Let the record show that I did not want a dog. That was Camilla's idea. And I was against it from the beginning. She started looking at pictures, laying in bed. She'd be like, look at this dog, how cute it is. Look at these puppies. Look at this kind. And I was like, I don't care what kind of dog you show me. There's no kind of dog I'm going to want. I don't want a dog. We had a dog and she was awful. I loved her, but she was awful. And she broke my heart. We had a Siberian husky, and her name was Timber. And I loved her, but she did not love me back. And she did not understand that she needed to do the things that I said. So anytime she could stick her nose in the door and weasel her way out, she would just run, like literally for dozens of miles. And we would get calls from farmers that this husky was harassing their cattle, like a county away. It was insane. So I didn't want another dog because I'd had an experience with a dog who didn't understand that I was the master of the house and the dog wasn't the master of the house. Well, ultimately, I agree to get a dog because I'm weak. And the dog that we decide to get is a Pomski. Have you heard of these? A Pomski is half Pomeranian and half husky. And the way they make these is that there's a team of scientists and they put on lab coats and those blue stretchy gloves, and then one of them, I guess, just grabs the husky, and one of them grabs the Pomeranian, and then they just, I don't know, move them around and stuff until you get puppies. And then the kind of puppy that you're supposed to get is a perpetual husky puppy. It's got the little blue eyes and the downy tufts of fur around its ears, except instead of being an idiot, it's really loyal and smart. Instead of being big, it's really little, so that even if it is an idiot, it can't run 50 miles because you're faster than it. And that's not what we got. We found a Pomski that another family paid a lot of money to have the people in the lab coats make. And this Pomski didn't work out. It got too big, it ended up being more like border collie size. And so they were like, oh, we can't do this. You know, we just gotta get rid of this dog. And so we got the dog for dirt cheap, and it turns out she's awesome. And her name is Maya, and she's wonderful, and she loves me, and she understands that I am the master of the house. So whenever I walk by or come home, she assumes this posture in front of me that says, I know who you are, and I know who I am, and I understand where we both rank in this relationship. And the result is that she obeys all my commands and does all the things that I say, so that instead of getting in trouble and hurting herself and breaking my heart, she does things that make sense and are smart, or at least as sensible and as smart as I'm able to be in giving dog commands. But in spite of the fact that this is a really smart dog, she does not speak English at all. She understands a few English words, but she can't speak any of them back to me, even though she tries. So the way I know then that she understands what the deal is, is by her posture. She assumes a submissive posture in front of me, not like a pathetic one, just a you're in charge posture. We've already seen, and we are going to see, the motif of a right posture before the king all the way through the rest of Matthew. The central tenet of the book is that Jesus is the long-promised, long-awaited, eternal king, and that this kingdom comes in tow, and that this kingdom is awesome, and that you want to be a part of it because it's the truest, realist, bestest thing. But it's also very clear that the people throughout the book of Matthew who get it are the ones who assume this right posture before the king of submission. And it's very clear throughout the book of Matthew that the people who don't get it are the ones who come up to Jesus and they're like, okay, we could maybe partner up on something, or okay, you bring some things to the table, I bring some things to the table, or the ones who come to Jesus and are like, What? You can't do that. That's not how the things are. The people who get it are the ones who come and assume a right posture before the king, not necessarily rolling over and exposing their underbelly, and if not literally, metaphorically, falling at the feet of Jesus, the way one would, oh, I don't know, to stretch an earlier analogy, we've considered if they were a subject coming before their king and their sovereign. So with that in mind, a very significant thing is happening in Matthew chapter 8 as we encounter this centurion. Yesterday we read Matthew 8 verse 5 when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. Lord, he said, My servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly. Jesus said to him, Shall I come and heal him? The centurion replied, Lord, I don't deserve to have you come under my roof. Just say the word and my servant will be healed, for I myself am a man under authority with soldiers under me. I tell this one, go and he goes, and that one come and he comes. I say to my servant, Do this, and he does it. And when Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, and there's a whole thing there that we're gonna have to talk about with Israel and the ethnicity and things like that that we're gonna get to tomorrow. But the centurion is what I want to focus on today. Again, this is a Roman commander who, at least at the time when this rank of leadership was established under the Marian reforms in like, I don't know, one something, one twenty, one thirty-ish BC, they would have commanded a unit of a hundred troops. This evolved over time. Now centurions were deployed a lot of times like this, not just to handle one small group of a larger legion in the battlefield, like a glorified sergeant, if you will, but instead to handle outposts and occupations. Now, this makes sense that it unfolded this way, because when the rank of centurion was established, Rome was doing a lot of in-house business, dealing with their own problems. That's what the reforms under Marius were about. But once the in-house business with Rome was straightened out, look out, rest of the world. It's kind of like Napoleon after the French Revolution. Get things straightened out in-house. The rest of Europe is going to take a beating right after. Rome turns its eye toward the rest of the known