Tongues & the cessationists.

Oscarr said:

What I have said to you IS the truth, and so your blood will not be on my hands when one day you might have to stand before Christ in the judgment and to answer Him why you taught others to disempower the Holy Spirit so that He could not work through you and those whom you teach the way He wanted to.

So I have warned you and therefore take no further responsibility for what you have chosen to believe.

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Oh no, not the usual scare tactics to frighten people away from exposing the false teachings of the pentecostal/charismatic movement? It certainly won't work on me.

swordsman1 said:

What about "Remasundu katapa singundo ramadika kibasa nabadatu quisaku."? Fake or real?

Those are your own tongues which you wrote down for us in an earlier post. You even interpreted it, "Jesus is high above all. He is the only Saviour in whom you might find forgiveness and eternal life." So one of those words, presumably "Remasundu", means "Jesus". And if it is a language then whenever that word is repeated it must also be "Jesus". Using the same method, especially where an interpretation is provided, a linguist can quickly compile a dictionary of a language. Yet every time linguists have analysed Pentecostal tongues they have always drawn a blank and come to the same conclusion - that modern tongues is not a language.

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Fake. Because it is put in the post for the wrong reasons. When tongues is recorded and used outside of the personal or church environment for personal or scientific analysis it loses it spiritual value.

It is the same when an unbeliever quotes the Bible. It is just words to him, because he does not have the quickened spirit to see the spiritual significance in the words, however true the words are. It is like salt that has lost its savour.

But when a genuine believer reads the same passage, and the Spirit quickens it to him, then it becomes a rhema word to him with dynamic spiritual significance.

So, when tongues is used in the way Paul taught it to be used, public or private, it has spiritual significance for the person speaking it. Record the language and then put the words on display in this forum, and it becomes salt that has lost its savour, and becomes meaningless. That is why linguists draw a blank with tongues because what they are studying are meaningless words that have been taken out of their proper environment, like taking a fish out of water. Like the fish, the life goes out of it and all these linguists are studying are just dead words.

Oscarr said:

Cessationists are the type of false prophets and teachers that Jesus warned us about. You will find that when the AntiChrist appears, Cessationists will team up with him and be part of his false religious system.

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So included among the false prophets would be Calvin, Luther, Owen, Edwards, Hodge, Whitfield, Spurgeon, Augustine, Chrytoston, etc, etc, all of whom were cessationists? As indeed were the vast majority of Christian leaders throughout church history.

Oscarr said:

As I said, the 50% statistic of nominal Christians in churches includes Charismatic churches; so it is no surprise that there is the false mixed in with the true. It is significant that the false often obscures the true and is more prominent.

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But why would the Holy Spirit allow any tongues to given to such disobedient Charismatic churches, when you said the very reason He withdrew tongues from the Church in the first place was disobedience? That defies logic.

Oscarr said:

Fake. Because it is put in the post for the wrong reasons. When tongues is recorded and used outside of the personal or church environment for personal or scientific analysis it loses it spiritual value.

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So you admit your own tongues are fake?

Oscarr said:

That is why linguists draw a blank with tongues because what they are studying are meaningless words that have been taken out of their proper environment, like taking a fish out of water. Like the fish, the life goes out of it and all these linguists are studying are just dead words.

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But the tongues the linguists study are those that are recorded in church services - in their proper environment. The words they hear are the same the congregation hears. They still draw a blank.

swordsman1 said:

There are also a large proportion of respected commentators who take a different view and say that verse is referring to tongues and prophecy ceasing after the completion of the canon.



Prophecy is not preaching. Prophecy and teaching are listed as separate spiritual gifts. Prophecy is God supernaturally speaking precise words directly to a prophet who then passes them on to the people concerned.

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Are you sure that was Paul's definition of prophecy? It might be the modern Pentecostal's definition, but I doubt that it was Paul's. When he referred to prophets, he was more likely speaking about what he knew about prophecy from the Old Testament prophets, who were the preachers of their time.

Therefore he may very well have viewed the prophets in the churches as the preachers of the Word to encourage, build up and exhort the believers in the same way that preachers do in our modern churches.

