According to scripture, God enabled believers to speak to him in a heavenly language. A language unknown except by him and those to whom he gave a gift for interpreting it (1 Corinthians 14:27–28).
Many think the Apostles spoke supernaturally in human languages at Pentecost. And people from different nations naturally understood what they said in their own tongue. But Paul says when a person speaks in tongues, they speak to God and not to men (1 Corinthians 14:2). So on Pentecost, the Apostles spoke to God in a heavenly tongue and devout Jews from every nation overheard them in their own native tongue. So they must have received the gift of interpreting too.
God delivered the gift of tongues personally in the baptism of the Holy Spirit during the Jewish outpouring and about seven years later in the gentile outpouring at Cornelius’ house. But all other times he delivered the gift of tongues through the Apostles’ hands (Acts 8:18). Scripture does not mention any other means of distribution apart from these.
God placed tongues and interpretation into groups of converts in various regions through the Apostles. So each church would have God’s word spoken personally to them by individual members who received the gift. We see the laying on of hands in Jerusalem (Acts 6:6), Ephesus (Acts 19:1–7), and Samaria (Acts 8:14–17) and throughout Paul’s journeys where he gave the gifts (2 Timothy 1:6; Romans 1:11). God sent Ananias, who according to history was one of the original seventy disciples ordained by Christ, through whose hands Paul became healed and filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:17).
They spoke God’s word through tongues and interpretation and through prophecy. With this they passed around the Apostle’s writings that would become the New Testament scriptures. Paul said tongues would stop when a better way, one that is perfect comes (1 Corinthians 13:8–10.)
Many think perfection happens in the new heavens and earth. But Paul qualifies this by saying whenever it comes, faith, hope and love would remain (1 Corinthians 13:13). Faith, hope and love fits well into this present world where we need all the faith, hope and love we can get. But in the world to come we’ll have all we ever hoped for and believed in. So Paul inferred tongues would stop sometime before Christ’s return on the last day, when hope and faith find fulfillment in the new world.
Paul urged believers to come behind in no gift until the coming (apocalypse or Revelation) of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:7). This is the same word John uses for the apocalypse of Jesus Christ. What we call the book of Revelation.
So this is likely what Paul saw through a glass darkly. A revelation he knew was coming but didn’t know how or when. Paul urged them to continue seeking spiritual gifts until Christ provided a revelation. We know a revelation came through John about the time speaking in tongues disappears from history.
Many gifts continue today as permanent endowments to the Church. We have miracles and healings through the prayer of faith (James 5:15). Also pastors, evangelists and teachers with the Apostles and Prophets cast in their writings (Ephesians 4:11). But God removed the apostolic signs and wonders with the death of the last Apostle. And he gave us a more sure word of prophecy than tongues and prophecy could provide (2 Peter 1:17–20).
God withdrew the Apostles, honoring them in the Book of Revelation. He wrote their names in the foundations of heavenly Jerusalem with the names of the twelve sons of Israel. This brought to a close the apostolic age and the gifts that flowed through their hands.
