Misinterpreting Romans 10:17 - Faith comes by hearing

Recently we've been reconsidering many of the things we thought we understood regarding doctrine and faith. We have begun to question certain beliefs, church structures, and practices of the western church. Too often we have discovered unbiblical doctrines and activities. This causes us concern. We have deemed this our “rethink.”

Our questions include, how did we arrive at our doctrines? Does the Bible really teach what we think it teaches? Why do churches do what they do? What is the biblical basis of church leadership structure? Why do certain traditions get entrenched?

It's easy to be spoon fed the conventional wisdom, but it's an entirely separate thing to search these things out for one's self. In the past we have read the Bible with these unexamined understandings and interpreted what we read through those lenses. We were lazy about our Bible study, assuming that pastors and theologians were telling us the truth, but we rarely checked it out for ourselves.

Therefore, these Rethinks are our attempt to remedy the situation.

We should note that we are not Bible scholars, but we believe that one doesn't need to be in order to understand the Word of God.
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The verse is familiar one:

Ro. 10:17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

We have seen this verse (and the verses leading up to it) used as a proof text to assert that preaching is the only possible way to come to faith. Which means the reports of remote tribes having visions of Christ are deemed false because of this.

The leading verses do indeed refer to preaching, being sent, and hearing:

Ro. 10:14-15 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent?

How can they, Paul asks. Many would assume that they can't without the sent preachers, but the question is rhetorical. When Paul continues on to the further thought in verse 17, he uses a different Greek words for "hear/heard" In verse 14 it is akoúō while in verse 17 it is akoé. Akoúō is the physical sense of hearing, while akoé refers to 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). This kind of hearing is not a function of the auditory process, it is a supernatural hearing.

Can people who have never heard the preached Gospel be saved, then? Romans 10 certainly doesn't tell us the sole method of salvation, since hearing can be spiritual perception. A vision of Christ, therefore, can be sufficient to repent and obtain faith.

In addition, the word "word" is rhéma, a spoken word, made "by the living voice." This is not the Bible being preached, it is the living word of Christ, the Gospel. The message is spiritually perceived via the rhema of Christ, not necessarily through the Scriptures, a preacher, or a pamphlet. While these all are useful and proper, we need to understand the mechanism is spiritual understanding.

Let's put it together: Faith comes from spiritually discerning God's voice, and spiritually discerning God's voice comes through the word spoken by the living voice of Christ.

So on one hand it is true that the Gospel must be preached, but it is not true that the human-preached Gospel is the only way to come to faith.