Faith Comes By Hearing

• Read: Romans 10:13-21
• Memorize: 10:17

A man attended our church for a while, his name was Fred. Fred had earned a reputation around town for disrupting church services and Bible studies; he even boasted about getting "kicked out of nearly every church in town" on his first Sunday with us. We welcomed him with open arms and thought, surely those other people just didn't have enough grace to put up with a troublesome old man. We soon found our limits...

Fred's sinister gift was to take a verse, apart from its context, and twist it into something that it was never intended to mean. One of his favorite verses to distort was Romans 10:17. "Faith comes by hearing," he would say, "and hearing by the word of God, so we have to read the Bible out loud or it is of no profit to us - never read the Bible silently." The youth group began to call him "the Fredinator" and when he pulled stunts like this, we would say that you have been "Fredinated".

God's Word written down in the Bible is hugely important, that is true, but the "hearing" that Paul speaks of is not a decibel level, but a response level. (If Fred was right, then what happens to deaf people, who can't "hear" the Word?) Where Fred was wrong was his understanding of the meaning of this verse, and subsequently misapplication of the principle.

Context is key to a right understanding, so let's look at the rest of this chapter: Paul is writing about the Jewish people, who had the facts, but misunderstood the meaning. The pharisees in particular could quote whole sections of the Old Testament, but didn't have true righteousness because they pursued it by works instead of faith. In response to this error, Paul says, faith comes by "hearing" the Word of God. This isn't the kind of hearing that you use when your mom tells you to do something and you let the instruction go in one ear and out the other, but a hearing that is accompanied by comprehension, and which results in action; in this case the result is believing by faith.

Jesus sent us all to testify to the truth so that others may hear, understand, believe and call on the Lord to be saved. Don't be a "fredinator"; speak the truth of God's Word, in proper context and accompanied by a life of holiness that stems from true faith.

Comment:

1. What was the major error of the "fredinator"?
2. Explain what "hearing" means in this passage.