“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels.” If angels speak, in what language do they speak? There are, as I know of them from the Scriptures, four classifications of angelic beings (spirit beings without physical or mortal bodies). These are cherubim’s, seraphim’s, mighty angels, and angels. Does each classification of angelic being speak in their own particular tongue? Are they bilingual? In their own form of existence, can angels even speak to man?? What would be the need? What would man need to learn, know, or have information given him by angels? The Gospel was/is to be preached by MAN!! We know they are male in gender, as is God, and we know they do not pro-create, die, nor remain as they are now after the resurrection. Our translations of the Scripture are so confusing because of the trans-literation (the use of a Greek word in the English language) of the Greek noun angeles that most people who read of them don’t know of what they are reading. Every one who bears the message of the gospel is an angel!! This was the member of the church Christ addressed in the book of Revelation!!
What if the Arch-angels speak in a tongue almost as sophisticated as does the Godhead? What if the seraphims speak in a language that has a lower form and distinction than the cherubim’s? Are the mighty angels cherubim or seraphim? If we know not which, we will never know the language (if such exist) in which they speak!! Do angels speak as man speaks or do they speak in language that is spiritual as God speaks to God, since none that are God have physical bodies? Romans 8:26-27, John 11:38, John 12:28-30 When Jesus heralded the command “let there be light” from the origin of the morning of the first day, in what language did He speak?
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels”, Paul is comparing the language to the practice and use men make of communication, not the spirit-beings who have no physical anatomy (or at least that we have been told about!!, neither do angels have any use for language (or at least that we have been told).
This verse, 1 Corinthians 13:1, meets the demand of the context and discussion the apostle was having with the Corinthian congregation; for he was writing about spiritual gifts of which speaking in tongues was one. It is also true that the apostle was defending his position as “father” of their spiritual position “in Christ”. 1 Corinthians 4:14-15 Defending his position as their spiritual mentor, he was sending a message to Apollos not to put himself in a place where he defied God, verse 6. A father provides for his own because of instinctive “love”, Apollos, not having that instinctive “love”, would be speaking from a different heart. Apollos would demand the Corinthians compensation-Paul worked to provide for his necessities, Apollos had not the care of a father for his children, Paul longed after them as beloved sons. 1 Corinthians 4:15 Paul would have that agape love (a love of a father for his children, see 1 Timothy 5:8) where Apollos would have that phileo love as described in John 21:15-22 Listen to Paul’s correspondence as given him by the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 4:6-7; “And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transfigured to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that you might learn in us not to think of men above that which written, that no one of you be puffed up (love vaunted not itself, is not easily puffed up, 1 Corinthians 13:4) for one against another (“I am of Paul, I am of Cephas, I am of Apollos”). For who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?”
