“I will pray with the Spirit…” 1 Corinthians 14:15
At first it seems like an irony and then an impossible paradox. “Blessings” and “unfruitful” are two words that do not belong together; they seem to cancel each other out. Here is Paul’s declaration:
1 Corinthians 14:14-15 NIV
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. So what shall I do?
I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind;
I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.
This is just one example of the dual references Paul is making in this chapter. There is no doubt he is instructing us in how the Spirit of God moves through the Gifts of the Spirit in public worship but he also providing insight into the blessings of prayer in the Spirit (“speaking in tongues.”) Praying in the Spirit—prayers and praises spoken in a language unknown by the speaker—is a human-spirit-to-the-Holy-Spirit communion rooted deeply in our Father-child relationship with God.
Romans 8:14-17 NKJV
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
In the process of this miraculous spirit-to-Spirit communion we celebrate truths for which there are no human words. Our praise extends far beyond the limits of our vocabulary, and rightfully so. As Paul says, our spirit prays but our minds are unfruitful. It’s like we set our brains aside and communicate heart-to-heart with the Lord. Because of our limited understanding of eternal things, this is really practical. For instance, in times when our understanding of a need is lacking, the Spirit can pray the details we don’t know. A few verses later in Romans 6 Paul explains how prayer in the Spirit helps us pray the will of God in detail, in the details of which we are unaware.
Romans 8:26 NKJV
Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
In addition to scriptures that inform us of this wonder, there is an image given by the words of Jesus himself that describes the physical sensation of this type of prayer. Physical sensation? Yes. The move of the Holy Spirit within our human spirit does not go unnoticed—we feel it! Not only is this not bad, it is inevitable. However, it is a by-product of the Spirit’s work and not the point of it all. What is the point? Spirit-empowered prayer is the point.
On two occasions the Lord described the heart of the believer as the host of a source of “living water,” his marvelous metaphor for the ministry of the Holy Spirit. First, we have His words to the Samaritan woman and then, His declaration at the temple on the last day of the feast.
John 4:13-14 NIV
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”John 7:37-38 NKJV
On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
As the Holy Spirit bears witness in our hearts, He functions like a spring of Living Water welling up to eternal life. If we only read the Acts account of the initial outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, it may seem like it was an outside-inside event, as if a liquid was poured out from one source into a receptacle. This could have been the case on the Day of Pentecost but once the residence of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s heart is established, the spring, a well if you will, is there. Prayer in the Spirit is an inside-outside flow as the “spring” inside of us releases its treasure. By faith we join in with our own voice. So, prayer in the Spirit is not something that happens to us—it is something we do! In faith we release the flow of truth and blessing bubbling up in our hearts. This is spirit-to-Spirit communion that is unlimited by whatever has been stored up in our minds. We can pray the will of God without knowing it. Our praise can exceed the limits of our language skills. Our worship can go deeper into our hearts, beyond the extent of our experience as we cry, “Abba Father!”
Each of us must abandon our prejudices either for or against messages in tongues and interpretations, words of prophecy, words of knowledge and any other public demonstrations of the Spirit in corporate worship. Choosing to consider only the verses that reinforce our preconceived notions is not the way to be “edified” by the Apostle’s reasoning. As Paul details the principles of Spirit-empowered public worship, he also provides powerful and inspiring truth about the use of “tongues” in our lives, each day and not just on Sunday.
Understanding “Tongues”
The word used in Mark 16, in the Acts account of Pentecost, and in Paul’s instruction to the Corinthians is glossa and is defined this way in Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words:
NT:1100 glossa, of uncertain affinity; the tongue; by implication, a language (specially, one naturally unacquired): KJV – tongue
No mystery here—“tongues” refers to unlearned human speech. It is vital to note that Paul refers to this as a multifaceted phenomenon. He said there were several kinds of these unlearned languages.
1 Corinthians 12:10-11 NKJV
…to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.
I can’t help wishing he would have elaborated a little more with a list of these “different kinds of tongues,” but he did not. We must carefully observe the Scriptures to create a dependable list.
