[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

I was reading Romans 10 the other day. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" (v. 17). The reference in the RecV says Colossians 3:16. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly". Then the next verse quotes Psalm 19. "Their voice has gone out into all of the earth/their testimony to all of the world". But Witness Lee in his footnote in Psalm 19 panned the text. God doesn't care about this, said Lee, but about His eternal economy.

But again I return to the idea of the word of Christ, as presented by Paul. How many of what we call the NT texts did the Romans or Colossians have at that point? They may have had some gospel texts, sayings of Jesus. Doubtful they had an extant copy of what we'd call the Gospel of Mark, or Luke. Certainly John's gospel, no. Maybe an epistle of Paul (see e.g., Col 4:16 "read the letter to the Laodiceans").

No, the word of Christ to which Paul referred was undoubtedly the OT. The very texts cited by Paul, which Witness Lee so quickly dismissed.

When Paul traveled to the Gentile lands bring the gospel, he always went to synagogues first. I wonder if perhaps that was partly done because the OT scriptures were there, and Paul could begin to "connect" these new believers with the prophecies of the Christ.