Acts 10:44

‘While Peter yet spoke these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all those who heard the word.'

We do not know whether Peter would then have appealed for them to respond for, before he could do so, the Holy Spirit fell ‘on those who heard the word'. As he proclaimed that, “through his name every one who believes on him shall receive remission of sins”, the hearts of the Gentiles responded as one, and the Holy Spirit fell on them. The experience was powerful and immediate. ‘On those who heard his words' probably means the whole receptive company, not just the particular ones whose hearts responded, because in this company all were responsive. And this was made apparent in that they ‘spoke with tongues' and ‘magnified God'. This parallels ‘spoke with tongues and prophesied' in Acts 19:6. That being so the magnifying of God would seem to have been in prophecy. This is confirmed by the fact that words spoken in an unknown tongue would not have had any specific meaning to those who heard them.

But these miraculous gifts stressed that these Gentiles were being received by God in the same way as the first believers had been. It is true that no mention is made here of whether the tongues were understood. But they may well have been, for this would probably be a multinational gathering, and other tongues which were understood by the hearers, as at Pentecost, would have sealed to watchers and recipients alike that God was welcoming people of all races on equal terms. When a phenomenon has been previously mentioned, and then it is again mentioned much more briefly in a similar context, we have a right to assume that it is similar in most respects to the first unless we are told otherwise. Ecstatic tongues coming from Gentiles might rather have put these Jews who heard them off and made them apprehensive. They would know of such ecstatic utterances in demon worship. But if these tongues were similar to those at Pentecost, and understood by some present, they would therefore be comforting. Whatever 1 Corinthians 12-14 speaks of comes much later and, as there they are clearly unknown tongues they do not necessarily relate to these occurrences in Acts, although they may.