I get a clue when he talks about a prophet who is speaking and another one gets a revelation, so the first prophet needs to sit down and let the second one share what God has given him. I have seen this in group sharing meetings which we call "body ministry", where there have been several speakers who have shared what they have been given by the Lord to share. They were not giving "prophecies" in the Pentecostal sense of the word, but just naturally sharing revelation from the Word. I see that as more of what prophecy was done in the Corinthian church.

I think that many Pentecostals have "over spiritualized" prophecy and jumped up in the middle of services and given Elizabethan language prophecies saying "thus says the Lord", as if God has interrupted the service to give a special message to the people. I am tending away from that, to prophecy being more like what the preacher preaches to build up and people in their faith.

When Paul says that when two or three prophets speak, it is just the same as having two or three speakers in a meeting sharing from the Word, while the others judge what is being spoken to confirm that what they are saying is consistent with the Word. I think that New Testament prophecy is much more "down to earth" (meaning non-"super spiritual" rather than worldly) that what many Pentecostals and Charismatics have thought.

I would venture to say that many "Prophecies" are given in churches by people who have wanted to give their view with the intention of having others agree with them and so they tack the Name of the Lord on to them. These often are people who are never invited to share or preach in the church and often are not part of the recognised leadership. I label many of these prophecies as "witchcraft" prophecies, because they are given to exercise control and manipulation rather than to encourage and build up the people in Christ.

swordsman1 said:

There are even less verses that favour continuationism. Show us one verse that clearly states that all the gifts would continue throughout the church age. There is more to support cessationism than there is continuationism in scripture. And crucially, history supports cessationism.



God gave the church the gift of apostles - divinely appointed, miracle working, scripture writing, eye-witness apostles of Christ. Are they still with us today or did God withdraw a spiritual tool from the church?

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We've been down this track before and debated it until we both have run out of things to say. Let's not go down that track again.

swordsman1 said:

Oh no, not the usual scare tactics to frighten people away from exposing the false teachings of the pentecostal/charismatic movement? It certainly won't work on me.

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Not really. All I am saying is that one must embrace God the Holy Spirit with all His gifts and allow Him to manifest them as He wills.

We should expose falsehood of any kind in the church and we should definitely warn believers of the dangers of going after other spirits instead of the Holy Spirit.

But I do think that it is an insult to God the Holy Spirit to dictate to Him how He should use His gifts to build up the body of Christ. If HE wants a person to speak in tongues, then HE will inspire them, and HE won't be entertaining any criticism of HIMSELF for doing it that way. After all He is God and He is moving under the sovereignty of the Father and the Son, Who can do what they think it is right.

But if a person receives a spirit of witchcraft and uses the gifts to manipulate, intimidate or control others, which the Holy Spirit NEVER does, then they will manifest a false gift - and that is what should be exposed when detected.

But I think it is wrong to tar and feather every single believer who manifests a spiritual gift,

Oscarr said:

Are you sure that was Paul's definition of prophecy? It might be the modern Pentecostal's definition, but I doubt that it was Paul's. When he referred to prophets, he was more likely speaking about what he knew about prophecy from the Old Testament prophets, who were the preachers of their time.

Therefore he may very well have viewed the prophets in the churches as the preachers of the Word to encourage, build up and exhort the believers in the same way that preachers do in our modern churches.

I get a clue when he talks about a prophet who is speaking and another one gets a revelation, so the first prophet needs to sit down and let the second one share what God has given him. I have seen this in group sharing meetings which we call "body ministry", where there have been several speakers who have shared what they have been given by the Lord to share. They were not giving "prophecies" in the Pentecostal sense of the word, but just naturally sharing revelation from the Word. I see that as more of what prophecy was done in the Corinthian church.

I think that many Pentecostals have "over spiritualized" prophecy and jumped up in the middle of services and given Elizabethan language prophecies saying "thus says the Lord", as if God has interrupted the service to give a special message to the people. I am tending away from that, to prophecy being more like what the preacher preaches to build up and people in their faith.

When Paul says that when two or three prophets speak, it is just the same as having two or three speakers in a meeting sharing from the Word, while the others judge what is being spoken to confirm that what they are saying is consistent with the Word. I think that New Testament prophecy is much more "down to earth" (meaning non-"super spiritual" rather than worldly) that what many Pentecostals and Charismatics have thought.

