Seminaries, Bible schools and pastor-training intensives can teach every student in their heart language without hiring interpreters by using live seminary translation: one teacher speaks, and each student reads captions and hears a natural voice in their own language on their own phone or a headset. That's what we built Jesus Speaks to do. A single lecturer can be translated into up to 87 listener languages at once (87+ in our catalog, from 56 source languages), and students scan a QR code or open a link in any browser, then pick their language. Nothing to install. If you've ever led a training week where half the room was nodding while missing the argument of Romans 5, you know why this matters. Paul wrote that he had become all things to all people (1 Corinthians 9:22). For those of us who train pastors, part of that is making sure the person who will carry the Word home received it in words they think and pray in.
Why is theological training in the heart language so hard to provide?
We hear the same story from training leaders on almost every continent. You've gathered twenty or forty pastors for a week of intensive teaching. Some came by bus for two days. Between them they speak six or eight first languages, and your shared language, maybe English, French or Portuguese, is the third or fourth language for many of them.
The usual answers are out of reach:
- Professional interpreters are costly and hard to find, especially for smaller languages and for theological vocabulary.
- Volunteer interpreters are a gift, but interpreting eight hours of lectures a day wears them down fast, and they miss the teaching themselves.
- Interpreter booths and receiver racks belong to budgets a pastor-training school rarely sees.
So students make do. They follow the outline, catch the gist, and miss the nuance. And in theological training, the nuance is often the whole point.
What does the Scripture access gap mean for your students?
Many of the pastors you train will go home to communities that still don't have the whole Bible in their language. That makes it even more important that they understand the teaching clearly, because they may be the bridge between the text and their people.
How many people still lack Scripture in their language?
| Figure | What it describes | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 123 million people | Worldwide, with no Scripture in their heart language | United Bible Societies, 2025 |
| 1.5 billion+ people | Worldwide, without the full Bible in their language | United Bible Societies, 2025 |
| 544 of 7,396 living languages | Still waiting for Bible translation to begin (as of August 1, 2025) | Wycliffe Global Alliance, August 2025 |
| 1,712 languages | On the work-in-progress list, but with no verses translated yet | Wycliffe Global Alliance, August 2025 |
Is theological training growing?
Training is also not shrinking. In the United States and Canada, the Association of Theological Schools reported 70,179 students across master's and doctoral programs in its 2025-26 data, with 56% of member schools growing year over year (MinistryWatch, 2025). More students, from more backgrounds, means more languages in the classroom.
How does seminary translation work with Jesus Speaks?
The lecturer teaches as usual, and Jesus Speaks turns that teaching into live captions and a spoken voice in each student's chosen language, delivered to their own device. Three things make it fit a classroom: students join without installing anything, they get text and voice side by side, and the whole lecture reaches them without gaps.
Nothing for students to install
Students scan a QR code on the screen or open a link in their browser, choose their language, and they're in. Listeners never pay, and there's no limit on how many join. One phone at the front of the room is enough to start.
Captions and a natural voice, together
Every student reads live captions and hears a warm, natural spoken voice in their own language. Some like to listen with one earbud and glance at the text when a Greek word or a long quotation comes up. Others prefer to read. Both are there at once.
Every word is kept
This one matters to us as a ministry conviction, not only as an engineering choice. When playback falls behind the speaker, it speeds up rather than skipping ahead. Your students hear the whole lecture, not a summary of it. When you're walking through an argument in Hebrews, a dropped sentence can be the one that held it together.
Can it get theological terms and Bible names right?
This is where a lot of translation tools stumble, and where we put real effort. Theology has its own vocabulary: justification, propitiation, covenant, Septuagint. Then there are the names. Mephibosheth. Nebuchadnezzar. Your own school's founders, the town where your intensive meets, the local denominational body.
Before a session, you can upload:
- Lecture or sermon notes, so the system knows what's coming
- A glossary of theological terms and how your tradition renders them
- A name list of people, places and ministry terms
With those in place, proper names, place names and ministry terms come through right far more often. We'd encourage you to build one glossary for your whole program and reuse it every term. It's a small investment that pays off in every class.
How does the side-by-side view help students?
The side-by-side captions view shows the text in a clear, readable layout, which is a blessing for older and hard-of-hearing students who struggle to follow spoken teaching even in their own language.
It also helps second-language learners. Many of your students are working hard to strengthen their academic English or French. Seeing the captions while hearing the teaching gives them a way to follow along, check a phrase, and keep up when the lecturer speeds up near the end of class. Nobody has to raise a hand and admit they're lost.
Which setup fits your classroom or intensive?
There are four ways to run Jesus Speaks, and you can pick whatever matches your room:
- A single phone. No hardware at all. Ideal for a borrowed church hall or a training week in a rural village.
- A laptop into your soundboard. If your seminary chapel or lecture hall has a sound system, the translated audio can go out to the house speakers or your livestream.
- Students on their own phones. Each person picks a language and listens with their own earbuds.
- Wireless listening receivers. If you already own headsets for interpretation, the audio can go out to them. An existing assistive-listening system may also accept the audio feed.
It runs on a simple cell-phone data connection, so you don't need campus Wi-Fi. And if part of your program meets online, it also translates Zoom, Teams, Meet and Webex calls, which helps with hybrid cohorts and distance mentoring.
How are credits used during a multilingual training week?
We price for ministry, not margin. You buy prepaid credits (1 credit = €1), and they're drawn down per language per minute actually heard. Listeners never pay.
As a reference point, a one-hour session in three languages on the standard voice is about 10.8 credits. As a rough estimate only, a five-day intensive with four hours of teaching a day in three languages would be somewhere around 216 credits. Your actual cost will vary with how many languages you run and how many minutes are heard. Premium voices, including one that can clone the lecturer's own voice, cost more.
You start with €5 of credit on us, and scholarships and subsidies are available for ministries that need them. Please ask; that's why they exist.
A word about who we serve
Jesus Speaks is only available to Christian ministries who share our statement of faith. We built it on the field, for the field, and we want it serving the Church.
When the Spirit came at Pentecost, the crowd said, "We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues" (Acts 2:11). Paul told Timothy to entrust what he'd heard to faithful people who would be able to teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). Your training program sits right in that chain. We'd love to help every student in your next cohort hear the teaching clearly.
If you lead a seminary, Bible school or pastor-training intensive and share our statement of faith, you're welcome to create an account and try it with your own lectures. Start with one phone and one class, and see how your students respond.