<p>10:14 <i>How then shall they call on him in whom they do not have belief? And how shall they believe in him about whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?- </i>Paul now demonstrates that believing these things demands in practice that we preach them. People cannot believe these things if they have not heard them. If we grasp the wonder of imputed righteousness in Christ, we should therefore take Him to people, and to Israel in particular. This is where true theology cannot but have a transforming influence in practice. For one cannot be passive to these great truths.</p><p>Here Paul clearly states that (as a general rule) it is impossible to believe in Christ without a preacher. The Ethiopian eunuch was the classic case of this. Bible in hand, his exasperation boiled over: &ldquo;How can I (understand), <i>except</i>&nbsp;some man shall guide me?&quot; (Acts 8:31). It is perfectly possible that Rom. 10:4 alludes to this, implying that this man's case was typical and notice the connections between Acts 8:37 and Rom. 10:9. Likewise the Lord Jesus spoke of &quot;them also which shall believe on me through <i>their</i>&nbsp; (the preachers') word&quot; (Jn. 17:20)- not through their unguided Bible reading. If all we had been given was a Bible, most of us would simply not be where we are today, spiritually. If I had started reading from Genesis, I don't think I'd have got much beyond Leviticus before giving up on the Bible. Yet there are some who have made it through, from Genesis to Revelation. And their testimony is even more emphatic: &quot;Without doubt I needed someone to guide me, I was just crying out for all the pieces to be put into place&quot;, in the words of one such recent convert.</p>