Akoe is the noun form of the verb akouo, ie, to hear. Faith comes by hearing (noun) the word of God, or faith comes when we hear (verb) the word of God. Same thing
Romans 10:17, a courtroom haearing?
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Akoe is the noun form of the verb akouo, ie, to hear. Faith comes by hearing (noun) the word of God, or faith comes when we hear (verb) the word of God. Same thing
Faith doesn't always attend the audible hearing of the word of God. It doesn't say faith comes by hearing the word of God. It says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
It actually says hearing comes through the spoken word of God and then faith comes out of hearing what is spoken. This of course applies to writing as well. Reading God's words comes through the bible and then faith comes out of that reading.
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Blue155
Guest
Quite often, people who appeal to the original language do so not to confirm the truth, but to prove a belief that doesn’t match the Bible. Theres a big difference between going to the original language to confirm what the Bible says, and going to the original language to confirm a belief that makes no sense. Such is the perfect example with this thread. When God gave us His Word, He didn’t hand it down for seminary professors or language scholars alone. He gave it to fishermen, tax collectors, shepherds, and farmers. Men who worked with their hands, who didn’t own lexicons or parse verbs. And they understood it just fine. When men start treating Greek definitions as if they outrank the context of Scripture, they’ve already gone too far.
Let’s say someone says, “Well, the Greek word here could mean X, Y, or Z…” That may be true in a dictionary. But the Bible isn’t a dictionary—it’s a book of revelation, and context determines usage.
Take the word “adultery.” I don’t need a Greek lexicon to tell me what that means. Jesus defined it in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9. Paul clarified it in Romans 7:2–3 and listed it among as one of the works of the flesh (Gal. 5). It’s not vague. It’s not cultural. It’s not tense-dependent. It’s sin. No matter what some lexicon says. When someone quotes a lexicon like it’s the final authority, they’re really saying, “This man’s opinion of Greek is higher than the inspired Word of God.”
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 1:13:
“For we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand.”
And in Ephesians 3:4:
“by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)”
John said in Revelation 1:3:
“Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.”
In those passages, the word “read” is in them.
In Deuteronomy 30:14, But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.
In Psalm 119:105, Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
As Isaiah once said, “Search from the book of the LORD, and read…” (Isaiah 34:16) — and while that was spoken in a specific context, it still reminds us of the importance of going to God’s word and reading it for ourselves. The opening phrase — “Search from the book of the LORD, and read…” reflects a timeless truth:
God expects us to search His word and read it. From Moses to the prophets to the psalmists—God made clear that His word was understandable and available to the people. You don’t need to be a Greek scholar to obey God. If salvation or sound doctrine depended on Greek, then only educated elites could truly understand the Bible, and the average person could never be confident in their understanding.
“Of course translators looked at the Greek. That’s how they knew what words to translate. But what they gave us wasn’t their own theology—they gave us what the Greek said, not what it meant theologically. It’s our job to read it in context and understand what the author meant when he used that word.”
Here’s the distinction I am making:
Lexicon: “Here are 5 possible meanings this word can have in various places.”
Context: “Based on the author’s argument, audience, and surrounding words, this is what the word means here.”
Error: “I’m going to ignore the context and pick a lexicon meaning that supports my doctrine.”
Do we really think that when Jesus, Peter, Paul, or John spoke to someone, the hearer stopped them to say, “Wait, what case is that noun in?” Or, “That’s not the aorist tense!” Of course not. They understood meaning through context, not parsing verbs.
When someone claims they’ve discovered something in the Greek that can’t be understood from any English translation, a yellow flag immediately goes up in my mind. And more often than not, that yellow flag turns red.
Why? Because they’re usually trying to prove something that the plain English text simply won’t support.
Too many people treat Greek lexicons like they’re inspired. They quote Strong’s, Thayer, BDAG, or Louw-Nida as if those books came down from Sinai. But truth is, context, authorial intent, and Scripture harmonization should carry far more weight than any dictionary or scholar—especially when those scholars didn’t even believe the doctrine they were defining.
Let’s say someone says, “Well, the Greek word here could mean X, Y, or Z…” That may be true in a dictionary. But the Bible isn’t a dictionary—it’s a book of revelation, and context determines usage.
Take the word “adultery.” I don’t need a Greek lexicon to tell me what that means. Jesus defined it in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9. Paul clarified it in Romans 7:2–3 and listed it among as one of the works of the flesh (Gal. 5). It’s not vague. It’s not cultural. It’s not tense-dependent. It’s sin. No matter what some lexicon says. When someone quotes a lexicon like it’s the final authority, they’re really saying, “This man’s opinion of Greek is higher than the inspired Word of God.”
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 1:13:
“For we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand.”
And in Ephesians 3:4:
“by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)”
John said in Revelation 1:3:
“Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.”
In those passages, the word “read” is in them.
In Deuteronomy 30:14, But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.
