Expository Thoughts
sake of a little more wages. These things ought not so to be. In all our moves, our first thought should be the interest of our souls. In all our settlements, our chief desire should be to be connected with godly people. In all our purposes and planning, for ourselves or our children, one question should ever be uppermost in our minds— "What shall it profit to gain the whole world, and lose our own souls?" Good situations, as they are called, are often godless situations, and ruin to all eternity those who take them.
Notes on 7:1-10
2. A centurion's servant. The centurion here must have been a Gentile. We learn this from our Lord's words, "I have not found such great faith even in Israel" (verse 9).
3. The centurion . . . sent some elders of the Jews. Bishop Hall notes, "He is unworthy to be well served that will not sometimes wait on his followers."
7. "Say the word." The Portuguese commentator Barradius has some striking remarks on these words spoken by the centurion. He says, "This is a peculiar attribute of God's, to be able to do all things by a word and a command. 'He spoke and they were made. . . . He commanded and they were created' (Psalm 148:5). Read the book of Genesis. You will see the world created by the Word of God: 'God said, Let there be light, and there was light.' 'God said, Let there be a firmament,' and a firmament was made." He then shows from a quotation from Augustine how all the created beings in existence, whether kings or angels or seraphim, cannot create so much as an ant. But when God says, "Let the world be made," at once it is made