Romans 10:14 could be re-stated in outline form in this way:
As a missionary sent to Gentile areas by the Antioch church, the Apostle Paul spent years telling unreached people about Jesus and gathering the resulting converts into churches. What Paul did is still needed today.
There are people on earth -- lots of them -- who have yet to hear the name of Jesus. They have no inkling of what God did in Christ Jesus to reconcile the world to Himself. Indeed, nearly three billion of earth's inhabitants are unreached by the gospel (Source: Joshua Project). These include large ethnic and cultural groups in Asia and North Africa as well as small tribal groups in remote areas. Seen in the light of Romans 10:14, that statistical picture cries out for believers to be invested in the cause of world evangelism.
I know people who think Romans 10:14 mainly calls us to share the Good News with our next-door neighbors, some of whom have only hazy ideas of the Gospel. While God does want all His lost children found, the verses before and after Romans 10:14 put the focus of that passage squarely on those who had zero access to the Gospel. Romans 10:12 specifically mentions Gentiles, very few of whom at that point had heard about Jesus. Then, the phrase "beautiful feet" in verse 15 comes from Isaiah 52, a chapter that includes the affirmation: "All the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God."
A 1989 film about a baseball field built in a farmer's cornfield started people saying, "If we build it, they will come." Isn't that how some believers think we can fulfill Jesus' Great Commission? Their idea is that focusing all our efforts and resources on local outreach is enough to fulfill our part of the global mission "to make Christlike disciples in the nations."
The scenario painted by Romans 10 differs from the movie's they-will-come-to-us idea of "if we build it, they will come." The message from Romans 10:14 is that God's people must intentionally search all over the world for those who have yet to hear. That verse clearly refers to spiritually lost people worldwide.
God yearns that His Story be proclaimed to every ethnic and cultural group. Thus, two questions in Romans 10 -- "How can they believe?" and "How can they hear?" -- must be allowed to reverberate loud and long through the Church's soul. Those questions must be heard and heard again until every single believer feels compelled to do his or her part in getting the Good News to every unreached people group on earth.
Romans 10:14 is a compelling call to action for Christ-followers. The verse highlights the crucial link between hearing the Gospel and believing in Jesus. It emphasizes the necessity of proclaiming the Good News to those who have yet to hear it. While the passage embraces local outreach, it also challenges believers to be involved in getting the Gospel message to unreached people groups worldwide.
As we read Romans 10:14, let's remember that that multiplied millions of people on earth have yet to know Jesus' name or why He came to earth. We need an all-out collective effort in which every believer gets involved in some way (praying, sending, supporting, or going).
-- Howard Culbertson,
"Unless they are sent" -- another meditation on Romans 10
This mini-essay on a world missions Bible passage is over three dozen articles in the "Heart of God" series published in Engage, a monthly online magazine. That series explores what the Bible says about missions.