't address you plainly with some insight or truth or proclamation or teaching, what help am I to you? 7 If musical instruments - flutes, say, or harps - aren't played so that each note is distinct and in tune, how will anyone be able to catch the melody and enjoy the music? 8 If the trumpet call can't be distinguished, will anyone show up for the battle? 9 So if you speak in a way no one can understand, what's the point of opening your mouth? 10 There are many languages in the world and they all mean something to someone. 11 But if I don't understand the language, it's not going to do me much good. 12 It's no different with you. Since you're so eager to participate in what God is doing, why don't you concentrate on doing what helps everyone in the church? 13 So, when you pray in your private prayer language, don't hoard the experience for yourself. Pray for the insight and ability to bring others into that intimacy. 14 If I pray in tongues, my spirit prays but my mind lies fallow, and all that intelligence is wasted.
15 So what's the solution? The answer is simple enough. Do both. I should be spiritually free and expressive as I pray, but I should also be thoughtful and mindful as I pray. I should sing with my spirit, and sing with my mind. 16 If you give a blessing using your private prayer language, which no one else understands, how can some outsider who has just shown up and has no idea what's going on know when to say "Amen"? 17 Your blessing might be beautiful, but you have very effectively cut that person out of it. 18 I'm grateful to God for the gift of praying in tongues that he gives us for praising him, which leads to wonderful intimacies we enjoy with him. I enter into this as much or more than any of you. 19 But when I'm in a church assembled for worship, I'd rather say five words that everyone can understand and learn from than say ten thousand that sound to others like gibberish. 20 To be perfectly frank, I'm getting exasperated with your infantile thinking. How long before you grow up and use your head - your adult head? It's all right to have a childlike unfamiliarity with evil; a simple no is all that's needed there. But there's far more to saying yes to something. Only mature and well-exercised intelligence can save you from falling into gullibility.
(Read 1 Corinthians 14:1-5)
Prophesying, that is, explaining Scripture, is compared with speaking with tongues. This drew attention, more than the plain interpretation of Scripture; it gratified pride more, but promoted the purposes of Christian charity less; it would not equally do good to the souls of men. What cannot be understood, never can edify. No advantage can be reaped from the most excellent discourses, if delivered in language such as the hearers cannot speak or understand. Every ability or possession is valuable in proportion to its usefulness. Even fervent, spiritual affection must be governed by the exercise of the understanding, else men will disgrace the truths they profess to promote.
(Read 1 Corinthians 14:6-14)
Even an apostle could not edify, unless he spoke so as to be understood by his hearers. To speak words that have no meaning to those who hear them, is but speaking into the air. That cannot answer the end of speaking, which has no meaning; in this case, speaker and hearers are barbarians to each other. All religious services should be so performed in Christian assemblies, that all may join in, and profit by them. Language plain and easy to be understood, is the most proper for public worship, and other religious exercises. Every true follower of Christ will rather desire to do good to others, than to get a name for learning or fine speaking.
(Read 1 Corinthians 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.
