Romans
Chapter 10
Overview
Paul continues wrestling with a painful question: Why have many of his fellow Israelites not accepted God’s way of putting people right with him? Their devotion is real, Paul says, but devotion without understanding can travel in the wrong direction. He contrasts trying to earn acceptance through the law with trusting the risen Jesus as Lord. Then he traces how faith grows: people must hear the good news, which means someone must be sent to announce it. The chapter ends with a sharp contrast between unexpected outsiders who respond and Israel, whom God still patiently reaches toward.
1Brothers and sisters, my heart’s deepest desire and my prayer to God for my fellow Israelites is that they may be saved.
2I can confirm that they are deeply devoted to God, but their devotion is not guided by true understanding.
3They did not understand God’s way of putting people right with him, and they tried to establish their own way. So they did not submit to God’s way of putting people right with him.
4For the Messiah is the goal and fulfillment of the law, so that everyone who trusts him may be put right with God.
5Moses writes about being put right with God through the law: “The person who does what the law requires will live by it.”
6But being put right with God through faith speaks this way: “Do not say to yourself, ‘Who will go up into heaven?’”—as though someone needed to bring the Messiah down.
7“And do not ask, ‘Who will go down into the depths?’”—as though someone needed to bring the Messiah up from the dead.
8Instead, what does it say? “The message is near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart.” This is the message about faith that we proclaim:
9If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10For with the heart a person trusts God and is put right with him, and with the mouth a person openly declares that faith and is saved.
11Scripture says, “Everyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
12There is no distinction here between Jew and non-Jew. The same Lord is Lord of everyone, and he generously gives to all who call on him.
13For “everyone who calls on the Lord’s name will be saved.”
14But how can people call on someone they have not trusted? How can they trust him when they have not heard the message about him? And how can they hear without someone proclaiming it?
15How can people proclaim it unless they are sent? As Scripture says, “How welcome are the approaching feet of those who announce good news!”
16But not everyone obeyed the good news. Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed the message they heard from us?”
17So faith comes from hearing, and hearing comes through the message about the Messiah.
18But I ask: Did Israel’s people fail to hear? Certainly not! “Their voice has gone out across the whole earth, and their words have reached the ends of the inhabited world.”
19Then I ask: Did Israel fail to understand? Moses is the first to say what God told them: “I will make you jealous through people who are not even a nation. I will make you angry through a nation that has no understanding.”
20Isaiah speaks even more boldly for God: “I was found by people who were not looking for me. I revealed myself to people who were not asking about me.”
21But concerning Israel, God says, “All day long I held out my hands to a people who disobeyed and argued against me.”