Understanding the Ministry of the Holy Spirit
This is a subject for a multi-volume set of books but in this space we want to zero in how the Spirit enables us to pray. The Bible provides us with both metaphors and similes to describe the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Metaphors and similes are both figures of speech used to compare two things, but they have different characteristics: Simile: Uses the words “like” or “as” to compare. Metaphor: Makes a direct comparison without using “like” or “as”. (dictionary.com)
I see the dove as a simile, a symbol of what the ministry of the Holy Spirit is like. I see “living water” as a metaphor describing the healing, life-giving ministry of the Holy Spirit. Like a dove the Holy Spirit visits us in peace and beauty. The Holy Spirit is a spring of life inside of us. In this case the simile is a description and the spring inside the Believer’s heart is a reality. With this understanding we can realize that to pray “in the Spirit” is to participate in the power of the Holy Spirit bubbling up in our hearts and it is in this sense that prayer in the Spirit is something we do, not something that sometimes happens to us. We join in with “thousands of angels in joyful assembly” and with the multitude of redeemed witnesses in the constant expression of God’s truth, goodness, and mercy. The mind is involved only in the decision to join the Spirit in praise, worship, and intercession. There we find the blessings of the unfruitful mind.
I Corinthians 14:14
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.
How can an “unfruitful mind” be a source of blessing? For these reasons among many:
- Our praise of God is unlimited by our vocabulary,
- Our intercession can be done in details we do not possess,
- Our communion with the Lord proceeds from heart to heart in a Father-child relationship much like the sweet embrace of a parent and child, wordless but so meaningful, and
- Our spiritual warfare is waged by heavenly strategies we could never understand or otherwise utilize.
Oh, the blessings of the “unfruitful” mind when the Spirit is leading the way in prayer!
The Two Trinities—How to More Fully Encounter God
Any encounter with the Lord can be either a wonderful blessing or a life-changing challenge. Without care on our part we could settle for only partial encounters where we do not give the Lord full access to our whole being. We are created in the image of God, so the human being is also a trinity. God is eternally existent as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and we are also a trinity consisting of body, soul, and spirit. This is no contemporary theory—it is right there in the Word of God!
1 Thessalonians 5:23 NKJV
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Turning to the Dictionary
- Spirit: NT:4151 pneuma; from NT:4154; a current of air, i.e. breath (blast) or a breeze; by analogy or figuratively, a spirit, i.e. … or (superhuman) an angel, demon, or (divine) God, Christ’s spirit, the Holy Spirit: KJV – ghost, life, spirit (-ual, -ually), mind. Compare NT:5590.
- Soul: NT:5590 psuche; from NT:5594; breath, i.e. (by implication) spirit, abstractly or concretely …which is the rational and immortal soul; and on the other from NT:2222, which is mere vitality… these terms thus exactly correspond respectively to the Hebrew OT:5315, OT:7307 and OT:2416): KJV – heart (+-ily), life, mind, soul, us, you.
- Body: NT:4983 soma; from NT:4982; the body (as a sound whole), used in a very wide application, literally or figuratively: KJV – bodily, body, slave.
My understanding of these things is this:
- The body is our physical consciousness,
- The soul is our self-consciousness, and
- The spirit is our God-consciousness.
Worship is an incredible communion between people and their Creator involving the whole of our being. We praise and worship God with the totality of our humanity,
- Physically with our body,
- Internally with our soul, and
- Spiritually as children of the Heavenly Father.
I have attempted to illustrate the distinctions between these internal and external sensitivities:
With this graphic it is easier for us to see the distinctions between these parts of our human existence. Our spirit is not as easily recognized as our physical, outer, and soulish, inner selves, but it is just as real and present with us in both the public place of corporate worship and the Secret Place of private worship.
- Public Worship. Because of the presence of our brothers and sisters in public worship, the rules of how this must be done in a “fitting and orderly way” are not the same as for private worship. The biblical objective is to fully engage our composite humanity, the body, soul, and spirit of the congregation, with God’s omnipresent divinity. This is the public expression of spirit-to-Spirit communion.
