<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">8:9&nbsp;</span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">For I also am a man under authority</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">- The centurion had perceived exactly who the Lord Jesus was- a man, who was under (Divine) authority and yet had others beneath&nbsp;</span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">his</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">&nbsp;authority. And he understand the Lord Jesus as his representative, very similar to him, but with far more power. Admittedly he seems to have misunderstood the issue of demons- he understood that the Lord could say 'go' to whatever mighty ones [cp. his soldiers] were making his servant sick. Whatever his beliefs about sickness and its cause, he believed the Lord Jesus was far more powerful than whatever was causing it. But the Lord all the same commended the man for his&nbsp;</span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">faith</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">&nbsp;even if the precise content of that faith was misinformed, and if his way of life as a Roman centurion was not the best way of being a Jesus follower; not to mention that he was a Gentile. This opens a helpful window onto how the Lord feels about those who strongly believe in Him but have their understanding of some details awry.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><i>Come and he comes</i>- The same word just used by the Lord in saying that in response to the centurion's request: &quot;I will come&quot; (8:8). Perhaps the centurion is marvelling at the grace of the fact that he had asked the Son of God to come, and He had come in response...</p>
<p><i>Having under myself soldiers and I say to one: Go! And he goes. And to another: Come! And he comes. And to my servant: Do this! And he does it-</i>&nbsp;The centurion seems to have believed in demon possession. He understood that his servant was &ldquo;grievously tormented&rdquo; by them. He believed that the Lord could cure him, in the same way as he could say to his underlings &ldquo;go, and he goeth&rdquo; (Mt. 8:6-10). And so, he implied, couldn&rsquo;t Jesus just say to the demons &lsquo;Go!&rsquo;, and they would go, as with the &lsquo;demons&rsquo; in the madman near Gadara? The Lord didn&rsquo;t wheel round and read him a lecture about &lsquo;demons don&rsquo;t exist&rsquo; (although they don&rsquo;t, of course, and it&rsquo;s important to understand that they don&rsquo;t). He understood that this man had faith that He, as the Son of God, had power over these &lsquo;demons&rsquo;, and therefore &ldquo;he marvelled, and said&hellip; Verily&hellip; I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel&rdquo;. He focused on what faith and understanding the man had. With the height of His spirituality, with all the reason He had to be disappointed in people, the Lord marvelled at a man&rsquo;s faith. It is an essay in how He seized on what genuine faith He found, and worked to develop it, even if there was an element of false understanding in it.</p>