1 Corinthians 14:20 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Brethren, be not children in understanding By exercising the gift of tongues in the manner you do, preferring the things which make a fine show and gain applause, above things more useful and solid. This is an admirable stroke of true oratory, and was a severe reproof to the Corinthians, who piqued themselves on their wisdom, to represent their speaking unknown languages, and contending about precedency, as a childishness which men of sense would be ashamed of. Howbeit in malice Or wickedness rather, as κακια here signifies; be ye children As much as possible like infants; have all the gentleness, sweetness, and innocency of their tender age; but in understanding be men Τελειοι, full-grown men. Conduct yourselves with the good sense and prudence of such, knowing religion was not designed to destroy any of our natural faculties, but to exalt and improve them, our reason in particular. Doddridge makes the following remark on this part of the apostle's epistle to the Corinthians: “Had the most zealous Protestant divine endeavoured to expose the absurdity of praying and praising in an unknown tongue, as practised in the Church of Rome, it is difficult to imagine what he could have written more full to the purpose than the apostle hath done here.” He adds, for the instruction of those who preach the gospel, “that a height of composition, an abstruseness of thought, and an obscurity of phrase, which common Christians cannot understand, is really a speaking in an unknown tongue, though the language used be the language of the country.”