I would venture to say that many "Prophecies" are given in churches by people who have wanted to give their view with the intention of having others agree with them and so they tack the Name of the Lord on to them. These often are people who are never invited to share or preach in the church and often are not part of the recognised leadership. I label many of these prophecies as "witchcraft" prophecies, because they are given to exercise control and manipulation rather than to encourage and build up the people in Christ.

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That is how prophecy is described in scripture. Usually in the form of "Thus says the Lord...", or similar. They are precise words given to the prophets to be relayed to the recipient(s). Are there any examples of prophecy in scripture that are not divinely given words ie. regular preaching?

swordsman1 said:

So included among the false prophets would be Calvin, Luther, Owen, Edwards, Hodge, Whitfield, Spurgeon, Augustine, Chrytoston, etc, etc, all of whom were cessationists? As indeed were the vast majority of Christian leaders throughout church history.

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The ones I have studied, Calvin, Luther, Spurgeon and Augustine, did not actually go to the same lengths that modern Cessationists have gone to tar and feather believers who have manifested the gifts of the Spirit.
Calvin believed that the gifts ceased but because of the lowering of holiness standards and the corruption of the church through pagan practices.
Luther believed in healing, and he said that he got filled with the Spirit and uttered words that he did not understand. He didn't call them tongues though, but referred to them as gushings of the Spirit through him.
Spurgeon believed that the gifts had ceased, but he was not going to say that it was actually God who withdrew them. He more or less took Calvin's view.
Augustine did deny the spiritual gifts when he was younger, but went to the opposite view when he saw the miracles and the healing in his church, so he went to the Roman church leaders and tried to withdraw his previous statements, but they refused and kept his repudiated Cessationist comments as the policy of the church.
I don't know about the others, because I have not studied them closely.
Finney was a supporter of Edwards' doctrine and in all his writing I don't detect any Cessationist views at all, although he may have acknowledged that the Apostolic gifts had ceased for the same reason as Calvin's.

So there is a vast difference between having an honest Cessationist view on the basis of the evidence they have, but are willing to be led of the Spirit in whatever He says to them, and a Cessationist, through a religious witchcraft spirit seeking to control and manipulate believers into believing his teaching as the absolute truth and that folks are condemned if they don't believe it.

In saying that, I would say that a ultra-Pentecostal who teaches that a person has to speak in tongues to be saved has the same witchcraft spirit in what he teaches. Just to show that I'm not biased! ;-)

Oscarr said:

Not really. All I am saying is that one must embrace God the Holy Spirit with all His gifts and allow Him to manifest them as He wills.

We should expose falsehood of any kind in the church and we should definitely warn believers of the dangers of going after other spirits instead of the Holy Spirit.

But I do think that it is an insult to God the Holy Spirit to dictate to Him how He should use His gifts to build up the body of Christ. If HE wants a person to speak in tongues, then HE will inspire them, and HE won't be entertaining any criticism of HIMSELF for doing it that way. After all He is God and He is moving under the sovereignty of the Father and the Son, Who can do what they think it is right.

But if a person receives a spirit of witchcraft and uses the gifts to manipulate, intimidate or control others, which the Holy Spirit NEVER does, then they will manifest a false gift - and that is what should be exposed when detected.

But I think it is wrong to tar and feather every single believer who manifests a spiritual gift,

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But today's "tongues" is not the New Testament gift. It doesn't match the description given in scripture. Not even Pentecostalism's chief theologian Gordon Fee is prepared to affirm that Pentecostals speak New Testament tongues. The most he is prepared to say is that it is something analogous to tongues. So it is not an insult to the Holy Spirit to expose something that is claimed to be something that it is not.

swordsman1 said:

So you admit your own tongues are fake?



But the tongues the linguists study are those that are recorded in church services - in their proper environment. The words they hear are the same the congregation hears. They still draw a blank.

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I'm enjoying our exchanges because we have intelligent discussions. However, I'm off to the gym to do my thing, so I'll come back to you in an hour or two.

Alithis said:

You see this is a perfect example...
Because you refuse to except what it plainly says you break it into peices then you dissect each peice into ambiguity .
You csnt acceot it as its plainly written because it proves your predosposed theory is wrong.
So you undermine the scripture to wrestle and mangle it to fit.
I simply accept what it plainly says.
You should also

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You're offering your opinion about what it allegedly "plainly says" as "what is plainly written" when in fact your interpretation ignores what is written and jumps to conclusions that support a particular theological bias about what the passage means. That is called eisegesis.

