Christ teaches an entirely different language. And like every language, it is not mastered by memorizing vocab lists. It is best to learn this one by immersion.
Romans 10 is the classic. It is so rich, so self-referential on the Word, the Word, the Word. Do not flatten Paul’s argument into a simple sermon about evangelism. True, people need to hear, and Christians ought to speak, that is a truth in the text, for sure. But it is not Paul’s chief concern in the verses of the epistle this week. His primary focus is that the voice of Christ still lives, and the living voice of Christ is the basis of the Church’s very existence. The Church continues to live because Christ continues to speak! Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). The preacher should resist reducing this final phrase to merely “a message about Christ.” Certainly, Christ is the content of apostolic preaching, but Paul’s language invites something richer. Translate that “word of Christ” genitive subjectively, as a genitive of origin: Hearing comes through Christ’s own Word. The risen Lord is not absent while the sermon talks about Him. He is present in His own speaking. He is responsible for the delivery. The preached Word is Christ’s address to sinners here and now.
Becoming convicted of this changed my own preaching a couple of decades ago. It was not until I drank in a full appreciation of the sacramental nature of the homiletic task, the fact that God was killing and making alive by His powerful Word, that I began to see the shape of biblical preaching the way I do today, truly as a means of grace. The sermon is not chiefly an explanation of a biblical text, a theological lecture, or even an exhortation to greater faithfulness. It is the appointed means through which the crucified and risen Christ does what He has always done: He speaks. His speaking creates what it says. It is never merely informative. It is performative. His Word does things! The same Lord who once called Lazarus from the tomb, rebuked the storm into silence, forgave paralytics, and declared sinners righteous, now addresses His people through the preached Gospel. The preacher has the extraordinary privilege of lending Christ his voice, not because his personality or rhetorical skill possess unusual power, but because Christ has promised to work through the external Word. That is why I call this Romans 10 pericope the classic. It truly is one of the New Testament’s great texts on the theology of preaching. This is not just a memorializing message. It is Christ at the bullhorn.
That means the preacher’s first task is not to persuade, but to proclaim. Notice the movement Paul traces through this pericope: God sends, the preacher preaches, the hearer hears, faith comes into being and confession follows. The order matters here. Be aware of how modern messaging and well-meaning therapeutic faith talk can dangerously reverse it, imagining that belief begins somewhere inside the individual before eventually finding expression through speech. Nope, Paul says the opposite. Faith itself comes extra nos, from outside us. It arrives through hearing. It is created by the Word that addresses us. Christians confess Christ because Christ first confessed Himself to them. They speak because they have first been spoken to. That is same-saying, confessio in Latin, homologia in Greek, homology.
Faith itself comes extra nos, from outside us. It arrives through hearing. It is created by the Word that addresses us.
One fruitful image for this text is that of language itself, one I find myself employing from time to time in sermons also because I happen to teach languages. We all speak our native tongue because someone else first spoke it to us. None of us invented English, Spanish, or Swahili. We received our language long before we consciously understood its grammar. We learned it through constant hearing until, eventually, we spoke it ourselves. The same is true spiritually. Sin has its own native language. It is fluent in self-justification, self-improvement, comparison, pride, despair, and every variety of lie. As Jesus says, the Devil “does not stand in the truth” because lying is his native tongue (John 8:44). Left to ourselves, we cannot help but speak that language. Even our religious vocabulary becomes infected! We begin speaking about our decisions, our sincerity, our progress, our morality, our feelings, and our commitments (*blech!*). We may use Christian words, but we are still speaking sin’s native dialect.
However, Christ teaches an entirely different language. And like every language, it is not mastered by memorizing vocab lists. It is best to learn this one by immersion.
Paul’s imagery elsewhere in Romans suggests precisely that. In baptism we are immersed into Christ’s death and resurrection (Romans 6:3-5). The old humanity is drowned and a new creation emerges. One might even say the old tongue is put to death and a new tongue is given. The language of Heaven is learned by continual immersion in Christ’s Word. Here, sinners hear forgiveness pronounced before they ever learn to pronounce it themselves. In this Word they hear Jesus is Lord before they confess it with their own mouths. In the Word of Christ, they hear absolution before they ever speak words of comfort to another. The Church becomes fluent only because she is continually immersed in the speech of her Lord.
Keeping that Romans 6 immersion image about language will curb reducing a Romans 10 sermon into a pep talk about witnessing. Christians certainly do confess Christ before the world. Paul says exactly that. But confession is never the engine of salvation, it is the echo of it, the response to it. We speak what we believe because we believe what Christ has spoken. The mouth confesses because the ears have first received the living Word. Never think your task is to leave your hearers the burden of manufacturing stronger faith. That is not how faith works! Your proclaiming task is to leave your hearer with Christ’s own promises ringing in their ears. Faith will take care of itself because faith is Christ’s creation.
Romans 10 also provides a salutary reminder to preachers about their own office. It is another classic. The catena of 10:14-15 brings us back as preachers to remember the order of these things: Sent... preach... hear... believe... call... saved. Where is your place in that sequence as a preacher? See yourself there and humble yourself in light of the privilege. You are in the middle of it because Christ has chosen to place His own speech on human lips. Every pastor knows the temptation to measure sermons by originality, eloquence, relevance, or rhetorical polish. Let this Romans 10 epistle lesson liberate you from all that. The power of preaching never rests on the preacher’s creativity. Rather, it rests on Christ’s promise to speak through His Word. A sermon succeeds whenever Christ is heard.
That reality should also shape sermon composition. Your goal should never be to simply explain what Paul wrote. Your task, your obligation, your calling is always and ever to deliver Christ. And this week, it is what Christ says through Paul. Where does the sermon become proclamation? Where does Christ Himself address the anxious conscience? Where does He expose the lies sinners have learned to speak? Where does He drown those lies beneath His own death? Where does He raise new life by declaring forgiveness? Those questions are more important than finding a clever outline or a memorable illustration.
Finally, notice how beautifully concrete Paul’s theology remains. Hearing is not metaphorical. Words strike actual ears. Voices enter the air. Christ has attached Himself to ordinary means, and in preaching he is using sound waves and cochleae. He does not bypass creation. He works through it, as surely as water and the Word, as surely as bread and wine and body and blood. The same Lord who once took on flesh now gives Himself through audible speech. The Word enters through the ear, penetrates the heart, slays the old sinner, and raises a new creation that cannot help but confess what it has heard. The Church lives because Christ continues to speak. Every sermon is another moment in which the risen Lord keeps His ancient promise: “My sheep hear My voice.” And hearing that voice, they live.
Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out 1517’s resources on Romans 10:5-17.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you preaching Romans 10:5-17.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
The Pastor’s Workshop-Check out all the great preaching resources from our friends at the Pastor’s Workshop!
