Mark Tabata’s Weekday Devotionals
Thursday August 6 2026
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1 Corinthians 14:23-Therefore if the whole church comes together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say that you are out of your mind?
When Paul wrote his Epistles to the Corinthians, there was a strong influence in that community from the pagan temples. We see this especially in 1 Corinthians 8. There are many references throughout the Book to those pagan influences affecting the church.
Corinth had long been visited by religious pilgrims coming to see the famous temple of Aphrodite on the mountain overlooking Corinth, the Acro-Corinth. Aphrodite was the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility, and prostitutes considered her their patroness. She was also a goddess of seafaring.…Romans in general adopted and incorporated Greek gods and goddesses into their own religious practices, and apart from sometimes changing the names of the deities, they often did not significantly modify what they took over. This was especially so with the god or goddess that was the major religious attraction of a city. Before, during, and after Paul’s day coins were minted in Roman Corinth with images of the temple of Aphrodite, in part as a form of advertisement. And given the connection of Aphrodite with prostitution, it is probable that the practice of sexual activity in some temple precincts in the city, perhaps even in Aphrodite’s temples,33 was continued.34…Many also came to visit other religious shrines such as the temple of Apollo or, if one was seeking healing, the temple of Asklepios.…The three major elements in an Asklepion were a well or spring for purifications, a place for sleeping (the abaton), and the temple.36 Asklepios was a god of not only physical but also emotional and mental health. His major sanctuaries included places for rest, exercise, and contemplation, including baths, theaters, gymnasia, libraries, and tree-lined gardens.…The goddess Hera Argaea, a goddess of marriage and especially of the sexual life of women, had a temple in Roman Corinth near the marketplace.…There was also a temple of Tyche (fate or luck) in Corinth, and the Corinthian Christians apparently tended to be fatalistic, or at least believed in and depended on forces other than God to shape their lives. There was in Corinth also a statue of Tyche wearing a corona muralis (wall crown), which may shed some light on 2 Cor. 11:30-33.38…At other Demeter shrines, such as at Eleusis, the Eleusian mysteries were celebrated (see the picture above). The god Dionysius was often connected with Demeter since both were fertility deities, which may suggest a context for religious justification of sexual play at the shrine of Demeter. (Ben Witherington III, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians, 13-17 (Kindle Edition): Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company)
One element of paganism at Corinth involved the priests and priestesses of the pagan temples speaking in an ecstatic gibberish. This practice is well-documented in many pagan religions throughout the world.
The 1972 study by John P. Kildahl “The Psychology of Speaking in Tongues” concludes that: “… from a linguistic point of view, religiously inspired glossolalic utterances have the same general characteristics as those that are not religiously inspired.” In fact, glossolalia is a “human phenomenon, not limited to Christianity nor even to religious behavior.” (Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements by Spittler, P. 340). George Jennings in an article in the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation expands upon the universality of the experience: “… glossolalia is practiced among the following non-Christian religions of the world; the Peyote cult among the North American Indians, the Haida Indians of the Pacific Northwest, Shamans in the Sudan, the Shango cult of the West Coast of Africa, the Shago cult in Trinidad, the Voodoo cult in Haiti, the Aborigines of South American and Australia, the aboriginal peoples of the subarctic regions of North America and Asia, the Shamans in Greenland, the Dyaks of Borneo, the Zor cult of Ethiopia, the Siberian shamans, the Chaco Indians of South America, the Curanderos of the Andes, the Kinka in the African Sudan, the Thonga shamans of Africa, and the Tibetan monks. An article in the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation entitled “An Ethnological Study of Glossolalia” by George J. Jennings, March 1968. Other studies and sources reach the same conclusions: “Summary of Behavioral Science Research Data on Glossolalia: 1. Glossolalia is an ancient and widespread phenomenon of most societies, occurring most usually in connection with religion.” “Behavioral Science Research on the Nature of Glossolalia”, Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation; September, 1968 “There are records of ecstatic speech and the like in Egypt in the eleventh century B.C. In the Hellenistic [Greek] world the prophetess of Delphi and the Sibylline priestess spoke in unknown or unintelligible speech. Moreover, the Dionysianrites contained a trancelike state as well as glossolalia. Many of the magicians and sorcerers of the first century world exhibit similar phenomena.” G.R.Osborne, in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 1984, page 1100. “Descriptions of ecstatic speech are common in the study of comparative religions…. The