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? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did: “Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” Again I ask: Did Israel not understand? First, Moses says,“I will make you envious by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding.” And Isaiah boldly says,“I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.” But concerning Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.”

There is a contested area of doctrine that has floated around Christianity for thousands of years known most commonly as predestination. The idea of predestination is very much in the Bible; Paul spoke of it often. However, there is a right way to understand predestination and a very wrong and dangerous way of interpreting what predestination means, both in Paul's day and even now. A wrong view of predestination is that God pre-decides or pre-determines who will be saved and who will not. In this view, God has already chosen who will be a Christian and who will not, and there is nothing we can do about it and no role we play in it. If that is the case, there is no point in preaching and sharing the gospel because it would not make a difference: those who were pre-chosen or determined to be saved would be saved no matter whether they shared the gospel or not. And those who were not chosen or pre-determined to be saved could not accept Christ no matter what they did. So, with this flawed mindset, evangelism becomes worthless and pointless, and the great commission is void. There is no need to go and preach the gospel and make disciples because that outcome has already been pre-determined and pre-decided before the foundations of the world, no matter whether you choose to participate in it or not. Yet, we cannot throw predestination out because it is very much a real doctrine in the Bible. We need to find what the biblical authors most likely meant when they wrote the word. A better contextual understanding of the concept of predestination is that God already knows in advance what people will do in their lives. Because God is Omniscient (all-knowing), He already knows who will accept Christ as Lord and Savior and spend eternity with Him in heaven, and he already knows who will reject him and spend eternity separated from him. That outcome has already been pre-destined; however, it has not been pre-determined. Even though God knows the outcome because it is his nature to know, and he cannot not know, God has not decided the outcome or taken away man's free will in choosing or rejecting him. With this right understanding of predestination in mind, all of a sudden, evangelism, the great commission, and the gospel itself make a lot more sense and are given much more significance and weight in the believer's life. We are all called to go and preach the gospel and make disciples because that is very much what God has called us to do, and we do it because it matters and makes a very real difference in people's eternities. It is not a worthless or useless action because it has an impact on people's choices, and those choices matter. This is also why, in today's passage, Paul addresses the necessity of preaching the gospel. If there was only pre-determination, there would be no need, so we see that Paul agreed with this second view of what the definition of pre-destination was.

Think about this: God could have chosen any means for the message of salvation to come. He could have sent an army of angelic messengers proclaiming the gospel all over the earth for as long as it took. He could have spoken directly to all mankind in a deep, rumbling voice that brought everyone to their knees. He could have flashed a banner across the sky or sent a heavenly vision to every living person on earth all at the same time. God had the power to do any of these things, but God didn't; instead, he chose to work with humanity through the sending of human preachers to both live out and speak his gospel message. God chose to involve us in his plan. How incredible is that? In this way, preachers must be sent, both by God and by the Christian community. This is why Paul refers to those who preach to have beautiful feet; they partner with God for the salvation of men. The idea of feet speaks of activity, motion, urgency, and progress, as well as those who are active and moving in the work of preaching the gospel. At the time of the writing of Romans, the gospel had been carried to most parts of the Mediterranean area where Jews were to be found, but the gospel had not been carried throughout all the earth and not even to all the lands that were known to the inhabitants of the Greco-Roman world. Paul was well aware of this, and at this very time, he was planning the evangelization of Spain, a province where the name of Christ was not yet known and where a Christian church had yet to be established. This reflects the heart of God, that all mankind would hear the gospel and his faithful would be the ones to bring it to them. That mission never ended, and it continues today through the local church. Even today, how beautiful still are the feet of those who put the message of the gospel into action and go. Whether they go around the world or across the street is not the issue -- only that they go to share Jesus.