Paul was explaining how the good news reaches Jew and Gentile alike. The verse is about Jesus proclaimed and people answering Him, not about repeating promises until they come true.
Faith comes by hearing means that trust in God is born when people hear the good news about Jesus. In Romans 10:17 Paul is explaining how that message reaches Jew and Gentile alike: someone is sent, the gospel is announced, people hear it, and faith is their answer to Jesus.
It is not a technique for building faith by repeating verses to yourself, and the word in this verse is not a private word that makes things happen. It is the word about Christ, spoken out loud by people who were sent.
We have written about what faith itself is, trust placed in a God who has shown Himself trustworthy, in what is faith. This post stays with one verse and asks a narrower question. Where does that trust come from, according to Paul?
Quoted alone, Romans 10:17 can be made to say almost anything. In the letter it sits inside Romans 9 to 11, which wrestles with a painful problem in Paul’s own generation. Israel’s Messiah had come, Gentiles were streaming into the family of God, and most of Paul’s own people had said no. Here is the shape of chapter 10, and the whole letter is in the book of Romans.
Paul borrows Moses’ words from Deuteronomy 30. Nobody has to climb to heaven or go down to the deep to fetch Christ. The word is near you, “that is, the word of faith that we proclaim.”
Confess Jesus as Lord, believe God raised Him. “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek,” and quoting Joel, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
If everyone who calls will be saved, how do people get to calling? They call because they believe, believe because they heard, hear because someone preached, preach because they were sent.
Paul admits the hard part with Isaiah 53:1. Not all obeyed the gospel. Then the conclusion: so faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Did they not hear? They did. Psalm 19, Deuteronomy 32 and Isaiah 65 follow, ending with God’s own lament: all day long He held out His hands.
“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?”
Romans 10:14 to 15 (ESV)Notice the little word that opens verse 17. “So.” The verse is a conclusion, a one line summary of the chain Paul just built. It describes the message about Jesus traveling from God, through sent people, to Jews and Gentiles who then call on Him. It was never a freestanding promise about devotional technique.
Two phrases carry the verse, and you can check the Greek yourself in the SBL Greek New Testament text of Romans 10.
Hearing. The word covers both the act of hearing and the thing that is heard: a report, a message, the news that went around.
Paul quotes Isaiah 53:1 from the Greek Old Testament: Lord, who has believed tē akoē hēmōn. The ESV renders it “what he has heard from us.” The King James says “our report.”
One sentence later, faith comes ex akoēs. Paul picks up the exact word he just quoted. The hearing is the report, the message about the Servant, now announced as Jesus.
Verse 16 says not all hypēkousan the gospel, translated obeyed. The verb is built on the word for hear. Hearing that never becomes trust is hearing that stopped short.
The second phrase is rhēmatos Christou, the word of Christ. The most natural reading is the message about Christ, and Paul has already told us so. Verse 8 called it “the word of faith that we proclaim.”
One honest note. In verse 14 the Greek can be read “him whom they have never heard,” and some careful readers take that to mean Christ Himself speaks when His gospel is preached. That is a fair reading and the question is genuinely open. Either way, the word that produces faith is about Jesus.
You may also notice the King James reads “the word of God” here. That follows later manuscripts. Most modern translations follow older ones that read “the word of Christ.” The meaning hardly moves.
In Romans 10:17 “hearing” is the message heard, the same word Isaiah used for “our report,” and “the word of Christ” is the proclaimed gospel about Jesus. Faith is what happens when that report is trusted.
Every post here is free to read. If this one helped you, you can help keep it that way. Pick an amount and finish on Stripe's secure checkout.
Change your amount, update your card, or cancel anytime. Enter the email you give with and Stripe sends you a secure link.
Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
Here is the popular teaching at its strongest. Faith comes by hearing, so if you hear yourself speak God’s promises over and over, faith builds up inside you until it is strong enough to bring what you said into being. You will sometimes hear it quoted as “faith comes by hearing, and hearing, and hearing.” Often “rhema” names the special word that finally clicks.
What that teaching protects is real. Scripture is meant to be read aloud, memorized and turned over in the mind day and night (Psalm 1:2).
Faith is a substance you build by repeating verses. Say the promise enough times, get your private rhema, and the outcome has to follow. If it does not come, you did not hear it enough.
Faith is the response of people who hear the gospel about Jesus from someone who was sent. The power is in the One proclaimed, and the word is the public message, not a secret formula.
Sound of Heaven’s position is that Romans 10:17 teaches faith is born when people hear Jesus proclaimed and trust Him. It does not teach that faith is manufactured by repetition, and it does not teach that faith is a force you aim at circumstances. That use of the verse is wrong.
The verse repeats “hearing” once, to say where the hearing comes from, not to prescribe more of it. And the rhema here is the preached gospel, which is exactly where we landed in what is a rhema word. Rhema is not a special category of word that makes things happen. God still speaks, and we welcome prophecy and every gift of the Spirit, but this verse is about the gospel going out to the nations.
We should say who the misuse lands on. The sick person told to keep confessing healing verses. The parent who quoted every promise and still buried a child. They end up believing their faith failed because they did not say it enough.
Jesus said the mouth speaks out of what fills the heart, which we unpack in out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Speech reveals the heart. It does not fill it by volume.