world and starts conquering things and making them into subject states. Subject states, of course, require a military presence, which is why maybe this isn't the best way to govern. And that military presence maintains order and makes sure that even though those Roman substates, which were allowed to have to a degree, their own king, their own leadership, an ethnarch, if you will, like the Herod family, for example, but you know, these places they're still barely on a leash, and that military presence is what really ensures that they firmly stay on that leash. So the centurion would not have been viewed by the original audience as just a rank in a foreign army. He would have been viewed as the face of the occupation. Yet we know that he was well regarded in this community. He made a huge effort to go and work with the people over whom or on whom he enforced the law. And as a result, nobody freaks out or panics when this encounter between Jesus and the centurion happens. It would have taken a tremendous amount of goodwill for this guy even to be in the city proper of Capernaum without there being a hubbub and an incident that went on. We know from Luke that this guy was a friend of the synagogue, that he made an effort to understand the social dynamic of what was going on with the people he was in charge of, and in doing so, he had the nuance and the touch to be able to comprehend what needed to be said and how things needed to be done to make it work. That same skill set comes into view right here. He's got the nuance and the touch and the insight to say, wait a minute, this isn't just some random traveling hobo healer snake oil type. This person is holding himself out as a legit king with legit authority. And what he'd heard about Jesus made him think that Jesus had the kind of authority that was needed to solve a problem that he couldn't solve. Now notice that the centurion doesn't go to a group of people who apparently he's got along really well with, that being the religious leaders, the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, whoever runs the synagogue up there. He likes them, they like him well enough, but he didn't go to them to solve the problem because they don't have authority. See the end of Matthew chapter 7, where it says Jesus taught as one who had authority, not like the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. So even though dude already has an inside track with those people, he goes right past them, literally, physically walked past or had his emissary walk right past to the place where they do church and hang out to go and meet with Jesus. And what's his speech gonna be? You ever thought about this? If you had to go in front of a sovereign and you only had an elevator speech amount of time to make your pitch for why they should hear your plea or be concerned with your situation, how would you do that? If it was me, it'd probably be way too wordy and clumsy. I'd be like, if he gives me five hours, I could convince him. But honestly, when you're dealing with people who are busy or have authority or important, the thing to do is to respect their time and get right to the point of what you're after, but also right to the essence of what you're after and why. So the fact that the centurion goes with a very brief speech about authority and a right response to authority is genius, brilliantly insightful. Lord, I don't deserve to even have you come under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be healed. For I'm a man under authority with soldiers under me. He gets it. What he's doing here is he's taking like the peace sign, he's pointing it towards his eyes, and he's pointed towards Jesus' eyes, and he's like, I get it, I recognize you, I know authority when I see it. I have a little bit of that myself, and I know that I command things that normal people can't command, but I cannot command time and space and health and distance, but I know that you have greater authority than I have. And so effectively, this very proud man is metaphorically, verbally, falling at the feet of Jesus. Think about the effect this would have had on the original audience. The guy who represents the highest political, military, violence authority in their particular community has just strolled out and thrown himself at the feet of Jesus and affirmed his authority even more greatly. And further, I know you already know this, but dude is a Gentile, and he is seeing the king that was promised to the people of Israel who are still kind of not sure what to make of it. We're still sizing it up. I, for one, would be with the people of Israel. I don't think it's unreasonable or weird that they wanted to be careful about this and get it right. I, for one, feel tremendous sympathy, even empathy, with the people who needed a little bit of time to think it through, but the centurion didn't. He wasn't desperate or crazy. He did the mental math on what real authority looks like. And I was like, that's it, right there. And think about this further. If Dude wasn't absolutely sure that Jesus could deliver on this, and he goes out and makes this ovation in front of everyone, and then Jesus can't deliver on this, think about what that does for his career. Think about what that does for his credibility. That says two things. One, he really loved this servant and was willing to take a big risk on this. And it also says, two, he was really sure this was going to work out because he knows authority when he sees it. My dog understands that I am master of the house, and there are all kinds of subtle things that she does, not just plain spoken English, but all kinds of subtle things that she does about the way she interacts with me and their posture and behavior that says, I know you're in charge and I'm not, I know authority when I see it. Likewise, this centurion found a clever, nuanced way to articulate and model that same recognition of authority. You're king, I'm not. If you want to do this, you can. And Jesus' response to it is like nothing we've really seen from him yet at this point, and we'll game that out tomorrow. Thanks to everybody who supports the program at patreon.com slash the tmbh podcast. My goodness, that is helpful. I know I say thank you to you a lot, but it's because I'm thankful a lot. More on this stuff tomorrow. I'm Matt, this is the Ten Minute Bible Hour Podcast.