Romans 10
17 So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.18 But I ask, have the people of Israel actually heard the message? Yes, they have:
"The message has gone throughout the earth,
and the words to all the world."sI have heard this line so many times before, so I thought I'd just read it again. Faith comes by hearing, hearing the Good News. Firstly, it is rather specific, so I think that this scripture has been misquoted a lot of times. Paul here is talking about salvation by faith in Jesus as opposed to obeying the law. And this faith is salvation faith, and that's why it comes by hearing the Gospel. The Message Bible puts it a little more clearly, that there is nothing to trust in, or rather no one to trust in, unless we have listened to someone talk about it. So therefore, unless it is preached, there is nothing for people to listen to and hence nothing to trust (have faith in).
And obviously just listening doesn't bring faith straight away, because the next verse says that the Israelites have actually listened to the Good News, but they haven't trusted or had faith. So the beginning of our faith comes by hearing, like the Israelites "had plenty of opportunity to" as The Message puts it, but they just refused to listen. So I think for today, my thoughts would be why wouldn't they listen.
1. They were too proud to let go of what they (misguidedly) believed in
They didn't believe in something wrong (idol worship etc), but their trust was placed in what they did, rather in Who they were doing it for. And with ALL people, nobody likes to be told we're wrong. It takes a lot of humbling to admit I'm wrong, what I thought was right wasn't, and actually accept correction from someone I deem "not as good" as me.
Actually, for the Jews I think that's about it. Shows how much I know about Jews. I know many other reasons why people don't put their trust in Jesus, but that's for another day.
As for me, I guess the hardest part to believe the full gospel is to step out in faith. That there are things that I will not know until I do it. The victory is there, but the battle still has to be fought. So for me, faith has come, but the faith needs to be resurrected by action in it. To not just say I believe, but to live it out practically.