Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 232 · August 20
How Shall They Hear
“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
This verse gets printed on bookmarks, and it is often read as a promise that faith will arrive while you read your Bible. The people it hurts most are the ones who took it seriously. They read for years, nothing seemed to arrive, and now they have one more verse they feel they are failing at.
So follow the chain Paul is building, and follow it backwards, because that is the way he writes it: "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?" There are five links, and the last one is somebody being sent. Then comes a verse about feet: "How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace." Verse seventeen closes that argument, and the argument is about a message carried by people's voices. Many old manuscripts read "the word of Christ" here, where the KJV has "the word of God." Either way, the subject is the message being preached.
One more link makes this plain. In verse sixteen Paul writes, "But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?" In Greek, "report" and "hearing" are the same word, and Paul is turning it over: who has believed what they heard? Faith comes by what is heard. He is working out why some believed and some did not, in a chapter that opens with his longing for his own nation: "my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved."
So what this verse gives you is smaller than the bookmark, and it points backwards. If you believe, faith reached you through somebody's voice. It might have been a mother, a plain preacher in a cold hall, or a friend who would not let the subject drop. God sent that person to you. Thank Him for them, and rest on the promise that came through their voice: "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 232 is Not by Might (Zechariah 4:6).