<p>14:14 <i>For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful</i>- This is not to say that tongues are to be used when praying. For the gift of foreign languages or tongues was clearly in order to preach the Gospel to those speaking foreign languages, as witnessed by the account in Acts 2. Paul is stating the hypothetical situation- if he, as the Corinthians were doing, were to pray as they prayed, in ecstatic utterances, then at best his spirit would be praying but he himself would not understand what he was saying. Again the GNB has the idea right: &quot;For if I pray in this way, my spirit prays indeed, but my mind has no part in it&quot;. The connection between tongues and prayer was because this was what happened in the surrounding idol cults; prayer was supposedly made through the ecstatic utterances. Whereas Biblically, tongues / languages were in order to spread the Gospel in public preaching as Paul will go on to point out. Note that the term &quot;unfruitful&quot; is elsewhere used of those who fall away from faith and shall not be saved finally (Mt. 13:22; Eph. 5:11; Jude 12 etc.). Even if it were claimed that such utterances were 'the Spirit praying within me', Paul says that because there is no good done for others, such behaviour is unfruitful, it does not bear the fruit of the Spirit. So the Spirit can hardly be really within the behaviour if it doesn't bear the fruit of the Spirit.</p>