Bible Commentaries
1 Corinthians 14

Verse 15

1 Corinthians 14:15

I. Christian teaching and Christian prayer and Christian praise are to be intelligible to the people, yea, to the meanest among them. To conduct any of these in a foreign tongue, which the people do not understand, is an absurdity so monstrous that nothing but the fact of its having been done, and now being done in the Church of Rome, could ever reconcile us to the mention of such a thing. For what is prayer? The expression of the heart to God, the breathings of man's inner spirit to the Father of his spirit, the Abba Father of the reconciled and adopted son in God's family. Surely, if anything should be hearty and earnest, this should! Some tell us of holy places on earth, and men have lavished cost to represent by stately form and gorgeous colour and dim religious light the presence of God, and have erected altars before which men should bow in reverence, and shrines which they should pass with soft and trembling steps; but I would have you know but one holy place in this world, and that place is the footstool of the throne of grace, when a Christian's heart is lifted in prayer. The liturgy of the sanctuary is the universal utterance of mankind; it speaks in the lisp of infant, in the falter of the aged, in the silent assent when the voice has failed. There the true Cross of Jesus is uplifted before the eye of faith. There is the mercy seat, and the mild and reconciled presence of Him who once dwelt awful and unapproachable between the cherubim. And there every believer, at every time, has boldness to enter by the blood of Jesus.

II. A distinction must be made between public and private prayer. Men's private prayers represent their individual wants, and are necessarily tinged by their individual constitutions. Not so with the Christian congregation. Public prayer in that expresses the great and invariable cry of human weakness for Divine strength which every believer, at all times, is ready to utter; that constant sacrifice of humble thankfulness for mercies bestowed which, amidst all chances and changes, forms the reality of the Christian's life. It seems to follow, from the very nature of public prayer, that it must consist of set forms of words. The important point is, that our use of those forms should not become a mere formality.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. i., p. 34.

References: 1 Corinthians 14:15 . Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. iv., p. 208; E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation, p. 115; J. Stalker, The New Song, p. 194; R. L. Browne, Sussex Sermons, p. 181; H. P. Liddon, Church of England Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 98; Ibid., Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 129. 1 Corinthians 14:20 . J. Oswald Dykes, Sermons, p. 51; Saturday Evening, p. 187; Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 357. 1 Corinthians 14:25 . W. T. Bull, Ibid., vol. xi., p. 332. 1 Corinthians 14:25-40 . F. W. Robertson, Lectures on Corinthians, p. 195. 1 Corinthians 14:26 . E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 216; T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iv., p. 258; Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 187. 1 Corinthians 14:34 . H. P. Liddon, Church of England Pulpit, vol. x., p. 1. 1 Corinthians 14:34 , 1 Corinthians 14:35 . H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 289. 1 Corinthians 15:1 . Homilist, 3rd series, vol. ii., p. 224; Church of England Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 169.