When the apostles were speaking in tongues, were they actually speaking a different language or did each person hear them in their own language?\u00a0 Were they each speaking and different groups congregated toward the one who was speaking their particular language or did each apostle just speak and every person just heard him in their own language?<\/p>\n\t
When the people exclaimed about the miracle, they said “we hear them speaking in our languages the mighty works of God!<\/em>” (Acts 2:11). Because it says “them” we know that more than one apostle was speaking. This fits with what is stated next, “But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and spoke out to them” (Acts 2:14). It was Peter’s sermon, but the other eleven were also there, presumably translating what Peter said into other languages. The people heard the apostles speaking<\/strong>\u00a0in their native languages. This is who the Spirit described the miracle. “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and\u00a0began to speak with other languages<\/strong>, as the Spirit gave them the ability to speak<\/em>” (Acts 2:4). The miracle was that they spoke in other languages, not that people heard in other languages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: When the apostles were speaking in tongues, were they actually speaking a different language or did each person hear them in their own language?\u00a0 Were they each speaking and different groups congregated toward the one who was speaking their particular language or did each apostle just speak and every person just heard him in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[144,363,142,141],"class_list":["post-10768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-acts","tag-miracles","tag-speaking-in-tongues","tag-tongue-speaking"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":41673,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-was-there-a-need-for-the-interpretation-of-tongues\/","url_meta":{"origin":10768,"position":0},"title":"Why was there a need for the interpretation of tongues?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 9, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Greetings Brother, Thank you in advance for answering my question, which is: Why did the disciples, who received the Spiritual gift of speaking in tongues by the laying on of the hands of the apostles, need interpreters when employing that gift and the apostles did not? Thank you so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10447,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-balaams-donkey-speaking-in-tongues\/","url_meta":{"origin":10768,"position":1},"title":"Was Balaam’s donkey speaking in tongues?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Was speaking in tongues done in the Old Testament? The reason I ask is that talking in tongues is nothing more speaking in a language not known to the user. I know it won't be a critical or applicable statement, but didn't even a donkey speak in tongues with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":90710,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/speaking-in-tongues-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":10768,"position":2},"title":"Speaking in Tongues?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 24, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Ron Boatwright Many in the religious world today are obsessed with \"speaking in tongues.\" According to the Bible, one of the miracles of the first century was the ability to speak in understandable foreign languages, which the speaker had never learned. In Acts 2, on the Day of Pentecost,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":95190,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/dont-you-know-that-the-language-of-god-is-understandable-to-those-needing-to-understand\/","url_meta":{"origin":10768,"position":3},"title":"Don’t you know that the language of God is understandable to those needing to understand?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 20, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: [I left this one unedited since the author believes he is being led by the Spirit.] I don't know who you've met, what you've read, or who you've talked to. But what I do know is that the blood is dripping from your hands and all that you led\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10535,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-speaking-in-tongues-and-prophesying-similar-gifts\/","url_meta":{"origin":10768,"position":4},"title":"Are speaking in tongues and prophesying similar gifts?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: With talking in tongues, some of the time it says they talked in tongues and prophesied. Was that part of talking in tongues, or separate? I always get confused. I know in I Corinthians 14:22 mentions reasons for each, but I don't know if they are separate. Answer: Speaking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":90346,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/tongues-without-an-interpreter\/","url_meta":{"origin":10768,"position":5},"title":"Tongues Without an Interpreter","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 11, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Hugh DeLong The gift of being able to speak in languages that one had not previously known is called the gift of tongues. There are only five references to this: Mark 16:16-20; Acts 2; Acts 10; Acts 19; and the longest one in I Corinthians 12-14. That such was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}