- Private Prayer. When we are alone with the Father, This human-to-divine communion extends far beyond the events in worship service to our moment-to-moment walk with God. One of the most intriguing statements of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is His revelation of where the Father is right now! He is in the Secret Place waiting for you and me to arrive and join Him there.
Matthew 6:6-7 NKJV
But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
How many of us, when asked, “Where is God the Father right now?” would answer, “He is in the Secret Place, waiting for me to come pray.”
The Secret Place Empowers the Public Place
Perhaps the most important part of this promise is the connection Jesus makes of the Secret Place with public worship and witness.
“…your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”
This relationship is absolutely vital for a victorious Christian life and a healthy, growing congregation. Exquisite public worship is only as powerful as the hidden, private, and personal praying that goes before it, prevails within it, and sustains it through the week.
This is modeled for us in the toddler on the street corner holding his/her mother’s hand. The child looks around freely, taking joy in the sounds of sights of the city with little concern for what might happen. The child’s security is in the grip of the mom’s hand! In the same way, we encounter our Heavenly Father in the Secret Place and in the worship service and then walk through each day and night secure in this spirit-to-Spirit communion, unalarmed by the traffic.
When I was a little boy my father wrote this song to express the wonder of this communion.
He Takes My Hand
When my poor head is bowed in sorrow,
When I’m in doubt about tomorrow,
I turn to Christ His love to borrow.
He takes my hand and leads me safely through the storm.
He takes my hand! He takes my hand!
He sets my feet on higher ground.
When clouds of doubt around me gather,
He takes my hand and leads me safely through the storm.
(Words and Music by J. D. Phifer)
The Lord dwells within the sanctified human body. He communes with His child from the heart deep inside and He leads our redeemed human spirit in ways we cannot see and in words too deep for any earthly language. This spirit-to-Spirit communion is the essence of the Christian life. No wonder we cry, “Abba Father!”
Conclusion
“Praying in the Spirit” is an experience. Many of us are taught, with great emotion, ironically enough, to never trust experiences. Some seem to want the presence of the Lord without feeling anything. Feelings can be fleeting, or they can be generated by ungodly things of the flesh. But the answer to this challenge is not to banish them, but to test them by the Word of God.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-22 NKJV
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.
Eliminating something God has provided is not testing, it is acting out of fear and unbelief. Since prayer in the Spirit is something we do, not something that happens to us from some external source, it is an act of faith. When a saved person is seeking the fullness of the Spirit, the spring inside begins to bubble. It becomes a well seeking to overflow. This level of prayer happens when we voluntarily join with the Spirit with “groanings” that far exceed human speech. By faith the seeker joins in the unknown language. It is an inside-out experience. Can it be trusted? If the Bible was as careful to avoid emotional expression as some believers seem to be, the answer would be “No!” But, on the contrary, the Bible demands emotion: joy, rejoicing, grief, repentance, thanksgiving, exaltation, the list goes on and on. So, the answer is not in sessationism; it is in wisdom. We must judge all works of the Spirit within our spirit by Biblical standards. A person who speaks in tongues but lives in hate or debauchery is hosting some other spirit, not the Spirit of God. For this reason we should begin the practice of thinking of “tongues” as prayer, not just speech.
This multifaceted spiritual blessing—praying in the Spirit—has been given to us, all of us, not just Pentecostals and charismatics. This act of faith is for everyone who has found the Lord as Savior. Church history has too often shunted it aside for more manageable methods but the Apostolic instructions are still in the Book. There is no biblical or historical report of the Gifts of the Spirit passing away. Sessationism is an argument from silence.
Here is a table of the blessings of prayer in the Spirit:
So, release your spirit to commune more fully with His Spirit in the Secret Place! Take a leap of faith and join in with the bubbling well inside your heart. Enjoy the deep blessings and powerful enablement of an unfruitful mind as you pray in the Spirit.
Semper Reformanda!
Stephen Phifer
March 20, 2025
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