And yet the Bible in talking of tongues in respect of the Pentecost event, speaks of them as understandable tongues readily understood by those people from the countries of origin.
Yes, but let me try to explain this again.
The "prayer language" that you get on the first infilling is not necessarily the "Gift of Tongues".
The "Gift of Tongues" is used in giving a divine utterance in a congregation, or in some rare cases such as on the Day of Pentecost, and in the book "Before we kill and Eat you", it can be used to give a divine utterance directly to a person of another native language that you do not know.
If "Tongues" simply represented a person "learning" a new language, then "Interpretation of Tongues" would not be a seperate Gift...Either you "Know" French, or you don't.
Now, if there is a congregation of 1000 pentecostal christians, and lets say 500 of them have received the Holy Spirit and have the evidence of Tongues, with the remnant having never asked (in my experience, everyone who asks eventually gets it). Ok, that gives us up to 500 "prayer languages" though many will be repeats.
But there are some issues with the "prayer language". In many cases, it really does develope just like a child learning to speak for the first time.
The "prayer language" is not really intended to be understood by other people, but if a given person's prayer language happens to be French, and there is a French person standing by, they will understand it.
Now, lets take the same hypothetical Spirit filled believer, who's prayer language was french. If this person also has the "Gift" of Tongues, which is not the same thing as the prayer language, then this is some examples of what CAN happen.
1) Utterance and interpretation.
A) The person with the "Gift" of tongues speaks by divine inspiration in a language that they do NOT know. It can be different every time, or it can be the same. Lets say this time it is Arabic.
B) If anyone standing by KNOWS Arabic, they will understand the tongue, but this is NOT the "Gift" of interpretation.
C) Usually another person gives the interpretation. This is a second divinely inspired utterance.
D) If the person in B above knows both languages, that person can verify that both the utterances are one and the same.
Now, just because there is nobody around that knows Arabic does not negate the legitimacy of A and C. Paul said, "Greater is he that prophesies UNLESS he interprets."
In other words, "Tongues + Interpretation = Prophecy", with or without B and D.
Moreover, the same speaker who spoke in Arabic this time may end up speaking in Japanese next time this happens. There isn't necessarily a restriction.
2) "Gift of Tongues" for Direct Prophecy to a foreigner
As I mentioned, already in the book "Before we Kill and Eat You", H.B. Garlock records that instance in a hostage situation where God himself told him, "Open your mouth and I'll fill it."
He began to speak in tongues, and in this case the language that came out was the native language of the tribe that held the hostages. The tribe released the hostages. and he asked them what happened.
The translator says, "I don't know, but you're speaking their language". It turns out, that what he was saying was literally a divine sentence from God, the gist of which was, "If you don't release those hostages, My God is going to destroy you," and apparantly something that only God could have known was said, which convinced them that he wasn't bluffing.
Now, if we have 500 different people in a congregation, some of their "tongues" will be redundant. Some will have obscure dialects that are very rare and they may never actually encounter someone who understands the particular tongue.
Does that negate the importance of it? Not really.
You can't expect people to actually be bothered "searching out" what dialect they are speaking, particularly since the church has accounts of it not even being the same dialect every time, as mentioned above.
In fact, it would almost seem to ruin the Gift if you actually did that.
