Luke 7:1-10--Jesus Heals a Centurion's Servant

Luke 7:1-10
English Standard Version

Jesus Heals a Centurion's Servant
7 After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 2 Now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. 3 When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4 And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, 5 for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.” 6 And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. 7 Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. 8 For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 9 When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” 10 And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.

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Jesus is at His "home base" of Capernaum again after finishing what we'd call The Sermon on the Mount.  We talked quite a bit about how Jesus' ministry would be to both Jews and Gentiles, but we haven't really seen Jesus do much to minister to the Gentiles yet, until now.  Jesus is going to help a Roman centurion who comes to Him with great faith that Jesus can speak and his servant will be healed.

Apparently this man is still friendly to the Jewish people and gave his time and money to help them build their synagogue and all the people of the area loved this centurion and told Jesus that he was "worthy" of Jesus' help, whatever that means.  Maybe to the people this means they considered this centurion one of them even though he was a Gentile.  No matter the case, Jesus is going to use the faith of this centurion as a teachable moment for all of the Jews, and is going to go to see the man's house (notice the centurion doesn't think it necessary to travel back to the house with Jesus, it is enough that Jesus said He would come, and the centurion returns back without Jesus).

We've seen Jesus speak to heal someone from a distance once already, but we have not yet seen the person come to Jesus and say to simply speak because they were not worthy to have someone so great as a guest in their house.  The centurion reconsiders his request to have Jesus come to his house to heal his servant and considers himself as too small for Jesus and Jesus too great for Jesus to trouble Himself with this.  He knows the authority that Jesus must have been delegated and that even if Jesus speaks the word, this servant of his will be healed.

The man explains what he means by saying that he understands a "command structure" because he's a man under authority and has men under his authority.  The authority that he has been delegated by those above him is enough to tell one of those underneath him to "come" and he comes--he does not have to actually go and look for the person.  They know not to disobey this centurion's orders because they have the backing of the Roman military and of Caesar.  So this man understands somehow that when Jesus speaks He speaks with the authority of the kingdom of heaven and that God backs up everything that Jesus says.  Does this centurion understand that Jesus is God the Son or did he simply understand Jesus to be a great prophet?  We don't know, but whatever understanding this man had, he acted on it by faith in humility and this made Jesus marvel at this man and his faith.

Jesus turned to the crowd and used this man as an example of one they should strive to be like and Jesus' words must have stung a bit for the crowd when He said that He had not found anyone with such faith in all of the land of Israel.  That's high praise for the centurion and quiet the criticism for the Jews that this Gentile who works for Caesar in the Roman army has greater faith than all of them who consider themselves to be devout Jews (even the Pharisees who were probably listening at this point).  This is a great moment included by Luke to show us that Jesus did not shun those who weren't Jewish and He was even willing to commend their faith when they saw it.

We'll see Jesus minister to some other "outcasts" here in the rest of this chapter and we'll once again see some questions about the identity of Jesus and Jesus' answer will be interesting.  He won't really answer the question, but will tell the messengers asking the question to look at the evidence and let His words and works speak for themselves.  They should tell those with access to the Old Testament Scriptures exactly who Jesus is.  There should have been no doubt about His identity.