Luke 7:1-10 A Military Man’s Faith
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: July 23, 2018 Luke 7:1-10
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. Now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.” 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. Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. 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.” 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.” And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.
(Understanding the Text) Archaeologists have excavated the synagogue in Capernaum. There are two levels. They believe that the lower darker level is the synagogue that the Roman centurion donated. Here again is why I believe Jesus made His home in Capernaum. The religious leaders of the town did not seem to be as bigoted as in other towns. They had a good relationship with the local Roman centurion and actually spoke up in support of him. Now, I believe part of this good will was simple self-interest. After all, he had given them money in the past, so he was likely to give more money in the future if they kept his goodwill.
The SDA commentary says that these events may have happened on the same day as the Sermon on the Mount/Plain. It says that it was probably late afternoon in late summer of A.D. 29.
Compare this to Matthew’s account of the same story. “When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, ‘Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.’ And he said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’ But the centurion replied, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man 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.’ When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.’ And the servant was healed at that very moment” (Matthew 8:5-13).
The centurion seemed to understand the Jewish people well. He understood that it would not help Jesus if the centurion approached Jesus directly, so he sent Jewish emissaries. He believed that Jesus could heal, and he might have heard of miracles where Jesus had healed without touch. He had to have heard of the miracle the previous year (SDA commentary) where Jesus had healed the son of an official in Capernaum in John 4:46-54. In that situation, Jesus had accused the man of demanding signs and wonders. The centurion felt that he already had received signs and wonders. In any case, he believed in the God of the Jews who had done mighty works and was everywhere. If Jesus was performing His miracles through the God of the Jews, then it was not necessary for Jesus to be present to heal. The centurion may have read of Naaman who was healed of leprosy by bathing in the Jordan without the healing touch of the prophet Elisha. Thus, the centurion knew that the God of the Jews had healed enemy soldiers in the past. I wonder if he had donated money to the synagogue in order to have access to Jewish scriptures. I wonder who taught him scriptures. I wonder if he urged Jairus to go to Jesus when Jairus’ daughter was sick.
The SDA commentary says that the centurion was probably a “proselyte of the gate” meaning that he believed in the God of the Jewish religion, but had not been circumcised, baptized, or offered the sacrifice that was necessary to become fully Jewish. On page 63, the SDA commentary says “Thus, frequently, when Gentiles examined Judaism to discover what made it effective, they were led to embrace it. As heathen religions lost their hold, and the Jews everywhere carried on aggressive missionary work, proselytes to the Jewish faith could be numbered in the hundreds of thousands, if not in the millions, according to various competent modern scholars, both Jewish and Christian.” In the next paragraph, the SDA commentary quotes Josephus. “Josephus boasts of the numbers who accepted Judaism throughout the Gentile world: ‘The masses have long since shown a keen desire to adopt our religious observances; and there is not one city, Greek or barbarian, nor a single nation, to which our custom of abstaining from work on the seventh day has not spread, and where the fasts and the lighting of lamps and many of our prohibitions in the matter of food are not observed’ (Against Apion ii. 39 [282]; Loeb ed., vol. 1, pp. 405, 407).”
This centurion is remarkable in several ways. He was both humble and authoritative. He expected to be obeyed by those under him. On the other hand, he valued those below him and took care of them. The centurion was not asking for healing for himself but for his servant. He was someone who was confident in his own leadership skills with reason. People served him not from fear, but from respect. The centurion recognized in what he had heard about Jesus someone who also deserved respect. The centurion was not someone who lorded it over those under him. Instead, he competently performed his job keeping those under him in control and performing acts of generosity with his money. He must have had quite a bit of money to have paid for the synagogue.
(Revelation of God) However, Jesus felt the most remarkable aspect of the centurion was his faith. The Jews demanded signs and still didn’t believe. The centurion took Jesus’ power and goodwill for granted. He simply believed that Jesus would and could heal the servant without needing to be physically present. That belief formed a bridge through which Jesus could work. This is in direct contrast to Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth where He could not perform many miracles because of their lack of faith. This goes to show that faith is not dependent upon evidence. It is dependent upon character. If our characters are humble yet confident, we believe the same of God. If our characters are self-serving, sneaky, malicious, and/or deceptive, we believe that God is the same way. The prayer for faith is asking the Spirit to give us trust when we are not trustworthy.
The centurion sent elders of the Jews to Jesus. The passage says that the elders pleaded with Jesus to help the centurion and gave all kinds of reasons why Jesus should help. In other words, they did not expect Jesus to be willing to simply help without extra urging. Knowing Jesus’ character, that pleading was not necessary, but Jesus politely let them finish. How often do we plead with God for something that He wants to give us anyway? How often do I misjudge God’s character thinking that I have to convince Him with the force of my arguments and emotions?
(Understanding the Text) At the end, it says that the elders who were sent returned to the centurion’s house. I imagine that they had to go there at various times in order to receive instructions for Capernaum from Rome. When the centurion had called them into his office this time, they had probably thought that it was for a similar purpose. Instead, the centurion had told them that the servant that usually brought them food was extremely sick. He asked them to intercede with the Healer by taking his request to Jesus for his servant’s healing. The elders were a little shocked but agreed to do so. After Jesus told them that He respected the centurion’s faith, He turned around and left. Either the elders or the centurion’s friends continued on to the centurion’s house to report what had happened. Did they believe that the servant was healed? Or did they worry since Jesus was not with them. When they reached the house, they realized that Jesus had truly healed the servant from a distance.
Who were the centurion’s friends? They seem to have been Jews because there was not a big outcry like there would have been about Gentile friends interacting with Jesus. Why did the centurion not come himself? Was it cultural sensitivity or because of his position? I tend to think it was because he did not want to leave his servant’s side.
Matthew’s account implies that the centurion spoke directly to Jesus while Luke’s account indicates that the centurion worked through emissaries. I can think of two ways to reconcile these differences. First, Matthew could be read through a different lens where the speaking and replies are not in person. Second, the centurion could have come with his friends to tell Jesus not to enter his house. The SDA commentary says that both are right. “Apparently the two delegations, the ‘elders’ and the ‘friends,’ approached Jesus, but when it became evident that He was continuing on His way to the centurion’s home, the latter came out in person, and when he met Jesus, repeated practically the same message he had sent by the ‘elders’ and ‘friends.'”
(Application / Prayer) My application for myself is that I need to have confidence in Jesus that He not only can work in my life, but also that He will work in my life. I need to trust Jesus and not need signs to prove that trust. I need to believe that God is in control of my life and my world, not just at the macro level of the trajectory of the world, but also at the micro level of my town and personal life. I need to trust that Jesus is working in other people’s lives as much as in mine. This is hard. I can see Jesus in my own life and where He has never given up on me and led me back to Him. I have felt the Spirit’s working in my own life, but I tend to not trust others to have the same experience. I tend to think that they are listening to their own spirit rather than God’s Spirit. I need to trust in God’s working in their lives even when I don’t trust them. Dear Lord, teach me to trust You. I need faith.