1 Corinthians 14:27
1 Corinthians 14:2727If anyone speaks in a tongue, two, or at most three, should speak in turn, and someone must interpret.
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.
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.