Luke 7:6

Luke

WORTHY-NOT WORTHY

Luk 7:4, Luk 7:6 - Luk 7:7.

A Roman centurion, who could induce the elders of a Jewish village to approach Jesus on his behalf, must have been a remarkable person. The garrison which held down a turbulent people was not usually likely to be much loved by them. But this man, about whom the incident with which our texts are connected is related, was obviously one of the people of whom that restless age had many, who had found out that his creed was outworn, and who had been drawn to Judaism by its lofty monotheism and its austere morality. He had gone so far as to build a synagogue, and thereby, no doubt, incurred the ridicule of his companions, and perhaps the suspicions of his superiors. What would the English authorities think of an Indian district officer that conformed to Buddhism or Brahminism, and built a temple? That is what the Roman officials would think of our centurion. And there were other beautiful traits in his character. He had a servant ‘that was dear to him.’ It was not only the nexus of master and servant and cash payments that bound these two together. And very beautiful is this story, when he himself speaks about this servant. He does not use the rough word which implies a bondservant, and which is employed throughout the whole of the rest of the narrative, but a much gentler one, and speaks of him as his ‘boy.’ So he had won the hearts of these elders so far as to make them swallow their dislike to Jesus, and deign to go to Him with a request which implied His powers at which at all other times they scoffed.

Now, we owe to Luke the details which show us that there was a double deputation to our Lord-the first which approached Him to ask His intervention, and the second which the centurion sent when he saw the little group coming towards his house, and a fresh gush of awe rose in his heart. The elders said, ‘He is worthy’; he said, ‘I am not worthy.’ The verbal resemblance is, indeed, not so close in the original as in our versions, for the literal rendering of the words put into the centurion’s mouth is ‘not fit.’ But still the evident antithesis is preserved: the one saying expresses the favourable view that partial outsiders took of the man, the other gives the truer view that the man took of himself. And so, putting away the story altogether, we may set these two verdicts side by side, as suggesting wider lessons than those which arise from the narrative itself.

I. And, first, we have here the shallow plea of worthiness.

These elders did not think loftily of Jesus Christ. The conception that we have of Him goes a long way to settle whether it is possible or not for us to approach Him with the word ‘worthy’ on our lips. The higher we lift our thought of Christ, the lower becomes our thought of ourselves. These elders saw the centurion from the outside, and estimated him accordingly. There is no more frequent, there is no more unprofitable and impossible occupation, than that of trying to estimate other people’s characters. Yet there are few things that we are so fond of doing. Half our conversation consists of it, and a very large part of what we call literature consists of it; and it is bound to be always wrong, whether it is eulogistic or condemnatory, because it only deals with the surface.

Here we have the shallow plea advanced by these elders in reference to the centurion which corresponds to the equally shallow plea that some of us are tempted to advance in reference to ourselves. The disposition to do so is in us all. Luther said that every man was born with a Pope in his belly. Every man is born with a Pharisee in himself, who thinks that religion is a matter of barter, that it is so much work, buying so much favour here, or heaven hereafter. Wherever you look, you see the working of that tendency. It is the very mainspring of heathenism, with all its penances and performances. It is enshrined in the heart of Roman Catholicism, with its dreams of a treasury of merits, and works of supererogation and the like. Ay! and it has passed over into a great deal of what calls itself Evangelical Protestantism, which thinks that, somehow or other, it is all for our good to come here, for instance on a Sunday, though we have no desire to come and no true worship in us when we have come, and to do a great many things that we would much rather not do, and to abstain from a great many things that we are strongly inclined to, and all with the notion that we have to bring some ‘worthiness’ in order to move Jesus Christ to deal graciously with us.

And then notice that the religion of barter, which thinks to earn God’s favour by deeds, and is, alas! the only religion of multitudes, and subtly mingles with the thoughts of all, tends to lay the main stress on the mere external arts of cult and ritual. ‘He loveth our nation, and hath built us a synagogue’; not, ‘He is gentle, good, Godlike.’ ‘He has built a synagogue.’ That is the type of work which most people who fall into the notion that heaven is to be bought, offer as the price. I have no doubt that there are many people who have never caught a glimpse of any loftier conception than that, and who, when they think-which they do not often do-about religious subjects at all, are saying to themselves, ‘I do as well as I can,’ and who thus bring in some vague thought of the mercy of God as a kind of make-weight to help out what of their own they put in the scale. Ah, dear brethren! that is a wearying, an endless, a self-torturing, an imprisoning, an enervating thought, and the plea of ‘worthiness’ is utterly out of place and unsustainable before God.

