How strange we would look if we came to a doctor with a broken arm, asking for help but not allowing him to touch it. The same can be said of...
How strange we would look if we came to a doctor with a broken arm, asking for help but not allowing him to touch it. The same can be said of our prayer asking for help, but without faith...
In response to the centurion's request, Jesus did not say something like "let what you ask be done for you" or "your servant has recovered; go." He says: "Go; and as you have believed, let it be done for you" (Matt. 5:13). In this way He tells us the main thing: it is not enough simply to ask; faith is necessary. It is faith that fills the request with "power," makes it real and full. For if one asks someone for help without believing that it can be given, one will scarcely receive it. Besides, if we do not believe that the Lord can help us, we in effect close the road to Him, that is, we simply do not give Him the opportunity to provide that very help.
That is why Christ said: "Have faith in God. For truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours" (Mark 11:23-24).
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8:2 A leper came - Leprosies in those countries were seldom curable by natural means, any more than palsies or lunacy.Probably this leper, though he might not mix with the people, had heard our Lord at a distance. Mar 1:40; Luk 5:12.
8:4 See thou tell no man - Perhaps our Lord only meant here, Not till thou hast showed thyself to the priest - who was appointed to inquire into the case of leprosy. But many others he commanded, absolutely, to tell none of tho miracles he had wrought upon them. And this he seems to have done, chiefly for one or more of these reasons:
For a testimony - That I am the Messiah; to them - The priests, who otherwise might have pleaded want of evidence. Lev 14:2.
8:5 There came to him a centurion - A captain of a hundred Roman soldiers. Probably he came a little way toward him, and then went back. He thought himself not worthy to come in person, and therefore spoke the words that follow by his messengers. As it is not unusual in all languages, so in the Hebrew it is peculiarly frequent, to ascribe to a person himself the thing which is done, and the words which are spoken by his order. And accordingly St.Matthew relates as said by the centurion himself, what others said by order from him. An instance of the same kind we have in the case of Zebedee's children. From St. Matthew, Mat 20:20, we learn it was their mother that spoke those words, which, Mar 10:35, Mar 10:37, themselves are said to speak; because she was
only their mouth. Yet from Mat 8:13, Go thy way home, it appears he at
length came in person, probably on hearing that Jesus was nearer to his house than he apprehended when he sent the second message by his friends. Luk 7:1.
8:8 The centurion answered - By his second messengers.
8:9 For I am a man under authority - I am only an inferior officer: and what I command, is done even in my absence: how much more what thou commandest, who art Lord of all!
8:10 I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel - For the centurion was not an Israelite.
8:11 Many from the farthest parts of the earth shall embrace the terms and enjoy the rewards of the Gospel covenant established with Abraham. But the Jews, who have the first title to them, shall be shut out from the feast; from grace here, and hereafter from glory. Luk 13:29.
8:12 The outer darkness - Our Lord here alludes to the custom the ancients had of making their feast in the night time. Probably while he was speaking this, the centurion came in person.