1 Corinthians 14:33

For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(33) For God is not the author of confusion.—Better, For God is the God, not of confusion, but of peace. The Church is the Church of God, and should bear on it the moral image of its King: there should be order, therefore, not confusion, in their assemblies.

As in all churches of the saints.—It is best to make these words read as the commencement of the next subject, thus:—As in all the churches of the saints, let the women keep silence in the churches. At Corinth one evil of neglecting the principles of order just laid down was that women spoke in the public assemblies. This was not the custom in any other churches, therefore the example of other churches was against such a practice.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

14:26-33 Religious exercises in public assemblies should have this view; Let all be done to edifying. As to the speaking in an unknown tongue, if another were present who could interpret, two miraculous gifts might be exercised at once, and thereby the church be edified, and the faith of the hearers confirmed at the same time. As to prophesying, two or three only should speak at one meeting, and this one after the other, not all at once. The man who is inspired by the Spirit of God will observe order and decency in delivering his revelations. God never teaches men to neglect their duties, or to act in any way unbecoming their age or station.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

God is not the author of confusion - Margin, "Tumult," or "unquietness." His religion cannot tend to produce disorder. He is the God of peace; and his religion will tend to promote order. It is calm, peaceful, thoughtful. It is not boisterous and disorderly.

As in all churches of the saints - As was everywhere apparent in the churches. Paul here appeals to them, and says that this was the fact wherever the true religion was spread, that it tended to produce peace and order. This is as true now as it was then. And we may learn, therefore:

(1) That where there is disorder, there is little religion. Religion does not produce it; and the tendency of tumult and confusion is to drive religion away.

(2) true religion will not lead to tumult, to outcries, or to irregularity. It will not prompt many to speak or pray at once; nor will it justify tumultuous and noisy assemblages.

(3) Christians should regard God as the author of peace. They should always in the sanctuary demean themselves in a reverent manner, and with such decorum as becomes people when they are in the presence of a holy and pure God, and engaged in his worship.

(4) all those pretended conversions, however sudden and striking they may be, which are attended with disorder, and confusion, and public outcries, are to be suspected. Such excitement may be connected with genuine piety, but it is no part of pure religion. That is calm, serious, orderly, heavenly. No person who is under its influence is disposed to engage in scenes of confusion and disorder. Grateful he may be, and he may and will express his gratitude; prayerful he will be, and he will pray; anxious for others he will be, and he will express that anxiety; but it will be with seriousness, tenderness, love; with a desire for the order of God's house, and not with a desire to break in upon and disturb all the solemnities of public worship.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

33. In all the churches of the saints God is a God of peace; let Him not among you be supposed to be a God of confusion [Alford]. Compare the same argument in 1Co 11:16. Lachmann and others put a full stop at "peace," and connect the following words thus: "As in all churches of the saints, let your women keep silence in your churches."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Here he showeth the principle upon which he said, that the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets: what any prophets speak is not so certain, or at least not more certain, than this, that nothing which is

confusion can be from God. Now, for two or three to speak together in a public assembly, is a confusion, and a breach of order, of which God cannot be the author: therefore, in such a thing as that, the spirits of the prophets must be subject to other prophets; and there is a general rule which concerneth not only the church of Corinth, but all churches.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For God is not the author of confusion,.... Or disorder, or "tumult", as the Syriac renders it; wherefore he does not inspire and excite his prophets to deliver themselves in a disorderly and tumultuous manner, so as to break in one upon another; but when one speaks, the other is silent, or when one has anything revealed to him, and he signifies it in a proper manner, the other stops and gives way to him, and when he has done another succeeds, and so the rest in order, till the whole opportunity is filled up in an orderly and edifying manner; and whatever is contrary to, or breaks in upon such a method, God is not the author of: for he is the author

of peace, harmony, unity, and concord among his prophets and teachers, and so of order, for the former cannot be without the latter; where there is no order in the ministry, there can be no peace among the ministers, nor comfort in the churches; but God is the God of peace, he calls for, requires, disposes, and approves of peace and order among all his people:

as in all churches of the saints. The Vulgate Latin reads, "as I teach in all", &c. and so read some copies, and may refer to all that is said before; and the sense be, that all the rules he had prescribed concerning speaking with tongues, and prophesying, were not new ones, but such as he had directed to be observed in all churches he was concerned with, and which consisted of holy and good men; or God is the author, not of confusion, but of peace in all the churches; he orders and disposes peace among them, and they attend to it: peace and order, and not confusion and tumult, prevail in all churches that deserve to be called churches of the saints, and therefore were in this to be imitated by the church at Corinth.

Geneva Study Bible

For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

1 Corinthians 14:33. Establishment of 1 Corinthians 14:32 on religious grounds. “For how could God have appointed it otherwise, seeing that by Him is produced not confusion (as would be the case if every prophet had to speak on involuntarily), but peace!” Comp. Romans 15:33; Romans 16:20; Php 4:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23. The antithesis is correct, for the ἀκαταστασία would bring with it a jealous and unyielding disposition.