II. Now let me turn to the deeper conviction which silences that plea.

‘I am not worthy that Thou shouldest enter under my roof, wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto Thee.’ This man had a loftier conception of who and what Christ was than the elders had. To them He was only one of themselves, perhaps endowed with some kind of prophetic power, but still one of themselves. The centurion had pondered over the mystic power of the word of command, as he knew it by experience in the legion, or in the little troop of which he, though a man under the authority of his higher officers, was the commander; and he knew that even his limited power carried with it absolute authority and compelled obedience. And he had looked at Christ, and wondered, and thought, and had come at last to a dim apprehension of that great truth that, somehow or other, in this Man there did lie a power which, by the mere utterance of His will, could affect matter, could raise the dead, could still a storm, could banish disease, could quell devils. He did not formulate his belief, he could not have said exactly what it led to, or what it contained, but he felt that there was something divine about Him. And so, seeing, though it was but through mists, the sight of that great perfection, that divine humanity and human divinity, he bowed himself and said, ‘Lord! I am not worthy.’

When you see Christ as He is, and give Him the honour due to His name, all notions of desert will vanish utterly.

Further, the centurion saw himself from the inside, and that makes all the difference. Ah, brethren! most of us know our own characters just as little as we know our own faces, and find it as difficult to form a just estimate of what the hidden man of the heart looks like as we find it impossible to form a just estimate of what we look to other people as we walk down the street. But if we once turned the searchlight upon ourselves, I do not think that any of us would long be able to stand by that plea, ‘I am worthy.’ Have you ever been on a tour of discovery, like what they go through at the Houses of Parliament on the first day of each session, down into the cellars to see what stores of explosive material, and what villains to fire it, may be lurking there? If you have once seen yourself as you are, and take into account, not only actions but base tendencies, foul, evil thoughts, imagined sins of the flesh, meannesses and basenesses that never have come to the surface, but which you know are bits of you, I do not think that you will have much more to say about ‘I am worthy.’ The flashing waters of the sea may be all blazing in the sunshine, but if they were drained off, what a frightful sight the mud and the ooze at the bottom would be! Others look at the dancing, glittering surface, but you, if you are a wise man, will go down in the diving-bell sometimes, and for a while stop there at the bottom, and turn a bull’s-eye straight upon all the slimy, crawling things that are there, and that would die if they came into the light.

‘I am not worthy that Thou shouldest enter under my roof.’ But then, as I have said, most of us are strangers to ourselves. The very fact of a course of action which, in other people, we should describe with severe condemnation, being ours, bribes us to indulgence and lenient judgment. Familiarity, too, weakens our sense of the foulness of our own evils. If you have been in the Black Hole all night, you do not know how vitiated the atmosphere is. You have to come out into the fresh air to find out that. We look at the errors of others through a microscope; we look at our own through the wrong end of the telescope; and the one set, when we are in a cynical humour, seem bigger than they are; and the other set always seem smaller.

Now, that clear consciousness of my own sinfulness ought to underlie all my religious feelings and thoughts. I believe, for my part, that no man is in a position to apprehend Christianity rightly who has not made the acquaintance of his own bad self. And I trace a very large proportion of the shallow Christianity of this day as well as of the disproportion in which its various truths are set forth, and the rising of crops of erroneous conceptions just to this, that this generation has to a large extent lost-no, do not let me say this generation, you and I-have to a large extent lost, that wholesome consciousness of our own unworthiness and sin.

But on the other hand, let me remind you that the centurion’s deeper conviction is not yet the deepest of all, and that whilst the Christianity which ignores sin is sure to be impotent, on the other hand the Christianity which sees very little but sin is bondage and misery, and is impotent too. And there are many of us whose type of religion is far gloomier than it should be, and whose motive of service is far more servile than it ought to be, just because we have not got beyond the centurion, and can only say, ‘I am not worthy; I am a poor, miserable sinner.’

III. And so I come to the third point, which is not in my text, but which both my texts converge upon, and that is the deepest truth of all, that worthiness or unworthiness has nothing to do with Christ’s love.

