Healing the centurion's servant

Impressed, Jesus comments approvingly at the strong religious faith displayed by the soldier (despite not being a Jew) and grants the request, which results in the servant being healed the same day.

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel."

If true then this passage would still be an anomaly as Q is believed to have been a collection of sayings of Jesus (a list of sermons and quotations) with no other contextual material; but the story of the centurion does include background detail.

However, in his analysis of Matthew, R. T. France presents linguistic arguments against the equivalence of pais and son and considers these two separate miracles.

[5] Merrill C. Tenney in his commentary on John[6] and Orville Daniel in his Gospel harmony[7] also consider them two different incidents.

St. John Chrysostom, Theophylact of Ohrid, and Euthymius, all hold that these events in Luke happened first and then last of all the centurion came to Christ.

[8] The statements made by the centurion are used in the Prayer of Humble Access contained in many Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, and other Christian Eucharist liturgies.

[10] Luke 7:2 and 7:10 refer to the person to be healed as δοῦλος (doûlos), unambiguously meaning "slave" (interpretatively tr.

Christ says, "He did not find such faith in all Israel," which according to John McEvilly implies that he was a Pagan soldier, most likely Roman.

Accordingly, the demiurge urges Jesus to say a word (spread gnosis) to offer true salvation to humanity.

[12] Daniel A. Helminiak, an excommunicated American Catholic priest, theologian and author of What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality, states that the word pais, used for the servant, could have a sexual meaning.

[13] Theodore W. Jennings Jr. and Tat-Siong Benny Liew, also authors of various Christian books, further write that Roman historical data about patron-client relationships and about same-sex relations among soldiers support the view that the pais in Matthew's account is the centurion's "boy-lover", and that the centurion, therefore, did not want Jesus to enter his house for fear perhaps that the boy would be enamoured of Jesus instead.