The “speaking in tongues” that took place on Pentecost is no different from the speaking in tongues that each and every believer can do. The miracle that God performed was not the “speaking in tongues” itself, but that the “tongue” He gave was understandable to people who were present. When Peter preached to Cornielius, he didn’t speak in tongues, but when Cornielius’ household heard the Word of God, they were “baptized in the holy spirit” and they spoke in tongues.

A careful reading of 1 Cor 12 - 14 shows that God wants us to speak in tongues. Why? Because it builds us up. We do many things to edify our spiritual lives - we pray with our understanding, we read and study scripture, we fellowship with other believers. Speaking in tongues by itself is for the private prayer life. The Word tells us to pray always. It is done privately and corporately. Private prayer is no less necessary than corporate prayer. We do not speak of private prayer as a “lesser” form of prayer. Likewise, speaking in tongues is NOT a “lesser gift” (not a gift, but a manifestation and still not lesser), it is a single aspect of our relationship with God and Christ. It is neither lesser nor greater than any other aspect of our relationship. The clear meaning of 1 Cor 12 - 14 is that when we fellowship with other believers, we leave behind ourselves and seek to bless and build up the Church. Since speaking in tongues (by itself) only edifies the person speaking then we are not edifying the Church. However, when we add interpretation to speaking in tongues then we are edifying the Church. Within the corporate setting we should always seek to edify the Body, it is the Christian thing to do.