Another commentator writes:

Oscarr said:

The ones I have studied, Calvin, Luther, Spurgeon and Augustine, did not actually go to the same lengths that modern Cessationists have gone to tar and feather believers who have manifested the gifts of the Spirit.

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Cessationists don't "tar and feather" anyone. They just point out the truth of the matter according to scripture and church history.

Oscarr said:

Calvin believed that the gifts ceased but because of the lowering of holiness standards and the corruption of the church through pagan practices.

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Have you got the quote for that?

Oscarr said:

Luther believed in healing, and he said that he got filled with the Spirit and uttered words that he did not understand. He didn't call them tongues though, but referred to them as gushings of the Spirit through him.

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And a quote for that as well?

Oscarr said:

Augustine did deny the spiritual gifts when he was younger, but went to the opposite view when he saw the miracles and the healing in his church, so he went to the Roman church leaders and tried to withdraw his previous statements, but they refused and kept his repudiated Cessationist comments as the policy of the church.

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I believe that is a Pentecostal myth, unless you have the quote where he recants his cessationist views?

Oscarr said:

Finney was a supporter of Edwards' doctrine and in all his writing I don't detect any Cessationist views at all, although he may have acknowledged that the Apostolic gifts had ceased for the same reason as Calvin's.

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Edwards was indeed a cessationist, and as this quote shows he tells us the reason why the charismatic gifts ceased...

Oscarr said:

So there is a vast difference between having an honest Cessationist view on the basis of the evidence they have, but are willing to be led of the Spirit in whatever He says to them, and a Cessationist, through a religious witchcraft spirit seeking to control and manipulate believers into believing his teaching as the absolute truth and that folks are condemned if they don't believe it.

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We regularly see continuists condemning cessationists to Hell by accusing them of blasphemy of the Spirit (another scare tactic to try and get rid of us), but I have never seen cessationists condemning continuists, nor "seeking to control and manipulate" them.

Alithis said:

It matches the description perfectly .
As shown in the Op.
As shown in scripture.

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No it doesn't. You are twisting scripture....as has been shown.

GingerBeer said:

Another commentator writes:
1 Corinthians 14:2

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A few more commentaries on 1 Cor 14:2...

B. Ward Powers - First Corinthians: An Exegetical and Explanatory Commentary (2009)
14:2-4...The account of Pentecost in Acts clearly describes what the apostles spoke, Paul here presupposes that everyone knows what he is talking about, therefore the description in Acts should govern the exegesis of 1 Corinthians, and the latter should not alter the former. ...
The present verse is a reason for the preceding verse. The Corinthians are commanded to prefer prophecy to languages because the latter are of little or no use in the church. Such had not always been the case. At Pentecost, the Apostles spoke in foreign tongues and the crowds understood. However, in Corinth, everybody spoke Greek and Mesopotamia. Thus, in Corinth, the languages were intelligible only to God, and no one in the congregation heard, in other words, understood.

Gordon H. Clark - First Corinthians (1975)
2 "For he who speaks a language does not talk to men, but to God, and no one hears, but he speaks secrets by the Spirit."
It is perhaps appropriate here to refer back to 12:10, 29-31, and 13:1, where tongues were mentioned. These tongues were not described in the earlier chapter. The commentary on the latter verse showed that the tongues were actual human languages like Latin, Aramaic, or Persian. The text identified them as the languages of men. The word glossa can mean a tongue of land or a leathern thong, or the organ in one's mouth; but it is very difficult, if not impossible, to find an instance in Greek where it means gibberish. It often refers to talkativeness and useless garrulity; but even so the words are those of natural languages. The account of Pentecost in Acts clearly describes what the apostles spoke; Paul here presupposes that everyone knows what he is talking about; therefore the description in Acts should govern the exegesis of I Corinthians, and the latter should not alter the former. ...
The present verse is a reason for the preceding verse. The Corinthians are commanded to prefer prophecy to languages because the latter are of little or no use in the church. Such had not always been the case. At Pentecost, the Apostles spoke in foreign tongues and the crowds understood. However, in Corinth, everybody spoke Greek and no one understood the languages of the Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia. Thus, in Corinth, the languages were intelligible only to God, and no one in the congregation heard, in other words, understood. Why the Spirit continued to give the gift of tongues when the situation at Pentecost no longer obtained can hardly be answered. Paul, himself, seems puzzled, and, while admitting the fact, uses the chapter to warn against excesses.


