“Aug 26, 2024 - Have They Not Heard?”

Sunday, August 25, 2024

Have They Not Heard?

Reading:  Romans 10:14-21
    
    Paul is still explaining the rejection of the gospel by many of his fellow Jews by employing many Old Testament passages and prophecies.  If God will save everyone who calls on the name of Jesus (Rom 10:13), then God still has some work to do.  “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?  And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?  And how are they to hear without someone preaching?  And how are they to preach unless they are sent?”(Rom 10:14-15).  God must tell people about Jesus so that they can be saved by him, which means that he must broadcast the message.  He has done this; Paul himself is the proof.  Yet this has not produced faith.  “But they have not all obeyed the gospel.  For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?’  So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ”(Rom 10:16-17).  Hearing should produce faith, yet much hearing about Jesus has not produced this faith.  God has not failed; his people have rejected him.

    Paul then breaks down each part of the process.  “But I ask, have they not heard?  Indeed they have, for ‘their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world”(Rom 10:18).  Psalm 19 describes how God has spoken through the natural world and Paul sees this as the beginning of a message that the gospel completes.  “But I ask, did Israel not understand?  First Moses says, ‘I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation; with a foolish nation I will make you angry.’  Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, ‘I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me’”(Rom 10:19-20).  Paul gets nearer to his point here:  Israel has not rejected Jesus because of a failure to hear or understand, but because of their prejudice against Gentiles.  God has long wanted to save the Gentiles, while some stubborn and obstinate Jews reject this course (Rom 10:21).

    This text reminds us that rejecting the gospel is rarely about a failure to hear or understand.  Motives matter.  When we refuse to submit, dislike what God expects, or cherish our evil, God is not at fault.  Will we humble ourselves?

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One Thing to Think About:  What prejudices or obstacles might keep me from obeying Jesus?

One Thing to Pray For:  A deeper faith through hearing the word of Christ 
 

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