If a person is a Christian, he has Holy Spirit dwelling in him. For the special gifting that comes with the Holy Spirit's baptism, and empowerment, we/he merely need to ask and submit to it. People who speak in tongues are from all levels of spiritual maturity. Holy Spirit is generous with Himself, even though some people misuse what He gives us. It is for us to be careful that we do not.
The spiritual gifts identified in
Romans 12 are prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leadership, and mercy.
I would disagree that "tongues" are spoken because of the level of spiritual maturity. IMO it is just the opposite of that, and is not Biblical but instead "an act of emotionalism".
The person doing it wants to be spiritual, wants to manifest the love they have for God and then are overcome by their emotions and before you know it, they are making sounds that no one can understand.
I know what this comment is going to produce and I have no desire to argue the point with my sister Euphemia. She will have a different opinion and just as I am able to state mine she is able to state hers. So the right thing to do is to identify what "tongues" really are and not what we see being done in churches all over the land today.
For example, if an English-speaking Christian with the gift of tongues is prompted by the Spirit to speak in Chinese, then this believer will not understand his own speech, which is the essence of the miracle. Nevertheless, the speech is real Chinese, and though the speaker cannot understand the foreign tongue, anyone who knows the Chinese language would understand the speech perfectly.
So a "tongue" is not a strange, nonhuman pattern of speech. On the contrary, it is normal human language, though a language the speaker himself does not naturally understand. It was a DIALECT that was understood!!!
We can see this truth at work in Acts 2, when thousands of new Jewish Christians began to speak in unknown tongues at Pentecost. In Acts 2:4-8. we see that these "tongues" were normal, human languages that many foreigners in the crowd could understand naturally:
Acts 2:6 And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language.
Acts 2:7 They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans?
Acts 2:8 “And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born?
Acts 2:9 “Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
Acts 2:10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,
Acts 2:11 Cretans and Arabs — we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.”
The miracle of the moment was the way the speakers themselves couldn't understand the words coming out of their own mouths, but this didn't require that they speak in gibberish or "mysterious" tongues. They simply spoke in foreign languages they didn't previously know. Truly, that was a miracle.
So, speaking in tongues is never a practice of uttering gibberish or chanting repetitive sounds that we see done today. The fact that so much of what passes as "speaking in tongues" today is clearly nothing more than babbling gibberish is our first clue that the modern-day practice of speaking in "tongues" is rife with error and false displays, rather than being a true work of the Spirit.
The ONE and ONLY reason for men to speak in a "tongue" was to spread the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and what we see today does nothing but harm the cause for Christ.