David Lowery - Bible Knowledge Commentary: 1 Corinthians (1983)
14:2. What Paul meant by speaking in a tongue is a matter of considerable debate. One common view is to see Paul’s use of the word “tongue” (glossa) against the background of first-century pagan religions and thus define it as ecstatic speech similar to that expressed by the sibylla, or female prophetesses. The Cumaen sibyl (cf. Virgil Aeneid 6. 77-102) was the most famous of the 10 female prophetesses claimed by various regions. Others see the tongues-speaking in 1 Corinthians as ecstatic speech similar to that of Pythia, the female oracle at Delphi (Plutarch Moralia 5. 409e) or similar to the maenads of Dionysus in their ecstatic frenzy (Ovid Metamorphoses 3. 534, 710-30; cf. Euripides Bacchae). That the Corinthians may have thought of this gift as analogous to the pagan ecstatics is certainly possible, but to suggest that Paul used the term with reference to this pagan background is hardly enlightened scholarship. In fact the seedbed for most of Paul’s theological concepts and the usual source of his terms was the Old Testament. This is evident by Paul’s use of glossa outside of these three Corinthian chapters. He used the word 21 times in 1 Corinthians 12-14 but only 3 other times in his other letters. Each of Paul’s other uses was either in a quotation from the Old Testament (Ps. 5:9 in Rom. 3:13; Isa. 45:23 in Rom. 14:11) or in an allusion to it (Isa. 45:23 in Phil. 2:11). In all three instances he used the word “tongue” as a figure of speech for the statement or confession made. Whether good (Rom. 14:11; Phil. 2:11) or bad (Rom. 3:13) the statement was clearly intelligible.
The same may be said of the meaning of the word glossa elsewhere in the New Testament. Whether it was used literally of the physical organ (e.g., Mark 7:33; James 3:5; Rev. 16:10) or figuratively of human languages (e.g., Acts 2:11; Rev. 5:9; 7:9; 10:11; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6; 17:15), it nowhere referred to ecstatic speech. If it is reasonable to interpret the unknown with the help of the known, the obscure by the clear, then the burden of proof rests with those who find in this term a meaning other than human language.
The context of this verse is the assembled congregation in Corinth (1 Cor. 11:2-14:40, esp. 14:4-5) in which utterance in a tongue was given without the benefit of interpretation (cf. vv. 13, 19). Apparently no native speaker of the tongue was present in the assembly (cf. vv. 10-11), and no one was given supernatural enablement to interpret it. The utterances therefore were mysteries, truths requiring a supernatural disclosure which God had not provided the Corinthians in this particular instance. As a result, the expression of tongues became an exercise in futility for the assembly as a whole, with only the speaker deriving some benefit (v. 4) in his spirit (cf. v. 14), the sentient aspect of his being (pneuma; cf. Matt. 5:3; Acts 17:16; 2 Cor. 2:13).

Paul T Butler - First Corinthians (1985)
The apostle warns that speaking in a tongue (Gr. glosse, language) usually resulted in utterance of a non-understandable mystery. The Greek word musterion, mystery, means, ‘‘that which is unrevealed, ” not that which is unknowable; it would be knowable if revealed, or interpreted. The word “unknown” (supplied in KJV) is not in any Greek text, and should not have been supplied since it is not stated anywhere in the New Testament that first century “tongues” were non-human, unknowable utterances. Of course, God knows all human languages, dialects, phonics or “tongues,” (see Rev. 5:9; 7:9; 9:ll; 1O:ll; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6; 16:16; 17:15 where “tongue,” glosson, is used clearly to mean, human languages). When one of the Corinthian Christians spoke with “other tongues” (Gr. heterais glossais, Acts 2:4; and heteroglossois, I Cor. 14:21) he did not speak to his fellow Christians because he was speaking in a foreign language, but he did speak to God since God understands all languages. When a Christian in the Corinthian church spoke in a language they never learned, they did so from the supernatural gift God gave them. When there was no interpreter present, they exercised that gift only for God’s benefit (since it had not been translated, it was understood by no one else-not even the speaker). God gave the speaker words and information directly from heaven in a language the speaker had not studied or spoken natively. When there was no translator present, speaking in language foreign to the speaker resulted, for the speaker, in a purely subjective experience. Thus, the gift of tongues was experiential only for the speaker-and that only in a limited sense if he does not have the gift of interpretation. Paul is pointing, in this context, to the superiority of the gift of prophecy over the gift of tongues. Thus to speak only for personal experience is to abuse the gift.