Expositor's Greek Testament

1 Corinthians 14:33. The apophthegm of 1 Corinthians 14:32 exemplifies the universal principle of order in God’s works; cf. the deduction drawn in 1 Corinthians 11:3. God’s gift of the Spirit submits itself to the receiver’s will, through whose direction its exercise is brought into regulated and edifying use: “For God is not (a God) of disorder (or seditionis, Cv[2167]), but of peace”. To suppose that God inspires His prophets to speak two or three at a time, to make a tumult in the Church and refuse control, would be to suppose Him the author of confusion, of chaos instead of cosmos.—ἀκαταστασία (see parls.) is a word of the LXX and later Gr[2168], denoting civil disorder or mutiny; it recalls the σχίσματα and ἔριδες of 1 Corinthians 1:10 f., 1 Corinthians 11:18 f., to which emulation in the display of spiritual powers seems to have contributed.—“As it is in all the Churches of the saints”: in evidence of the “peace” which God confers on human society, P. can point to the conduct of Church meetings in all other Christian communities—a feature proper to “assemblies of the saints”. Here is a final and solemn reason why the prophets of Cor[2169] should practise self-control and mutual deference: cf. 1 Corinthians 11:16; also 1 Corinthians 1:2 b, and note; 1 Corinthians 16:1.—On the connexion of the ὡς clause, see Ed[2170] or El[2171] W.H[2172] attach it to 1 Corinthians 14:31, regarding 1 Corinthians 14:32-33 a as a parenthesis; but this breaks the continuity of 1 Corinthians 14:31-32; nor does it appear that “all the churches” had the superabundance of prophets that necessitated the restrictions imposed in 1 Corinthians 14:29-31. Other leading editors (Tisch., Mr[2173], Hn[2174], Hf[2175], Bt[2176], Gd[2177]) link this qualification to the following context; but it comes in clumsily before the impv[2178] of 1 Corinthians 14:34, and the repetition of ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις is particularly awkward. On the other hand, the ref[2179] to the example of the other Churches appropriately concludes the Apostle’s appeals on the weighty subject, of universal interest, which has occupied him throughout this chapter.

[2167] Calvin’s In Nov. Testamentum Commentarii.

[2168] Greek, or Grotius’ Annotationes in N.T.

[2169] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[2170] T. C. Edwards’ Commentary on the First Ep. to the Corinthians.2

[2171] C. J. Ellicott’s St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians.

[2172] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.

[2173] Meyer’s Critical and Exegetical Commentary (Eng. Trans.).

[2174] C. F. G. Heinrici’s Erklärung der Korintherbriefe (1880), or 1 Korinther in Meyer’s krit.-exegetisches Kommentar (1896).

[2175] J. C. K. von Hofmann’s Die heilige Schrift N.T. untersucht, ii. 2 (2te Auflage, 1874).

[2176] J. A. Beet’s St. Paul’s Epp. to the Corinthians (1882).

[2177] F. Godet’s Commentaire sur la prem. Ép. aux Corinthiens (Eng. Trans.).

[2178] imperative mood.

[2179] reference.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

33. for God is not the author of confusion, but of peace] Confusion; literally, unsettlement. Cf. St James 3:16. Also St Luke 21:9, where the word is rendered commotion. As in the natural, so in the moral and spiritual world, God is a God of order. The forces of nature operate by laws which are implicitly obeyed. If it be otherwise in the moral and spiritual world, God is not the author of the confusion, but man, who has opposed himself to His Will.

as in all churches of the saints] It is a question whether these words belong to what goes before or what follows. If to what goes before, it would seem as though a hint was intended that these disorders were peculiar to the Corinthian Church. If to what follows, it is a repetition of the argument in ch. 1 Corinthians 7:17, 1 Corinthians 11:16, and it would then appear that the Apostle had especial reason to fear insubordination on the question of the position of woman in the Christian assembly, and that he therefore fortifies his own authority by an appeal to the universal custom of the Church of Christ.

Bengel's Gnomen

1 Corinthians 14:33. Ὡς, as) This concluding clause is very like that of the next portion, 1 Corinthians 14:36.[129]

[129] In both alike there is an appeal to the usage of other churches.—ED.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 33. - Of confusion. The word is rendered "commotion" in Luke 21:9; "tumult," in 2 Corinthians 6:5 and 2 Cor 12:20. "Confusion" is, as St. James says (James 3:16), the result of envious and pushing egotism. But of peace; which cannot coexist with inflation and restlessness. As in all Churches of the saints. The clause probably belongs to this verse, not to the following. It is a reflection on the exceptional turbulence and disorder which disgraced the Corinthian Church. 1 Corinthians 14:33

Vincent's Word Studies

Confusion (ἀκαταστασίας)

See on commotions, Luke 21:9; and see on unruly, James 3:8. Compare 2 Corinthians 6:5.

As in all the churches of the saints

Many connect these words with let the women, etc. The old arrangement is retained by Rev. and by Westcott and Hort, though the latter regard the words and the spirits - of peace as parenthetical. I see no good reason for departing from the old arrangement.