“How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.’ But not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’ So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the things that irks critics of Christianity more than many other things we do is our constantly trying to share our faith. Why are Christians so pushy with their beliefs? Why can’t they just leave other people to believe what they want rather than going around telling them they’re wrong all the time? What arrogance to think they know better than everybody else what’s right. What’s the big deal? What Paul says here has a lot to do with it. Let’s take a look at what he has to say.

I was an irritatingly passionate follower of Jesus when I was in high school and college. I was constantly looking for opportunities to share my faith. More than that, I was always on the lookout for one evangelism approach or another that made doing it simpler and easier. I wanted a faith sharing magic bullet that brought the other person to the point of repentance every single time. Of course, I also was a huge introvert who hated talking to people I didn’t know, so that complicated things some.

Making things even more challenging then was the fact that around the turn of the millennium the culture was changing. The attacks on 9/11 hastened those changes in ways I did not at the time even remotely understand or appreciate. Having grown up in church world which typically lags pretty far behind in terms of recognizing and adapting to sweeping cultural changes, I still assumed things were like they had been for a generation or so at that point. The various faith sharing programs I learned were all steeped in that same assumption as they had mostly been formulated about a generation or so before.

I gave all this attention and energy to learning how to share my faith – even if, realistically, I didn’t do it all that often – because I had always been told that Christians are supposed to share their faith like this. Christianity more than just about any other faith tradition (Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses being a notable exception to this) is a missionary-minded movement. This is because the New Testament authors as well as Jesus Himself call believers to share their faith over and over and over again.

That followers of Jesus are to be sharing our faith is a matter of course. The Gospel makes that clear. Yes, God could do it all Himself, but that’s never been His primary style from the very beginning. God is committed to our choices being meaningful and consequential, and so He stays in the background or out of the way as much as He can. That doesn’t mean He never intervenes directly. In His perfect wisdom He knows when those times come. But for the most part, He leaves His followers to obey His commands and empowers them to accomplish His plans. This whole system brings Him all the more glory.

What Paul writes here is one of the clearest calls to evangelism we find in the New Testament. What makes it so powerful is that Paul doesn’t ever just come out and issue a command. He asks a series of questions that lead us to the conclusion of the necessity and goodness of sharing the Gospel naturally.

In v. 13, Paul closed that little section by quoting from the prophet Joel that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Here in v. 14, he asks the entirely reasonable follow up question: “How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in?” That makes sense, right? If everyone who calls on the name of the Lord is saved, but someone doesn’t believe in the name of the Lord, how will that person be saved? To put that another way, if salvation is for everybody, but somebody doesn’t know about it, what about them?

Great question. Rather than answering it, though, Paul follows this up with another question. “And how can they believe without hearing about him?” What an entirely logical follow up. If someone has never heard of God, how could that person possibly believe in Him? Indeed, how many times has that been raised specifically as an objection against Christianity and the whole idea of a just God. There are all these people who have never heard of Jesus. If Jesus is the only means of salvation, then what’s God’s answer for the apparent injustice of damning all these people without giving them a chance at repentance and following Jesus? That’s exactly what Paul asks here. These skeptics are literally quoting Scripture in formulating their objection. (It is deliciously ironic that these same skeptics often also criticize Christians for their commitment to evangelism, but we’ll leave that alone for now.)

Paul’s answer to this understandable question is to ask yet another question: “And how can they hear without a preacher?” Do you see the direction he’s leading us here? Yes, there have been folks who have used the fact that some people have never heard about Jesus as an argument against the just character of God. But Paul takes the same question and says, “Well, you’re right. That wouldn’t be just. Somebody had better tell them.”

God’s plan was never to leave someone without an opportunity to have heard the Gospel and respond to it positively or negatively. That would indeed have been unjust of Him. And while He can pick up the slack on His own just fine, He works most often through His people sharing their own story of how He has made such a positive difference in their life. Even more specifically, He works through the determined efforts of His people to go throughout the world sharing the Gospel with those who have never heard.

And indeed, that is exactly what we find. There have always been Christians going out to find those who have never heard and making sure they get to hear. There have always been those who have heard Paul’s question here and responded by saying with their actions, “That’s a good question. I’ll go and be a part of the answer.” And the easier international travel has become, the more thoroughly Christians have traveled the globe in search of people and people groups who have never heard the Gospel to make sure they get the chance.

Quoting from Isaiah, Paul exclaims what a good thing this is. “As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.'” That statement is perfectly true like that. When someone is bringing you good news – and the Gospel is indisputably good news – their feet are beautiful. That is, you are glad they have come. But the word there is perhaps better translated as “timely” or “appropriate.” The sense is that the one who brings good news arrives on time or that it is right and proper for them to come.

Of course, this doesn’t mean everyone is going to receive the good news. Many won’t. Many don’t. The reasons for this are manifold, but the end result is the same. And Paul knew this. “But not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?'” Some folks just aren’t going to buy it. They just can’t see beyond the end of their own processes of reasoning. As long as we have been faithful and humble and kind in our presentation of the Gospel (there are plenty of evangelists who aren’t very good at their work and have actually driven people away from the faith because of their terrible presentation and approach), that’s not on us. That’s between them and God. We are not called to make Christians. We are called to bear witness and to make disciples out of those who are interested.

But in the end, the reason this matters so much is because unless people hear about Jesus, they aren’t going to follow Him. “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.” God has given us the job of sharing that message. There are lots and lots of ways to do it. However you do it, though, make sure you do it.