Don Fanning - Spiritual Gifts
These verses are used to imply that tongues speakers had a special intimate communication with God. It is essential, as always, to understand a verse in the light of its context and not independent of its context.
1. In 14:1-3 Paul is exhorting the Corinthian church to prefer prophecy over tongues in order to speak to men, instead of tongues, which could only be spoken to God, since neither the speaker, nor the hearer could understand. For this reason it is useless as a gift for edification. In the assembly, speaking to the congregation is preferable to speaking to God. The prayers and praise to God are important in the church, but only when they are understood (1 Cor 14:15-16; Eph. 6:18; Phil 4:4-6; Col 4:2; 1 Thes 5:17; 1 Tim 2:1, 8).
a) The introductory "for" in 14:2, indicates a reason for the exhortation in v. 1: to make sure that "love" motive is supreme (where others are benefited) and the priority is given to prophecy or the revelation of the Word of God. However you interpret v.2 it must be in the light of v.1. The reason the gift of tongues (without interpretation) is of little value is because it doesn't speak to men, since no one can understand unless he knows the language. This is the same idea as to "speak in the air" (v.9). The meaning is that God is the only one that could possibly understand him... if it were a real language, or really saying something.
b) The phrase "but to God" (v.2) is not an absolute statement, in the sense that it describes how to speak to God or how the gift should function. The following phrase is linked by the same introductory word, gar, or "for", "Indeed no one understands him." Paul is saying that the only one who could possibly understand a foreign tongue unknown to anyone present would be God. This is not a reference to a special prayer at all or an unintelligible tongue. If someone could understand the tongue speaker, then he would be speaking to men and not to God. When the tongue was used as in the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:6-8) those present understood what was spoken, thus the speakers spoke both to man and God, since both understood. Tongues are for a sign to men (1 Cor 14:22), thus the purpose of the sign is to be understood. Since genuine tongues (real languages) are to be understood by men, 14:2 is not an absolute, that is, it is not the absolute purpose of the gift of tongues.
c) Paul was not exalting tongues as a medium of communication with God, rather was demonstrating its limitations, especially in comparison with the gift of prophecy. Paul was not saying that tongues are for prayer and praise, but that prophecy is preferred because it is easily understood in one's own language. Tongues could be beneficial only if used correctly, that is someone understood what was spoken (either miraculously through the gift of interpretation or a foreigner understood in his language as at Pentecost). Paul sought to limit the use of tongues in the congregation. It seems apparent that the idea of speaking "only to God" was a negative concept, according to Paul. In fact, Paul made it clear that if an interpreter was not present then tongues should not even be spoken (14:28).


H A Ironside - Addresses on the First Epistle to the Corinthians
Paul went on to contrast the gift of prophecy with one of the “show gifts,” the gift of tongues. Suppose that I as a native of an English-speaking land had the ability to learn and speak one of the many dialects of the Chinese language; and suppose that, endeavoring to exercise the wonderful gift the Spirit of God had given me, I poured out my heart in public in Chinese. At once my English-speaking congregation would say, “We cannot understand a word that he is saying.” I might be quite happy and perfectly self-satisfied to think that I was able to use such a remarkable gift, but others would not understand me unless they were Chinese. So you see the gift of speaking in tongues is not for one’s home assembly of Christians; it is for the mission field. Let the gift of speaking Chinese, for example, be exercised where that tongue is spoken. Do not get up in a church service and take the time of God’s people by speaking in a language that they cannot understand.


