<p>14:20- see on Mt. 18:2; 1 Cor. 1:19.</p><p><i>Brothers, be not children in your thinking. Yet in malice be babes; but in thinking be men- </i>This kind of malice has been mentioned in 1 Cor. 5:8; malice characterized their breaking of bread services. Paul sees this as immaturity; whereas we would rather consider &quot;malice&quot; to be something which would end our relationship with a person who is malicious. Paul here prefers to see this as immaturity, and urges their maturity. The way he has to repeatedly ask his converts to not be malicious shows this was a major problem amongst the immature churches of the first century (s.w. Eph. 4:31; Col. 3:8; Tit. 3:3; 1 Pet. 2:1,16). The contrast between &quot;babes&quot; and &quot;men&quot; is misleading; <i>teleios</i>, translated &quot;men&quot;, means mature, and this is the whole thrust of the argument- that the mature state mentioned in 13:10 and Eph. 4:13; Col. 1:28 really could be attained by the Corinthians. And that maturity would have no particular use for the miraculous gifts of the Spirit. &quot;Be babes&quot; is the same word used by Paul in describing how when he was a &quot;babe&quot;, in spiritual immaturity, he used the miraculous Spirit gifts; but he had matured beyond them, to the maturity of love (13:11). The same figure of progressing from childhood to manhood is used of moving on from trusting in the Mosaic law for salvation (Gal. 4:3) It could be that these manifestations of immaturity were related- a legalistic trust in the Law for salvation inculcated a mindset that sought for evidence of salvation through the external and visible possessing the miraculous gifts rather than the internal- the things of the Spirit, culminating in the life of love as described in chapter 13.</p>