When these elders interceded with Jesus, He at once rose and went with them, and that not because of their intercession or of the certificate of character which they had given, but because His own loving heart impelled Him to go to any soul that sought His help. So we are led away from all anxious questionings as to whether we are worthy or no, and learn that, far above all thoughts either of undue self-complacency or of undue self-depreciation, lies the motive for Christ’s gracious and healing approach in.

‘His ceaseless, unexhausted love,

Unmerited and free.’

This is the truth to which the consciousness of sinfulness and unworthiness points us all, for which that consciousness prepares us, in which that consciousness does not melt away, but rather is increased and ceases to be any longer a burden or a pain. Here, then, we come to the very bed-rock of everything, for

‘Merit lives from man to man,

But not from man, O Lord, to Thee.’

Jesus Christ comes to us, not drawn by our deserts, but impelled by His own love, and that love pours itself out upon each of us. So we do not need painfully to amass a store of worthiness, nor to pile up our own works, by which we may climb to heaven. ‘Say not, who shall ascend up into heaven,’ to bring Christ down again, ‘but the word is nigh thee, that if thou wilt believe with thine heart, thou shalt be saved.’ Worthiness or unworthiness is to be swept clean out of the field, and I am to be content to be a pauper, to owe everything to what I have done nothing to procure, and to cast myself on the sole, all-sufficient mercy of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

And then comes liberty, and then comes joy. If the gift is given from no consideration of men’s deserts, then the only thing that men have to do is to exercise the faith that takes it. As the Apostle says in words that sound very hard and technical, but which, if you would only ponder them, are throbbing with vitality, ‘It is of faith that it might be by grace.’ Since He gives simply because He loves, the only requisites are the knowledge of our need, the will to receive, the trust that, in clasping the Giver, possesses the gift.

The consciousness of unworthiness will be deepened. The more we know ourselves to be sinful, the more we shall cleave to Christ, and the more we cleave to Christ, the more we shall know ourselves to be sinful. Peter caught a glimpse of what Jesus was when he sat in the boat, and he said, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!’ But Peter saw both himself and his Lord more clearly, that is more truly, when, subsequent to his black treachery, his brother Apostle said to him concerning the figure standing on the beach in the grey morning, ‘It is the Lord,’ and he flung himself over the side and floundered through the water to get to his Master’s feet. For that is the place for the man who knows himself unworthy. The more we are conscious of our sin, the closer let us cling to our Lord’s forgiving heart, and the more sure we are that we have that love which we have not earned, the more shall we feel how unworthy of it we are. As one of the prophets says, with profound meaning, ‘Thou shalt be ashamed and confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy transgression, when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done.’ The child buries its face on its mother’s breast, and feels its fault the more because the loving arms clasp it close.

And so, dear brethren, deepen your convictions, if you are deluded by that notion of merit; deepen your convictions, if you see your own evil so clearly that you see little else. Come into the light, come into the liberty, rise to that great thought, ‘Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by His mercy He saved us.’ Have done with the religion of barter, and come to the religion of undeserved grace. If you are going to stop on the commercial level, ‘the wages of sin is death’; rise to the higher ground: ‘the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7:6 I am not worthy of such an honor: The man was probably showing sensitivity to Jewish concerns; pious Jews would not enter the home of a Gentile, since it would make them ceremonially unclean (see Acts 10:28; 11:12). The centurion might also have been acknowledging Jesus’ superior status.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 7:6. Ἤδη δὲ, but now) Whilst he feels sensibly the promptness of the Lord, the reverence of his faith increases in the centurion.—φίλους, friends) He had sent elders for the sake of beseeching (Luk 7:4): now he employs friends to deliver a second message. Could then friends “come unto” the Lord, when the centurion himself did not? Yes; because they went unto the Lord in behalf of the centurion, not in behalf of themselves. The one and the same faith produces in different persons different mental effects and emotions.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 7:6 . ἐπορεύετο : no hint of scruples on the part of Jesus, as in the case of the Syrophenician woman. οὐ μακρὰν , not far, i.e. , quite near. Lk. often uses the negative with adjectives and adverbs to express strongly the positive. Hahn accumulates instances chiefly from Acts. φίλους : these also would naturally be Jews. ἱκανός εἰμι ἴνα : here we have ἰκανὸς , followed by ἵνα with subjunctive. In Luk 3:16 it is followed by the infinitive.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(6) Then Jesus went with them.—Literally, And Jesus was going with them.

The centurion sent friends to him.—The precision of St. Luke’s account leads us to receive it as a more accurate record of what St. Matthew reports in outline. It is, we may add, more true to nature. The centurion was not likely to leave the slave who was so precious to him when he seemed as in the very agonies of death.

