---
title: 1 Corinthians 14:27
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-corinthians-14-27/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-corinthians-14-27.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: 1 Corinthians 14:27
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# 1 Corinthians 14:27

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> If anyone speaks in a tongue, two, or at most three, should speak in turn, and someone must interpret.

## JW Usage

rs and broader Watchtower commentary invoke 14:27 alongside 14:33 ("God is not a God of disorder") to argue that modern charismatic meetings are disorderly and therefore not of God. 14:27's "two or three at most, one at a time, with an interpreter" is read primarily as evidence that charismatic chaos disqualifies the gift — the verse becomes a weapon against contemporary tongues practice rather than a regulation assuming the gift is active.

## Protestant Usage

14:27 is Paul's regulation of tongues in public worship, not his cessation of them. The verse assumes the gift is active and gives rules for its orderly use: two or three at most, one at a time, and only with interpretation. At the door, this verse is Paul's own answer to the rs critique of charismatic excess: "There are abuses in charismatic practice — Paul regulates them here. That is a problem within the movement, not a proof that the gift itself has ceased." If the cessationist argument from disorder were valid, it would cancel Paul's entire regulation — because you do not regulate a non-existent phenomenon.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Tongues — The Watchtower Case Breaks on Acts 10](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/tongues-cessationism-rebuttal.md) — Acts 10:44-48 / 1 Corinthians 14:39 / 14:2 [Practice]