The question very quickly becomes, “How will they hear?” Paul anticipating this natural question says that without preaching they will not. In light of what was asserted about the necessity of the Christian witness just above, many unduly focus on the necessity of formalized preaching or to put it another way, that pastors are the only ordained method communicating the gospel unto the salvation of souls. This faulty interpretation misses Paul’s intent of this passage completely. The focus here is not on the one preaching, as if to call every available Christian into the pastoral ministry or by extension to excuse those who are not pastors from sharing their witness in the world. Rather, Paul’s point is to highlight the next component of faith; assent. It may seem strange to connect assent with preaching but that is in fact the purpose of preaching. Preaching is not primarily employed to communicate information; that is the area of teaching. Preaching is primarily employed to call individuals to act upon the content of what is spoken. Should preaching be based in knowledge and understanding and therefore involve teaching? Certainly, but preaching’s main goal is not to inform but to motivate. This is the employment of assent. To exercise assent is to take what is heard as valuable to inform one’s decision making and then to make material commitments based upon what has been assented to. As Paul works his way through this passage, he uses the subjunctive mood for the verbal forms in this verse. His point is not to express doubt as to the outcome of each verb but to emphasize the outcome of the propositions asserted. Specifically, Paul rhetorically asks the question, “How can one be expected to believe, hear or preach if they are not exposed to these elements?” The logical and expected answer for Paul to this question is naturally “One would not be expected to undertake any of these elements without the employment of the preceding proposition. In this way, Paul is building the case for how one trusts in the gospel message which is the third component to be considered.
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