Paul asserted that whoever speaks in a tongue “does not speak to men, but to God”
If tongues-speech is always a human language, how could Paul say that “no one understands?
Because that's not at all what he said -
1Cor. 14:2 is perhaps
the quintessential verse used by many to “evidence” modern tongues-speech in the Bible.
Let’s paraphrase this verse into a more modern English.
To do this, you need to get rid of the added “unknown”, use a more accurate translation from the Greek, and a more modern rendering of the archaic word “tongue” –
Once done, we have something more like this –
“He that speaks in a language isn’t speaking to others, but only to God; no one hears [him] with understanding (or "no one listening to/hearing him understands what he's saying); nevertheless, though he’s praying in the Spirit, he’s uttering mysteries.”
The whole passage is talking about real, rational language.
Let me use an analogy - If I attend a worship service in “East Haystack”, some remote town in the US out in the middle of nowhere, two things are going to be evident: one; there’s only going to be so many people at that service (i.e. there will be a finite given amount of people there) and two; the chances that anyone speaks anything but English is pretty slim to nil.
If I start praying aloud in say Lithuanian, there’s no one at that service that’s going to understand a single word I’m saying. Even though I’m speaking a real language, no one
there will understand my “tongue”. That does not mean or imply that no one else understands Lithuanian; just no one at
that particular service.
In this sense, therefore, I am speaking
only to God, since he understands all languages. To everyone at the service, even though I’m praying in the Spirit (as defined below), to the people listening to me, I’m still speaking “mysteries” – i.e. even though I’m praying as I ought, no one understands me; no one has a clue what I’m saying as no one speaks my language.
When one looks at the original Greek, the verb which is usually translated as “understandeth/understands” is actually the verb “to hear” in the sense of understanding what you’re hearing someone say. The verb is
not “to understand”. That part of the verse is more properly “no one hears [him] with understanding”, i.e.
no one listening to him understands what he’s saying.
There is
nothing in this passage that suggests modern tongues-speech nor is there anything that even
remotely suggests that the speaker does not understand what he himself is saying. The Greek bears this out; it is the
listeners who do not understand,
not the speaker as well – no matter how hard modern tongues-speakers want the speaker to also not understand…….it just isn’t there.
“Praying in the Spirit” does
not refer to the words one is saying. Rather, it refers to
how one is praying. In the three places it is used (Corinthians, Ephesians, and Jude), there is absolutely zero reference to 'languages' in connection with this phrase. “Praying in the Spirit” should be understood as praying in the power of the Spirit, by the leading of the Spirit, and according to His will.