In Psalm 119:105, Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
As Isaiah once said, “Search from the book of the LORD, and read…” (Isaiah 34:16) — and while that was spoken in a specific context, it still reminds us of the importance of going to God’s word and reading it for ourselves. The opening phrase — “Search from the book of the LORD, and read…” reflects a timeless truth:
God expects us to search His word and read it. From Moses to the prophets to the psalmists—God made clear that His word was understandable and available to the people. You don’t need to be a Greek scholar to obey God. If salvation or sound doctrine depended on Greek, then only educated elites could truly understand the Bible, and the average person could never be confident in their understanding.
“Of course translators looked at the Greek. That’s how they knew what words to translate. But what they gave us wasn’t their own theology—they gave us what the Greek said, not what it meant theologically. It’s our job to read it in context and understand what the author meant when he used that word.”
Here’s the distinction I am making:
Lexicon: “Here are 5 possible meanings this word can have in various places.”
Context: “Based on the author’s argument, audience, and surrounding words, this is what the word means here.”
Error: “I’m going to ignore the context and pick a lexicon meaning that supports my doctrine.”
Do we really think that when Jesus, Peter, Paul, or John spoke to someone, the hearer stopped them to say, “Wait, what case is that noun in?” Or, “That’s not the aorist tense!” Of course not. They understood meaning through context, not parsing verbs.
When someone claims they’ve discovered something in the Greek that can’t be understood from any English translation, a yellow flag immediately goes up in my mind. And more often than not, that yellow flag turns red.
Why? Because they’re usually trying to prove something that the plain English text simply won’t support.
Too many people treat Greek lexicons like they’re inspired. They quote Strong’s, Thayer, BDAG, or Louw-Nida as if those books came down from Sinai. But truth is, context, authorial intent, and Scripture harmonization should carry far more weight than any dictionary or scholar—especially when those scholars didn’t even believe the doctrine they were defining.
B
Blue155
Guest
I can’t think of a single essential doctrine that requires knowledge of Greek to fully understand. It’s easy to cherry-pick obscure Greek rules or exceptions, or to flood a conversation with so much technical jargon that confusion sets in — and once confusion takes over, you can make it sound like the Bible teaches just about anything. But that kind of manipulation stands in direct contradiction to the clarity Jesus promised in His word.
Jesus said, “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17). God’s word is the standard — not academic credentials, not ancient Greek expertise. Over and over, both Old and New Testaments uphold the sufficiency and authority of Scripture.
95% of the time, when someone runs to the original language to prove a point, you can see the same thing just by checking solid English translations. Most translations are giving you the meaning of the Greek already. That’s scholarly enough.
There are men sitting in prison right now who’ve never seen a lexicon in their life—but they picked up a Bible, read it with an honest heart, and obeyed the truth.
Why?
Because God didn’t write His Word for scholars only. He wrote it for fishermen, farmers, widows, slaves, shepherds—and yes, prisoners too.
“The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” (Psalm 119:130)
The proud professor with a shelf full of commentaries and no fear of God will miss what a broken man with a KJV and a repentant heart will find.
The Bible speaks plain. The gospel is not buried in Greek—it’s right there on the page. It takes humility, not a diploma. Before you build your theology on a Greek word study from BibleHub…maybe slow down. Because there’s a big difference between knowing a definition — and knowing the truth.
Jesus said, “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17). God’s word is the standard — not academic credentials, not ancient Greek expertise. Over and over, both Old and New Testaments uphold the sufficiency and authority of Scripture.
95% of the time, when someone runs to the original language to prove a point, you can see the same thing just by checking solid English translations. Most translations are giving you the meaning of the Greek already. That’s scholarly enough.
There are men sitting in prison right now who’ve never seen a lexicon in their life—but they picked up a Bible, read it with an honest heart, and obeyed the truth.
Why?
Because God didn’t write His Word for scholars only. He wrote it for fishermen, farmers, widows, slaves, shepherds—and yes, prisoners too.
“The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” (Psalm 119:130)
The proud professor with a shelf full of commentaries and no fear of God will miss what a broken man with a KJV and a repentant heart will find.
The Bible speaks plain. The gospel is not buried in Greek—it’s right there on the page. It takes humility, not a diploma. Before you build your theology on a Greek word study from BibleHub…maybe slow down. Because there’s a big difference between knowing a definition — and knowing the truth.
That's totally what this thread and all others the OP creates is about.
Not through but by. In other words:
...the word of God produces hearing
...hearing produces faith
If it were as you proposed, everyone who simply heard or read the word of God would be saved. We both know that isn't so.
I wrote it as it is in the Greek. Faith comes out of (ek) hearing and hearing through (dia) the word of God
Is God involved in the formation of faith or is faith simply the result of natural processes within the individual?
God is definitely involved because he opens the heart to believe, but it is entirely man's faith that comes out of hearing/reading the words of God .
It definitely doesn't mean that. It has a very specific meaning of moving out of something into something else.
How do you understand John 6:29? Is the work of God what He expects of individuals or is it the work God actually performs?
Oh sorry, I was thinking of eis, which means into. dia means through
You chosen to dismiss one of the word's meanings. I just googled it. It is a definition of dia.
You turn faith into a work and not a grace. While I agree it is the individual's faith, it is not of themselves.
I mixed up my words. I can accept "on account "of as a definition of dia, but don't think it's a really good one.