`But I say, Have they not heard?  Yes verily, their sound went into all

the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world' (Rom. 10:18).

First Moses is mentioned, then Isaiah, and finally the attitude of the

Lord Himself (Rom. 10:19 -21).

When Paul leapt into the breach and wrote that burning epistle to the

Galatians, with its insistence upon justification by faith apart from works

of law, he said:

`This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of

the law, or by the hearing of faith?' (Gal. 3:2).

Here, not only is law set over against faith, but the works of law are

set over against the hearing of faith.  Hearing is not merely the passive

reception of sound.  It quickens into action, even as to hear and to hearken

is often a synonym for obedience which we must see for ourselves presently.

When at last Paul speaks of the dreadful times of the end, the hearing and

the ear come prominently to the fore:

`They shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears (Gk. akoe,

"hearing", not the usual word ous, thereby linking the ear, with the

"report" and "hearing" in a remarkable way.  This is unique in the

epistles); and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and

shall be turned unto fables' (2 Tim. 4:3,4).

It might be of service to assemble before the reader the way in which

akoe is translated in the A.V.

`fame', `hearing', `rumour', `ear', `audience', `report' and

We cannot believe that any exercised believer can ponder these facts

without realizing how important is the spiritual sense of hearing, and how

closely related hearing and believing stand in the Scriptures written for our

In the opening pages of this study we limited our survey to those

passages which link hearing with believing.  We widen our survey at this

point to include the relationship which is established in Scripture between

hearing and obeying.  One of the words translated `obey' in the Old Testament

is the Hebrew shamea (Gen. 22:18; Zech. 6:15), rendered thus 81 times, but

this same Hebrew word is translated `hear' 730 times and `hearken' 169 times,

hearing being its primitive meaning, and obeying its secondary meaning.  In

the New Testament the Greek word is akouo, more familiar to English readers

in the word acoustics, this word is translated `hear' 415 times, out of a

total of 422 occurrences.  These facts lead us to the word hupakouo,

translated `obedience' and `obey', but in one passage given its primitive

meaning `to hearken' namely in Acts 12:13, where it suggests that the damsel

who heard a knock on the door came to obey the summons.  She came to listen,

or as the margin reads, she came to ask who was there.

Let us acquaint ourselves with the usage of the word akouo when it is

combined with the preposition hupo `under' and para `beside'.  Hupakoe is