Greatest faith

Bad night last night with dad. He was up and down for a long time. I am so tired today.

I've been thinking a lot about faith.

Now Jesus started on His way with them; and when He was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to Him, "Lord, do not trouble Yourself further, for I am not worthy for You to come under my roof; for this reason I did not even consider myself worthy to come to You, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed.

"For I also am a man placed under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go!' and he goes, and to another, 'Come!' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this!' and he does it."

Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled at him, and turned and said to the crowd that was following Him, "I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith." Luke 7:6-9 NAS

A Centurion would be something like a company commander in the US Army. Normally that would be a Captain rank and a professional soldier. He would have commanded at least 80 men.

My first thought was that it was interesting that he would care so much about a servant. But upon further consideration I actually think that's very much in character for a military leader. Leaders are often painted as uncaring and unfeeling but my experience has been the opposite.

It is clear to me from the passage that the remarkable thing about this man was his understanding of the nature of Jesus.

He understood that Jesus was of great rank and importance. The centurion did not feel worthy to even meet Jesus personally much less for Jesus to enter his home. That's a lot of respect.

He also understood that Jesus had such authority over the entire creation that Jesus only needed to give the order and that order would be executed.

That's truly remarkable. I really do understand why Jesus marveled.