Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
Luke 7:1–10
“For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: 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” (v. 8).
Peter grounded the Apostolic message in eyewitness testimony and the Spirit-carried word of prophecy (2 Peter 1:16–21), and the false teachers he opposed denied the authority of both the Apostles and the prophets to justify their rejection of Christ’s return and their embrace of moral license. As we continue our study, we will pause for a few days to consider the doctrine of biblical authority more fully, for without a right understanding of what it means for God to speak, Peter’s entire argument loses its force.
In today’s passage, a Roman centurion grasped something that many in Israel could not: the nature of authority (Luke 7:1–10). He lived within a structure of command. When he gave an order, his soldiers obeyed, not because he was personally stronger than any one of them but because he held a position that carried the right to command obedience. The centurion recognized that Jesus operated within a similar structure, though on a far higher plane. If a Roman officer could command soldiers by the authority vested in him, how much more could the One sent by God command sickness and health, life and death? Matthew Henry observes that the centurion had greater insight into Christ’s authority than many who had far greater advantages of knowing Him. Jesus marveled at this faith, telling the crowds that He had not found anything like it in all Israel (v. 9).
When we confess the authority of Scripture, we are making an analogous confession. The Bible has the right to command our belief and our behavior because it is the Word of the living God, and its authority derives entirely from its Author. When God speaks, His creatures are obligated to listen and obey. Just as the centurion’s soldiers did not debate whether to follow his orders, so the Christian’s posture before Scripture is one of humble submission to the voice of God.
This principle sets the terms for every debate about Scripture’s role in the church. Church councils may err. Traditions may mislead. Individual Christians may misinterpret. But the Word of God, rightly understood, is the final court of appeal. The authority of Scripture is not one voice among many; it is the voice above all others, because it is the voice of God. The Reformers captured this conviction in the principle of sola Scriptura: Scripture alone is the infallible rule of faith and practice, the standard by which all teaching, all tradition, and all experience must be measured.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
True freedom is found not in autonomy but in glad submission to the God who speaks. Let us examine our hearts for any area in which we have placed our own judgment above the clear teaching of Scripture, and let us ask the Lord for the grace to yield our wills to His.
For further study
- Psalm 119:89–96
- Isaiah 66:1–2
- Matthew 28:18–20
- James 1:22–25
The bible in a year
- Psalms 19–22
- Acts 20:17–38