The centurion understood authority because he stood under authority: and so he could tell Jesus that it would not be necessary for Jesus to come to his house in order to heal his servant. “I 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 slave ‘Do this,’ and he does it” (Matthew 8:9). His recognition of the nature of authority gave him the confidence to declare, “Just speak the word, and my servant will be healed” (8:8).

The centurion thus functions in the Gospel of Matthew as the model of how the authority of Jesus applies in our lives. At the end of the gospel we will see that “all authority in heaven and on earth” has been given to Jesus (28:18); yet because of the centurion’s story, we are able to see that authority is not measured by the correctness of our doctrine of scripture, but by the fullness of our obedience to Jesus.

We are generally not good at obedience; we are better at disputing about the authority of Bible verses, and so we tend to spend more time disputing instead of obeying. Yet Jesus marveled at the centurion and commended his faith (8:10) – with more pleasure, I imagine, than he will have for our argumentativeness.

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I long to understand your word, O Lord, fully and deeply: yet I get so caught up in the need to show that the verse I like is more authoritative than the verse the other guy likes. Teach me instead to show the doctrine of authority by being quick to obey your commands.