I must reiterate something we established in our previous study about the gift of speaking in tongues. In this chapter, Paul has in mind their practice of speaking in tongues without any corresponding gift of interpretation.
It is uninterpreted tongues that are the problem. When an utterance in tongues is interpreted, and is therefore intelligible, it is on an equal par with any other speaking gift.
Interpreted tongues edifies; uninterpreted tongues does not, and it can not in Paul’s theology. (Pastor Gene Pensiero)