What Does The Bible Teach About Speaking In Tongues?

The Bible records several incidents when Christians were enabled to speak in foreign languages that they had never learned.  This is referred to as the gift of tongues, or speaking in tongues.  

Today there are two main views on the gift of tongues.  Cessationists believe that the gift ceased when the New Testament was completed in the first century, and it is no longer in operation today.  All the believers claiming to speak in tongues today are not actually experiencing the Biblical gift of tongues, but are faking it, or are experiencing some other phenomenon.  Popular cessationists include John Chrysostom, Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, B. B. Warfield, and John MacArthur.

Continuationists, on the other hand, believe that the gift of tongues is still in operation today.  Among continuationists, there are two camps.  First are those who affirm all that we see happening in charismatic and Pentecostal churches today.  Second are those who believe that God can still use the gift of tongues today if He wants to, but they don't necessarily believe that the "tongues" in the modern Pentecostal and charismatic churches is authentic

I am not a cessationist, because to say that God will never again give the church the gift of tongues puts God in a box.  That seems to be a very dogmatic stance on something that the Bible is unclear about.

However, I am not a supporter of the "tongues" that we see happening in modern Pentecostal and charismatic churches.  Either the tongues are fake, or they experiencing an unbiblical phenomenon.  I say that because I don't see these churches following the Biblical guidelines for the gift of tongues.

For example, in the Bible the gift of tongues was a real language.  When the believers spoke in tongues in Acts 2, the Jews from all over the Roman Empire could hear them praising God, each in their native language (Acts 2:4-6).  The Greek word for tongues, glossa, literally means language.  However, contemporary tongues-speakers do not speak in an actual language.  For lack of a better word, it is gibberish.  It is similar "to the fantasy languages of children, the scat of the late Louis Armstrong, yodeling in the Alps, and wabling under the shower or in the bath (JI Packer, Keep in Step With The Spirit)."  Unbeknownst to many, the modern version of tongues is not a Spirit-empowered, supernatural phenomenon.  In fact, it is a learned skill.  The tongues-speaker is "in full possession and control of his wits and volition, and in no strange state of mind whatever (JI Packer, Keep in Step With The Spirit)."  It is a "willed and welcomed vocal event" in which the tongues-speaker is taught to "loosen the jaw, speak nonsense syllables, utter as praise to God the first sounds that come, and so forth (JI Packer, Keep in Step With The Spirit)."  This doesn't seem to fit with the picture of tongues in the New Testament at all.

If God does give someone the gift of tongues, the Bible has very clear guidelines for how to exercise the gift.

1. Christians are never commanded to speak in tongues, nor to seek the gift of tongues.
2. Not all Christians have the gift of tongues (1 Cor 12:29-30).
3. The gift of tongues is not evidence of being Spirit-filled (see Gal 5:22-23; Eph 5:18-6:9).
4. The gift of tongues only edifies the church when there is an interpreter (1 Cor 14:5).
5. The misuse of the gift of tongues can hinder the church's witness (1 Cor 14:23). 
6. For tongues to be allowed in a church meeting... 
1. Only two or at the most three people should be allowed to speak per meeting (1 Cor 14:27).
2. Only one person is allowed to speak at a time (1 Cor 14:27).
3. A person may only speak in tongues if an interpreter is present (1 Cor 14:27-28).
4. If there is no interpreter, you must keep silent in church (1 Cor 14:28).