Please note that in context Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees for their unbelief not praising them with promises of miracles.
Regarding 'Except ye SEE signs and wonders, ye will not believe.' Jesus said this after a nobleman asked for Jesus to heal his son.
It's lamentable that people were that way. Yet Jesus still did signs and wonders. Thomas wouldn't beleive in the resurrection, he said, unless he put his finger in the Lord's hand and his hand in His side. Christ told him to do it and 'be not faithless, but believing.' But He said blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have beleived.
People who believe without seeing are more blessed, but that doesn't mean that God in His mercy doesn't at times do miracles, and even do miracles through people, as scripture shows us.
But back to the original point, notice that the signs and wonders had an effect on them that saw them.
See also Acts 13
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11 [/SUP]And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand.
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12 [/SUP]Then the deputy, when he
saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.
This doesn't support the idea that miracles were just to once-for-all confirm a book. The miracles had an effect on those who SAW them. That's not the same thing as reading about them in scripture. The first century Jews could have read about the parting of the Red Sea and Moses' other miracles. Jesus said Moses wrote of Him. So why would there be any miracles after Moses to confirm the Gospel if John Calvin's reasoning were true?
Every case recorded in the NT tongues were a sign for the Jewish people present. Regardless of who is speaking it was always a sign to the Jews. Is that the case today? If not what has changed?
Why don't you apply the same reasoning to water baptism? Show me someone who baptized in the Bible who wasn't Jewish? Show me someone who got saved without a Jew being present? Show me evidence of a church in scripture that didn't have a Jew in it? Would you argue that we can't have water baptism, salvation, preaching, or a church without Jews being present?
Paul doesn't say they were a sign for the Jews, but for them that believe not. The Isaiah passage he quotes is about the northern kingdom. The Jews were descended from the people of the southern kingdom.
In my opinion which is never humble tongues as practiced in the modern church are so corrupted and perverted that they are nothing more than a money maker for the church's involved.
I don't see how tongues makes a church more money.