If love motivates the exercise of the gifts, it should not be difficult, as Paul now shows (14:1–25), to determine which gift should be accorded priority in worship. For while all the gifts are desirable, the “gift of prophecy” builds up or edifies the church to a greater extent than any other, and, in contrast to some at Corinth who thought otherwise, on this basis it is to be given priority over the exercise of the gift of speech in tongues. For speech in tongues is not directed in the first instance toward those present in worship but toward God. Indeed, the conversation concerning divine mysteries is private to the extent that it is unintelligible to others apart from interpretation (14:2; also 14:5). But prophecy (whether it explains the significance of God’s actions and words for th…