Matthew: 5 – 13 (NLT)
The Faith of a Roman Officer
5 When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a Roman officer (centurion) came and pleaded with him, 6 “Lord, my young servant lies in bed, paralyzed and in terrible pain.”
7 Jesus said, “I will come and heal him.”
8 But the officer said, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. 9 I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, ‘Go,’ and they go, or ‘Come,’ and they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this,’ they do it.”
10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to those who were following him, he said, “I tell you the truth, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel! 11 And I tell you this, that many Gentiles will come from all over the world—from east and west—and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven. 12 But many Israelites—those for whom the Kingdom was prepared—will be thrown into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
13 Then Jesus said to the Roman officer, “Go back home. Because you believed, it has happened.” And the young servant was healed that same hour.”
This is an interesting miracle because Roman officers were not exactly well loved in Jesus’ time. A centurion was the head of 100 soldiers within a legion of 6 000 men. They were highly respected within the Roman Empire because they were the men who kept discipline among the ranks. We often think of army leadership as harsh, domineering people in order to keep everyone in line. Yet this centurion was concerned about a young soldier’s health. There was a spirit of care in this man.
The Intervarsity Press online commentary mentioned that other commentaries as well as themselves think verse 7 (“Jesus said, “I will come and heal him.”) would be better translated, “Should I come and heal him?” Jews were not allowed to enter Gentiles’ homes; that was considered unclean. So was Jesus reminding him that coming to his house was not something the Jewish faith would tolerate? The man’s answer shows his complete faith in Jesus’ power. In fact, coming to his house was completely unnecessary. Jesus was really impressed by his faith, and says that people in Israel will someday be in hell because they don’t have the faith of this centurion.
Jesus focused on the nation of Israel during his stay on earth. There are only a few times he interacts with Gentiles. This is one, and there is another in Matthew when a Canaanite woman asked Jesus to heal her daughter from demon possession (ch. 15). Remember that the New Testament was written after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven. Matthew was written while the new church was experiencing Gentiles coming to faith. That makes the inclusion of this miracle even more interesting as Matthew records Jesus’ prophetic comments about Gentiles from all over the world being in heaven.
Today in our churches, there are many ‘Christians’ who take their faith casually. It’s just something they have always done, or it’s a tradition in their family. That is somewhat like the Jewish people who thought they were accepted by God by virtue of their genealogy. This miracle recorded in Matthew should make us think. Faith is actually about believing who Jesus is. It’s having faith that Jesus is God, that he can perform miracles. It’s not an hour-long service on Sunday with the rest of the week operating without thinking of God at all.
Do we come boldly to God with our prayer requests? Do we believe he could actually answer them? Reading this Roman centurion’s explanation for why he asked Jesus to heal his young servant, makes me think about my own prayer requests. Do I pray about something and then just keep worrying and figuring out how to fix it? How confident am I that God hears and answers my prayers?
Our song for today is Walk by Faith by Jeremy Camp.