So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
Romans 10:17
I am working on the study guide handouts for my Cross Guard kids at my home church, Shiloh, and I just had a breathtaking moment as I was digging into what questions to have the children answer concerning Romans 10:17 and what things concerning the verse I wanted them to think about.
I wanted to ask them to think about what was “the word of Christ” and so in order to help them think about this more deeply I wanted to share with them what this phrase was in the original Greek. So as I opened up my study tools and read the information pertaining to this segment of Romans 10:17, my heart caught at the beauty of it.
Here is the HELP word studies definition of hearing:
189 akoḗ – properly, hearing; used of inner (spiritual) hearing that goes with receiving faith from God (Ro 10:17), i.e. spiritual hearing (discerning God’s voice; see also Gal 3:2,5, Gk text).
Here is the HELP word studies definition of word:
4487 rhḗma (from 4483 /rhéō, “to speak”) – a spoken word, made “by the living voice” (J. Thayer). 4487 /rhḗma (“spoken-word”) is commonly used in the NT (and in LXX) for the Lord speaking His dynamic, living word in a believer to inbirth faith (“His inwrought persuasion”).
Ro 10:17: “So faith proceeds from (spiritual) hearing; moreover this hearing (is consummated) through a rhēma-word (4487 /rhḗma) from Christ” (Gk text).
[See also Gal 3:2,5 which refers to “the hearing of faith” (Gk text) – i.e. a spiritual hearing that goes with the divine inbirthing of faith.]
There is something that happens to us when the words of Scripture are read or spoken. When we read or hear this word, we never forget it. It continues to live in us. It is a living word. It comes in through the entrance of our eyes, or our ears, and it travels into the depths of our being, and over, and over, and over again, we will find it resurfaces with in us.
Each time it resurfaces we will do one of two things… we will either grow to hate it more and more, despising its churning within us, and we will look for ways to silence it… or we will begin to love it more and more, desiring to learn more from it, and we will seek it and even chase after it. This living word becomes our hope… and then in hope against hope we surrender to belief and we respond to this living word with our cry for salvation.
I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, And in His word do I hope.
Psalm 130:5
We dare to believe that this word is truth.
The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting
Psalm 119:160
This word gives birth within us and we are born again!
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
Romans 10:8-9
I heard the word as a child… and no matter what I did, no matter how far away I went, no matter how lost I became… I could not stop hearing the Word. It’s sweet whispering and it’s fiery judgments, it’s great joyous hope and its fear of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Both called me, both begged me to come and drink of the living water… of the Living Word.
Every sunrise offered me hope… every nightfall filled me with fear… would I step into the glorious hope of the sunrise or would I sink deeper into the fears of darkness. The living word churned within me… would I despise it… or would I chase it.
I chose to chase it.