Trouble not thyself.—The word is the same as in Mar_5:35, where see Note.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6. when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him] Here the narrative of St Luke is much more detailed, and therefore probably more exact, than that of St Matthew, who represents the conversation as taking place between our Lord and the centurion himself. We see from St Luke that he had been prevented from coming in person by deep humility, and the belief that the elders would be more likely to win the boon for him. Meanwhile, he probably stayed by the bedside of his dying slave. St Matthew’s narrative is framed on the simple and common principle, qui facit per alium facit per se.

Lord] The word in itself may mean no more than “Sir,” as in Joh_4:19; Joh_12:21; Act_16:30, &c. It was, in fact, like the Latin dominus, an ordinary mode of address to persons whose names were unknown (Sen., Ephesians 3); but the centurion’s entire conduct shews that on his lips the word would have a more exalted significance. In a special sense Κύριος is a name for God (Adonai) and Jehovah (1Th_5:2, &c.).

trouble not thyself] The word skullo (Mat_9:30) would in classical Greek be a slang word. ‘Bother not,’ or ‘worry not thyself.’ But in Hellenistic Greek, both slang words [hupopiazo, Luk_18:5; katanarkao, 2Co_12:13) and purely poetic words (see Luk_2:35) had become current in ordinary senses.

under my roof] The emphasis is on the my, as is shewn by its position in the Greek. “I am not worthy”—Dicendo se indignum praestitit dignum non in cujus parietes sed in cujus cor Christus in-traret. Aug..

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Then Jesus went with them,.... The elders of the Jews, towards the centurion's house, after hearing their request, and their reasons for it; and that without any reluctancy, he at once complied, made no hesitation, or difficulty about it, but went with them very freely:

and when he was now not far from the house; of the centurion, where his servant lay sick; he having some notice of his coming, and of his being near his house, in his great humility, and being conscious to himself of his unworthiness to have such a person under his roof, sent messengers to prevent him:

the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself; or do not fatigue thyself by coming to the house, stop, go no further;

for I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof: he might know full well the law of the Jews, that it was not lawful for a Jew to go into the house of an uncircumcised Gentile; and though he might be a proselyte of righteousness, and so his house was free of entrance; yet considering his own meanness, and the greatness of Christ, who was become so famous for his doctrines and miracles, he thought it too great a stoop for Christ to come into his house, and too high a favour for him to enjoy.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

6 Then Jesus went with them. And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof:

Ver. 6. For I am not worthy] So saith Jacob of himself, Gen 32:10; so Paul, 1Co 15:8-10; so the Baptist, Mat 3:11; so Augustine, Non sum dignus quem tu diligas, Domine, I am not worthy of thy love, Lord.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jesus Christ went with them, not because he could not cure him, when absent, but that he might set forth the centurion’s humility for our imitation. He would not go to the child of the ruler of the synagogue, lest he might appear to be induced by the consideration of his consequence and riches; but he went to the centurion’s servant, that he might appear to despise his humble condition. (St. Ambrose)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Lord, trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof. Augustine"s comment on these remarkable words is good: "By saying that he was unworthy, he showed himself worthy of Christ"s entering, not within his walls, but within his heart."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The faith of the centurion:

v. 6. Then Jesus went with them. And when He was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to Him, saying unto Him, Lord, trouble not Thyself; for I am not worthy that Thou shouldest enter under my roof;

v. 7. wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto Thee; but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed.

v. 8. For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.

v. 9. When Jesus heard these things, He marveled at him, and turned Him about, and said unto the people that followed Him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

v. 10. And they that were sent, returning to the house, found the servant whole that had been sick.