Matthew Henry - Commentary on the Whole Bible
In this chapter the apostle directs them about the use of their spiritual gifts, preferring those that are best and fitted to do the greatest good. I. He begins with advising them of all spiritual gifts to prefer prophesying, and shows that this is much better than speaking with tongues (v. 1-5). II. He goes on to show them how unprofitable the speaking of foreign languages is, and useless to the church; it is like piping in one tone, like sounding a trumpet without any certain note, like talking gibberish; whereas gifts should be used for the good of the church (v. 6-14).
…
It seems, this was the gift on which the Corinthians principally valued themselves. This was more ostentatious than the plain interpretation of scripture, more fit to gratify pride, but less fit to pursue the purposes of Christian charity; it would not equally edify nor do good to the souls of men. For, 1. He that spoke with tongues must wholly speak between God and himself; for, whatever mysteries might be communicated in his language, none of his own countrymen could understand them, because they did not understand the language, v. 2. Note, What cannot be understood can never edify. No advantage can be reaped from the most excellent discourses, if delivered in unintelligible language, such as the audience can neither speak nor understand: but he that prophesies speaks to the advantage of his hearers; they may profit by his gift.
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This is the great rule he gives, which, 2. He applies to the matter in hand, that, if they did speak a foreign language, they should beg of God the gift of interpreting it,v. 13. That these were different gifts, see ch. 12:10 . Those might speak and understand a foreign language who could not readily translate it into their own: and yet was this necessary to the church’s edification; for the church must understand, that it might be edified, which yet it could not do till the foreign language was translated into its own.
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Note, It should be the concern of such as pray in public to pray intelligibly, not in a foreign language, nor in a language that, if it be not foreign, is above the level of his audience. Language that is most obvious and easy to be understood is the most proper for public devotion and other religious exercises.


McGarvey & Pendleton - Thessalonians, Corinthians, Galatians and Romans (1916)
The apostle here lays the groundwork of his argument. Prophecy is superior to the gift of tongues, because more profitable. The speaker with tongues, exercising his spiritual gift (Rev. i: 10), might indeed speak the divine truths or mysteries of God ; but, speaking them in a foreign language, he would be understood only by God and himself, and so would only edify, etc., himself. On the other hand, the prophet, declaring the same or kindred mysteries in the vernacular, would be understood by all present, and thus he would transform the mysteries into revelations, which would benefit the church, either edifying it, so as to enlighten its ignorance ; or rousing its latent energies, so as to dispel its sluggishness ; or comforting it, so as to remove its sorrows. In' short, tongues might excite wonder (Acts 2: 12), but preaching brought forth fruit (Acts 2: 36-42) and the Corinthian church had need to be more fruitful, since it was not eminent for its holiness or its works. Paul does not mean to say that no man living could understand the tongues, or that they were mere jargon. He means that no man present in the usual Corinthian assemblies understood them. Had speaking with tongues been mere hysterical "orgiastic" jargon, it certainly would not have bodied forth the mysteries of God, nor would it have edified the one speaking, nor could it have been interpreted by him or by others as Paul directs. Those who belittle the gift by construing it as a mere jargon approach dangerously near making Paul (and themselves likewise) criticize the Holy Spirit for giving such a senseless, abnormal gift. But those who read Paul correctly find that he is only censuring the abuse of the gift and not the nature of it. It was useful to the church while engaged in missionary work in foreign fields. But it became a source of vanity and vainglorious display when used by a church sitting idly at home. To the missionary it was a splendid addition to the gift of prophecy; but to the Corinthian preachers exhorting in their home church, it was a sad subtraction from that gift. The fruits of the Spirit in the Christian life are far enough from being "orgiastic" —Gal. 5: 22.]


J. Vernon McGee - First Corinthians (1996)
Tongues are not a rapturous, ecstatic, mysterious language. They are not a mixed-up medley of rhapsody. Tongues were foreign languages. On the Day of Pentecost the apostles spoke in foreign languages so that every man there heard the gospel in his own language. Now notice that chapter 14 is an extension of the love chapter. It begins: "Follow after charity [love], and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy." For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries [1Cor. 14:2].
Note that the word unknown is in italics in your Bible, and that means it is not in the original Greek. Nowhere in the Bible does it speak of unknown tongues. It should read: "For he that speaketh in a tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries." Because nobody will understand him, he is not to speak in a language that is unknown to the group -- unless somebody there can interpret.