<p>14:1 <i>Pursue love, and in this pursuit therefore earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that of prophecy</i>- I have suggested throughout this commentary that the Corinthians were not spiritual (3:1); they had been given the Spirit but had not allowed it to work. They were basing their church services upon the religious cults around them, replete with use of church prostitutes in the name of being single unto the Lord, eating the Lord's supper as if it were a form of fellowship with idols, and copying the claims of ecstatic utterances, gifts of knowledge and prophecy which were rampant in the idol cults in the name of having Holy Spirit gifts. Paul could have directly confronted them. But He copied the style of the Lord Jesus when tackling the language of belief in demons / idols. He argued on a higher plane, with all the power which is inherent in using a subtler argument. Just as Paul doesn't mock nor condemn their idea of singleness in order to serve the Lord but decries their divorces and usage of church prostitutes which it seems to have involved, so he encourages their professed zeal for Spirit gifts such as prophecy. But he says, following on from the argument in chapter 13, that the motive for such gifts must be love, which as defined in chapter 13 means a desire for upbuilding others so that they might enter God's Kingdom. He has explained in 13:8-11 that the way of spiritual maturity will involve a focus upon love, and a de-emphasis upon the miraculous gifts. But Paul is aware that not all have reached that level, and so encourages them in going this lower road of wanting to use those miraculous gifts. But the comments he will make upon the usage of the gifts effectively condemn the Corinthians for using the ecstatic utterances of the idol rituals in the name of true speaking in foreign languages as a gift of the Spirit. They were doing what Pentecostals and the like do today- experiencing ecstatic utterances and claiming this is the Spirit gift of speaking in foreign languages. And Paul is explaining that they are deeply mistaken in doing so. &nbsp;</p>