| Abstract
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1 Corinthians 14:22 offers the contextually counter-intuitive statement that, in the liminal space of public worship, ‘tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is not for unbelievers but for believers’. Commentators often contradict this allocation by stating that the ‘conversion’ in 14:24–25 shows the importance of offering intelligible signs to outsiders. This essay argues that such interpretation obscures the semiotics of prophecy ‘for believers’, which can only be understood through fuller exploration of the substrata of texts invoked both by the citation of Isaiah 28:11–12 in 14:21 and the clear allusion to Isaiah 45:14 in 14:25. From the latter text, an evocative relocation within the Isaianic corpus, I show that the disclosure of the church’s identity requires the recognition of the outsider. The essay concludes by contrasting the versatility of Pauline ecclesiology to ecclesial models of ‘diaspora’ and ‘host’. 1 Corinthians 14:22 offers the contextually counter-intuitive statement that, in the liminal space of public worship, ‘tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is not for unbelievers but for believers’. Commentators often contradict this allocation by stating that the ‘conversion’ in 14:24–25 shows the importance of offering intelligible signs to outsiders. This essay argues that such interpretation obscures the semiotics of prophecy ‘for believers’, which can only be understood through fuller exploration of the substrata of texts invoked both by the citation of Isaiah 28:11–12 in 14:21 and the clear allusion to Isaiah 45:14 in 14:25. From the latter text, an evocative relocation within the Isaianic corpus, I show that the disclosure of the church’s identity requires the recognition of the outsider. The essay concludes by contrasting the versatility of Pauline ecclesiology to ecclesial models of ‘diaspora’ and ‘host’.
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