Barnes on I Corinthians 14:13
What does Paul mean by: ‘Let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue, pray that he may interpret?’ He means, comments Barnes, the following. “The power of speaking foreign languages, and the power of conveying truth in a clear and distinct manner, were not always found in the same person. The one [gift] did not of necessity imply the other.”
These two distinctly different gifts of tongues-speaking and tongues-interpretation, however, “were bestowed on men in some such way as ordinary talents and mental powers are now conferred…. They became in a similar sense the characteristic mental endowments of the individual, and of course were subject to the same laws [as still operate today]…. And as it now happens that one man may have a peculiar faculty for acquiring and expressing himself in a foreign language who may not be by any means distinguished for clear enunciation, or capable of conveying his ideas in an interesting manner to a congregation — so it was then.