Strange disagreement! The Jewish elders declare that he is worthy, the centurion says that he is not worthy. They had intimated in their petition that it would be best for Jesus to come, and He, accordingly, went with them. The officer maintains that so much bother and inconvenience on the part of Christ was too much honor for him. When the centurion received the news that Jesus was coming in person, a possibility with which he had not reckoned, the fear of his unworthiness took hold of him. Jesus was even now quite near. Therefore the Roman quickly dispatches other friends to intercept Him, saying that Christ should not bother, should not put Himself out by coming in person. He as the host, and his house as reception-hall for the Most High: that seemed altogether too incongruous to him. For that reason also he had not come in person, but had sent a delegation to plead with the Lord. Note: The argument of the centurion is a model of humility, especially since he does not draw the conclusion, but makes his object so obvious that the effect is all the more overwhelming. He himself was a mere man; Christ was the Lord from heaven. He was a man under authority, in a constant state of subordination; Christ was the King of kings, the Lord of lords. Yet the centurion could give commands which his soldiers and his slave must carry out at once at his bidding, so great was the authority of a mere man. Surely here was a clear case: Speak only in a word, by means of a single word, and the sickness must obey Thy almighty will. He that has the true, living faith in his heart realizes his own unworthiness and weakness before the Lord, and yet he does not doubt, but firmly believes, that the Lord of heaven loves him and will gladly help him. The believer understands what mercy is, and that the mercy of God is intended for those that are without worthiness and merit.

This argument of faith conquered Jesus. He was filled with astonishment; He turned to the multitude that was following Him and said: I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. In the midst of the chosen people, to whom were entrusted the words of the revelation of God, the majority, if not all, should have felt as this Roman officer did, but they were here put to shame by an outsider. And in His joy over this rare find Jesus spoke the word for which the centurion had pleaded. When those that had been sent returned to the centurion’s house, they found the sick servant restored to perfect health. Thus was the faith of this heathen rewarded. Faith at all times takes hold of Christ, the almighty, kind Helper and Savior, and thus it accepts from Christ help, comfort, grace, and every good thing. Faith depends entirely upon the Word, and therefore takes and puts into its own possession all that the Word promises.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

continued on his way

"went along"

not far from the house

The double negative can be replaced. AT: "near the house" (See: Double Negatives)

do not trouble yourself

The centurion was speaking politely to Jesus. AT: "do not trouble yourself by coming to my house" or "I do not wish to bother you"

come under my roof

This phrase is an idiom that means "come into my house." If your language has an idiom that means "come into my house," think about whether it would be good to use here. (See: Idiom)

just say a word

The servant understood that Jesus could heal the servant just by speaking. Here "word" refers to a command. AT: "just give the order" (See: Synecdoche)

my servant will be healed

The word that is translated here as "servant" is normally translated as "boy." It may indicate that the servant was very young or show the centurion's affection for him.

I also am a man who is under authority

"I also have someone over me that I must obey"

under me

"under my authority"

to my servant

The word that is translated here as "servant" is the typical word for a servant.

translationWords

lord

servant

cure

authority

soldier

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

6. ἔπεμψεν … φίλους. These ‘friends’ were perhaps brother-officers, not Jews. Here the narrative of St Luke is much more detailed, and therefore probably more exact, than that of St Matthew, who represents the conversation as taking place between our Lord and the centurion himself. we see from St Luke that he had been prevented from coming in person by deep humility, and the belief that the elders would be more likely to win the boon for him. Meanwhile, he probably stayed by the bedside of his dying slave. St Matthew’s narrative is framed on the simple and common principle, qui facit per alium facit per se.

κύριε. The word in itself may mean no more than ‘Sir,’ as in Joh 4:19; Joh 12:21; Act 16:30, &c. It was, in fact, like the Latin dominus, an ordinary mode of address to persons whose names were unknown (Sen. Ephesians 3); but the centurion’s entire conduct shews that on his lips the word had a more exalted significance. In a special sense Κύριος is a name for God (Adonai) and Jehovah (1Th 5:2, &c.).

μὴ σκύλλου. ‘Bother not,’ or ‘worry not thyself.’ But in Hellenistic Greek, both slang words (ὑπωπιάζω, Luk 18:5; καταναρκάω 2Co 12:13) and purely poetic words (see Luk 2:35) had become current in ordinary senses. Σκύλλω only occurs as a var. lect. (‘worried sheep’) in Mat 9:36, in Luk 8:49, and in the parallel (Mar 5:35). Its first meaning is to flay.

ἱκανός. Lit. sufficient.

ὑπὸ τὴν στέγην μου. “I am not worthy”—Dicendo se indignum praestitit dignum non in cujus parietes sed in cujus cor Christus intraret. Aug.

ἐμαυτόν. ‘I did not even think myself worthy to come; I sent my friends to represent me.’