Delphic and Pythian religions of Greece understood ecstatic behavior and speech to be evidence of divine inspiration by Apollos.” C.M. Robeck, Jr., in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, 1988, page 872. “… Glossolalia is a very ancient practice it is still practiced nowadays in many religions, especially those where one seeks contact with the spirit world (witchcraft/ shamanism, voodoo) or a union mystical with the “All”. Mohamed, the founder of Islam, is probably the most famous of those who have practiced glossolalia.” “Glossolalia (Tongues) and 1 Corinthians 14” Bruno D. Granger http:// http://www.apologetique.org/ en/ rticles/ neomontanism/ BDG_glossolalia_en.htm “Enthusiastic, ecstatic, mystic, possession, trance and other kindred phenomena have long been of interest to anthropologists. Cross-cultural reviews of ethnographic data on glossolalia in particular have been published by L.C. May, Jennings, M. Eliade, among others. The practice was known in ancient India and China, and ethnographies describe glossolalia in almost every area of the world… speaking-in-tongues is widespread and very ancient.” E. Mansell Pattison Behavioral Science Research On The Nature Of Glossolalia Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, September 1968 Research conducted by Al Carlson at the University of California and Werner Cohn at the University of British Columbia indicate that anyone can produce glossolalic speech which sounded genuine even to believers. Jimmy Jividen, “Glossolalia: from God or man?” p 163. “This survey has shown that speaking-in-tongues is widespread and very ancient. Indeed, it is probably that as long as man has had divination, curing, sorcery, and propitiation of spirits, he has had glossolalia … Whatever the explanation, it is clear that pagans as well as Christians have their glossolalia experiences.” Jimmy Jividen, “Glossolalia: from God or man?” p 74,75. (C. Alan Martin, Scientific Observations of Speaking in Tongues, 437-516 (Kindle Edition): Independently Published)
With that in mind, consider what Paul is going to teach us in 1 Corinthians 14:23.
In 1 Corinthians 11-13, the Apostle addresses how the Corinthian Christians were misusing their miraculously bestowed spiritual gifts, especially the gift of tongues. In the New Testament, this miraculous gift was the ability of a person to supernaturally speak in the language of another nationality without having previously studied it (Acts 2:4-11; 1 Corinthians 14:21-22). This was vastly different from the pagans, who assembled together and spoke in gibberish. The Corinthians were misusing their miraculously bestowed gift of tongues by assembling together and having their members all speak at the same time, creating chaos and confusion in the church. Paul says that an unbeliever who comes in to the assembly when this is happening will think that the Corinthians are “out of their mind.” The Greek word behind this translation actually had reference to the practice of gibberish speaking utilized by the pagans in that community!
In any case, Paul compellingly works out the implications of his concern for unbelievers in verses 23–25: Outsiders who enter and find the whole community speaking in tongues will think that this Christian group is simply one more mystery cult that whips its partisans into a frenzy of frothy enthusiasm. In the Greek cultural context the verb mainesthe, translated by both NRSV and NIV as “you are out of your mind” (v. 23), does not necessarily have the pejorative sense that this translation suggests for readers today. It does not mean that the persons in question are crazy, just that they have temporarily been caught up in a fit of religious ecstasy, a common phenomenon in that culture. The typical pagan Corinthian observing such a scene would say, “Oh, this is just another group like the devotees of Dionysius or Cybele”—one more consumer option in a pluralistic religious market. On the other hand, if outsiders come and find the members of the community prophesying in clear, sober language, they will encounter the word of the Lord, which will disclose “the secrets of the heart,” that is, their real moral condition before God (cf. 4: 5). (Richard B. Hays, First Corinthians: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, 361-362 (Kindle Edition): Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press)
Paul did not want the pagans to get the impression that Christianity was just “one religion among many,” or that the true miraculous gift of tongues was akin to the gibberish speaking practices of the temples. Remember: Paul knew that there was a demonic component to the idolatrous rituals in paganism.
1 Corinthians 10:19-22-What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything? 20 Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons. 22 Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?
This also speaks to the demonic origins of the gibberish-speaking that is so often in our time mislabeled as the “gift of tongues” in the New Testament. It should be deeply concerning that practices commonly attributed to the Holy Spirit in several modern denominations bear striking similarities to phenomena regularly enjoined with demonically influenced pagan worshipers in the first-century world.
Father, thank You for the miraculous signs which You have given that confirm the Bible. Give us wisdom to better understand and share these truths with our loved ones and neighbors. Amen.