And the correction cuts the other way too. Hearing is not just attending a service or agreeing to information. Verse 16 ties hearing to obeying.
In Romans 10:16 to 17, what is the “hearing” that faith comes from?
Paul quotes Isaiah 53:1, Lord, who has believed our report, and then uses the same Greek word, akoe, in verse 17. The hearing is the gospel message, announced by people who were sent.
In the middle of the chain Paul quotes Isaiah. Read the original line whole.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’”
Isaiah 52:7 (ESV)In Isaiah it is a runner crossing the hills toward a ruined Jerusalem with news that exile is over. The feet are beautiful because of what they carry. It is not advice. It is news: your God reigns. Paul hears that announcement in the preaching of Jesus, the King whose reign had arrived. It is still the message. God reigns now.
A messenger sent ahead to announce what God had already done. Hearing did not create the return. They heard, and responded.
Apostle means one who is sent. In Paul’s generation the good news moved on the feet of real people walking Roman roads, and faith sprang up wherever they went.
Paul says their voice has gone out to all the earth. He writes it as done. Colossians 1:23 says the same gospel had been proclaimed in all creation under heaven.
Evangelism is a function in the body, not a title. Some carry it as a lifelong gift, as we describe in what is an evangelist, and every believer carries the news somewhere.
John Calvin, commenting on this verse, called it “a remarkable passage with regard to the efficacy of preaching; for he testifies, that by it faith is produced.” We part ways with Calvin on plenty, but he is right here. Faith comes to people when somebody goes and tells them about Jesus.
If faith comes from hearing about Jesus, the practical question is simple. Are you hearing about Him? Not your breakthrough or your next season. Him.
Read a Gospel start to finish, the way its first audience heard it. Jesus told a whole parable about hearing, the sower and the soils, which we walk through in the parable of the sower explained.
Paul’s chain has a preacher in it for a reason. Faith comes from outside you. Sit where the gospel is preached, week after week. If you are on Long Island, come visit us.
Speaking Scripture aloud is good. The difference is posture: you are listening to Jesus, not programming an outcome.
Verse 16 links hearing to obeying. Trust shows up in forgiveness, generosity and honesty, the kind of living James describes and we trace in faith without works examples.
Someone near you has not heard it plainly. You do not need a title to tell them. Start with what the gospel is and say it in your own words.
Some of you confessed every verse you could find over a diagnosis or a child, the answer did not come, and someone suggested the problem was your confession. I am sorry. That was never true, and it was never yours to carry.
Faith is trust in Jesus, and Jesus is not waiting for you to hit a number. Bring Him the grief as it is. If you would like someone to pray with you, ask for prayer here.
The most freeing thing about Romans 10:17 is where it puts the weight. Faith does not start with you working yourself up. It starts with Jesus, announced. God sent the message, sent the messengers, and held out His hands all day long. Your part is to hear and answer.
That is why the verse belongs to everybody, the churched and the skeptic, the strong and the barely hanging on. There is no distinction. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
So if your faith feels thin, do not go looking for a louder confession. Go back to the report. Read what Jesus did, hear it preached, let someone tell you again.
For related reading, see who Isaiah was, Jesus is the Word, what we believe and more studies in our articles.
Faith comes by hearing means faith is born when sent people announce Jesus and others trust Him, the hearing is the report and the word is the gospel about Christ, so faith is never manufactured by repeating verses and always starts with Him.
Send your question or prayer request and someone at Sound of Heaven will read it and respond personally.
It means that faith is born when people hear the message about Jesus. In Romans 10:17 Paul concludes a chain of thought: people call on the Lord because they believe, believe because they heard, hear because someone preached, and preach because they were sent. The word for hearing, akoe, also means the message heard, the same word Isaiah uses for our report. So the verse says faith is a response to Jesus proclaimed. It is not describing a technique for producing faith inside yourself.
The phrase hearing and hearing is a popular saying, not the wording of the verse. Romans 10:17 says faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. The second hearing does not add repetition. It explains where the hearing comes from. Reading and memorizing Scripture are good habits that shape us, but Paul is not teaching that faith grows by saying the same promise over and over. He is teaching that faith comes from hearing about Jesus.
Both readings exist in the manuscripts. The King James Version follows later manuscripts that read the word of God. Most modern translations follow older manuscripts that read the word of Christ, and the Greek phrase is rhematos Christou. The meaning barely changes, because Paul has already called it the word of faith that we proclaim in verse 8. Either way, the word in view is the preached good news about Jesus, the message the apostles were sent to carry.
Reading Scripture aloud is a good and ancient practice, and there is nothing wrong with speaking God’s promises as prayer or worship. The problem is the idea behind it in some teaching, that your own voice repeating a verse manufactures faith strong enough to force an outcome. Romans 10 does not teach that. Faith grows as you hear about Jesus and find Him trustworthy. Speak Scripture to remember who He is, not to generate a result.
Paul is talking about his own people, Israel, and about the Gentiles who were coming to faith in his generation. Romans 9 to 11 wrestles with why most of Israel had not believed in their Messiah while Gentiles were responding. In chapter 10 Paul insists there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, and that Israel did hear the message. Quoting Isaiah, God says He held out His hands all day long.