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6. οὐ μακράν Comp. Act 17:27. The expression is peculiar to Lk., who is fond of οὐ with an adj. or adv. to express his meaning. Comp. οὐ πολλαί (15:13; Act 1:5), οὐ πολύ (Act 27:14), οὐκ ὀλίγος (Act 12:18, Act 12:14:28, Act 12:15:2, Act 12:17:4, Act 12:12, Act 12:19:23, Act 12:24, 27, Act 12:20), οὐκ ὁ τυχών (Act 19:11, Act 28:2), οὐκ ἄσημος (Act 21:39), οὐ μετρίως (Act 20:12).

ἔπεμψεν φίλους Comp. 15:6, Act 10:24. Mt. says nothings about either of these deputations, but puts the message of both into the mouth of the centurion himself, who comes in person. In Lk. the man’s humility and faith prevail over his anxiety as soon as he sees that the first deputation has succeeded, and that the great Rabbi and Prophet is really coming to him. Therefore he sends the second deputation to say that he is not worthy of a visit, and that e visit is not necessary.

κύριε, μὴ σκύλλου “Lord, cease to trouble Thyself.” The verb is a marked instance of the tendency of words to become weaker in meaning: σκύλλω (σκῦλον 11:22) Isa_1. “flay”; 2. “mangle”; 3. “vex, annoy” (8:49; Mar 5:35; Mat 9:36). See Expositor, 1st series, 1876, 4. pp. 30, 31. What follows seems to show that the centurion was not a proselyte. The house of a Gentile was polluting to a Jew; and therefore οὐ γὰρ ἱκανός εἰμι, κ.τ.λ., is quite in point if he was still a heathen. But it is rather strong language if he had ceased to be a heathen. For ἵνα after ἱκανός see Burton., § 216.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Went [επορευετο] . The imperfect tense is explained by what follows. He was going, was on the way, when he was met by the second messenger from the centurion.

Friends. Possibly kinsmen, not elders now.

Trouble [σκυλλου] . Lit., worry. See on Mt 9:36; Mr 5:35.

Worthy [ικανος] . Lit., sufficient. Compare Mt 3:11, "worthy to bear;" and 2Co 3:5, "not that we are sufficient [ικανοι] , but our sufficiency [ικανοτης] is of God." It is also used in the sense of much, many, long. See ch. Luk 7:12; Luk 8:27, 32; Luk 20:9; Act 9:23.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 6b-8. The Second Deputation.

The centurion, from his house, sees Jesus approaching with His retinue of disciples. The veneration with which this mysterious person inspires him makes him afraid even to receive Him under his roof; he sends, therefore, a second deputation. Strauss sees in this a contradiction of his former proceeding. But it was simply a deeper humility and stronger faith that had dictated this course. ῾Ικανός here denotes moral worth, as in Luk 3:16 and elsewhere. — Faith vies with humility in this man. The expression εἰπὲ λόγω, say in a word, suggests this means in preference to His coming in person.

In Matthew’s narrative all these proceedings are united in a single act; the centurion comes himself to tell Jesus of the sickness, and to the offer of Jesus to visit his house, returns the answer which we find in Luk 5:8. Bleek regards the details in Luke as an amplification of the original narrative; others consider Matthew’s account an abridgment of Luke’s. But how could Luke exaggerate in this way the plain statement of Matthew, or Matthew mangle the description of Luke? Our evangelists were earnest believers. All that tradition had literally preserved was the characteristic reply of the centurion (Luk 7:8), and our Lord’s expression of admiration (Luk 7:9). The historical outline had been created with greater freedom in the oral narration. This explains in a very natural manner the difference between our two narratives. — Although he was only an ordinary man (ἄνθρωπος), and a man in a dependent position, the centurion had some subordinates through whom he could act without always going himself to the place. Could not Jesus, who stood far above him in the hierarchy of being, having the powers of the invisible world at His disposal, make use, if He pleased, of a similar power? We may compare here Jesus’ own words respecting the angels which ascend and descend (John 1:52).

How are we to explain the existence of such faith in this man? We must bear in mind the words of Luk 7:3: having heard of Jesus. The fame of the miracles of Jesus had reached even him. There was one cure especially, which Jesus had wrought at Capernaum itself, and since Cana, which presented a remarkable similarity to that which the centurion besought—the cure of the nobleman’s son (John 4). Perhaps his knowledge of this miracle is the most natural mode of explaining the faith implied in the message which he addresses to Jesus by the mouth of his friends.

The expression, such faith, refers not to the request for a cure, but for a cure without the aid of His bodily presence. It was, as it were, a paroxysm of faith!

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.