In 1 Corinthians 13:8, does Paul’s use of different verbs suggest that gifts could well pass away at different times and in a different manner?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1995.

I read with interest your remark that, in 1 Corinthians 13:8, Paul uses different verbs and voices with regard to the gifts mentioned, and this suggests that they could well pass away at different times and in a different manner.

My questions here are strictly linguistic; and I say that fully aware that, when the linguists have told us all the linguistically possible meanings of a word, then the theologians have a right to interpret those meanings in any given context. What I would feel important, however, is that we do not confuse linguistics with theology.

So let me start with linguistics. The verbs in 1 Corinthians 13:8, 'they shall be done away . . . they shall cease . . . it shall be done away', are all in the future tense. As far as the tenses of the verbs are concerned, therefore, they do not tell us whether the ceasing and the being done away all occur at the same time, or at different times. Grammar leaves the matter open: it allows you to say that these things can happen at different times, but it does not prove that these things shall happen at different times.

Secondly, there comes the meaning of the verbs themselves. If I have understood you rightly, you suggest that the fact that the verb 'cease' is used in connection with tongues, rather than the passive verb 'shall be done away', suggests that the tongues were to peter out, fade away, cease of their own accord. Certainly, the deponent verb 'cease' can be used, and in Greek is very frequently used, of operations that cease of their own accord; but the word is also used of operations that cease because they are made to cease. For instance, when Luke 8:24 tells us that the wind and the raging of the water ceased, the general context shows us that they did not cease simply of their own accord; they ceased because the Lord rebuked them. We must be careful, therefore, not to build on grammar more than strict grammar allows us to do. One would have thought that the true gift of tongues ceases, not of its own accord, but when the Holy Spirit no longer uses it.

I certainly agree that a lot of what goes on nowadays and is supposed to be the gift of tongues is a lot of mumbo jumbo, but I would not wish to deny the Holy Spirit the right to use this gift if he wants to, even though I myself have never come across it.

Yours very sincerely in Christ,