“How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? — The rhetorical chain (μῆ, mē, a negating particle) traces the logical necessity: calling (ἐπικαλέω, epikaleō) requires belief (πιστεύω, pisteuō); belief requires hearing (ἀκούω, akouō); hearing requires a herald (κηρύσσω, keryssō). Each step depends on the prior.
Church Fathers on Romans 10:14
Here again he takes from them all excuse. For since he had said, “I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge,” and that “being ignorant of God's righteousness, they submitted not themselves” to it: he next shows, that for this ignorance itself they were punishable before God. This he does not say indeed so, but he makes it good by carrying on his discourse in the way of question, and so convicting them more clearly, by framing the whole…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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