2/21 Read With Me: Luke 7

This is Scripture for Students. I’m Steve Whitacre, president of Trinity College and a pastor at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville. I want to help students build a daily habit for life-long Bible reading. Today is February 21, 2025 and this episode of Scripture for Students is called Read With Me: Luke 7. Grab your Bible and let’s get started.

Our readings for today are Exodus 4, Luke 7, and Job 21.

Please open your Bibles to Luke 7.

We’re going to do something a little different for this Scripture for Students. If you have been reading along with us up to this point, you know that typically, I talk and you listen and I hope that’s been helpful. After about 6 weeks of reading God’s word together, I think you’re ready to go to the next level of reading God’s word. And by that I mean, starting to read and interpret for yourself. This is a learned skill and I want to help you learn it. And the good news is that you can learn how to interpret God’s word if you are willing to read attentively and think carefully about what you read.

Many Bible scholars who teach how to read the Bible will explain that learning to interpret properly involves three steps: observation, explanation, and application. The first step, observation, is simply reading slowly and paying attention to the words that are actually there. Next, explanation is seeking to explain what those words mean in the setting that they were originally written. And third, application asks, “What are we supposed to do with what I’ve read? How does this change my thinking, my feeling, my speaking, or my doing? 

Today, I want to focus on observation. There is a lot to learn here. Even a short, seemingly simple passage of Scripture might have a lot of detail to pay attention to. When we are working on observation, we need to read and reread the passage. We need to look out for unusual vocabulary or key words, repetition of words, ideas that are repeated using different words. We should pay attention to the characters: who they are, where they come from or go, and how they relate to one another. If there is dialog, let’s pay attention to what gets said and what doesn’t get said. We could look for lists or cause-and-effects, or lots of other aspects of the literature. 

This Scripture for Students will work best if this is a hands-on exercise. You’ll need to be ready  to hit pause, write a few things down, and then resume. If you don’t have a pen and a journal or some other paper handy, pause here and go grab what you need. 

Ok, now we’re back. Please follow along as I read Luke 7:1–10,

1 After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 

2 Now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. 

3 When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. 

4 And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, 

5 for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.” 

6 And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. 

7 Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. 

8 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.” 

9 When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” 

10 And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.

May the Lord bless the reading and the hearing and the keeping of his Word.

Ok, we’ve read the text, but we’ve only read it once. It’s only 10 verses, so press pause here and then re-read these verses maybe 3 or 4 times. Go.

OK, so now we’re back and we’re ready to make some observations. Write down on your paper Setting, Characters, Problem. We want to make sure we understand what is going on, what is the tension of the story. Now, we’re going to take a minute to pause again and you can write down for yourself what is the setting, who are the characters, and what is the problem. Pause now and do that and come back when you are done.

So, what did you find? 

• Setting: right after a lot of talking by Jesus. Red letters. 6:17 — the Sermon on the Plain. Then he went into a city called Capernaum. Do you know where Capernaum is? If not, take a minute and find the maps in the back of your Bible, look for one that describes Israel in the time of Jesus. You’ll find it on the north edge of the Sea of Galilee. 
• What about the characters? Obviously, Jesus, although he doesn’t say much. There are crowds. And there is a centurion. A centurion was a Roman army officer, in charge of 100 men. We don’t get his name but we learn a few things about him. Let’s pause again here and take a few minutes to write down as much as you can learn from these verses about the centurion. Write down what you learn and for each thing, jot down the verse that you found it. We want to get in the habit of anchoring our observations directly in the verses. Pause now and do that, and come back when you are done.
  • So what did you learn? Here’s a few things that stand out to me: 
  • We don’t get his name. 
  • 2 He has a servant who is sick and almost dead. The servant was valued.
  • 4 His friends think he is “worthy” for Jesus to do this. Why? 5 he loves our nation (meaning the Jewish people) and he built the synagogue. So presumably, this centurion is also wealthy.
• One thing I always like to do when I’m reading a passage is think about the words. I love words and words matter so much. What we want to do here is take a few minutes to pay attention to words. If you like writing in your Bible, you could underline, circle, draw boxes or stars next to words. Or, just write some of these words down on your paper. You might look for vivid verbs. Are there unusual words or repeated words? What about words that are emotionally charged? Let’s go hunting. We’re going to pause here and take a minute to write down as many significant words as you can. Pause now, do that, and come back when you are done.
  • Ok, what did you find?
  • Any vivid verbs? 4 – they pleaded. 5 – he loves. 6 – do not trouble yourself. 7 – I do not presume. 9 – he marveled at him. Imagine if Luke had used less vivid verbs. What would be lost if Luke wrote in verse 4, “they asked” instead of “they pleaded.” or in verse 7, “I did not want to come to you” instead of “I did not presume to come to you.” Do you see how Luke’s choice of words heightens the emotion of the passage?
  • What about repeated words? There are not a ton of them in this passage, but one that stood out to me is in verse 4 and again in verse 6. Did you notice that the centurion’s friends said to Jesus, “He is worthy to have you come and do this for him,” but in verse 6, the centurion’s self-assessment is very different: “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.” What do you think we learn about the centurion from that?
  • What about key words? Are there any words that you think might be important to the story, even if they aren’t repeated? I’ll give you three that stood out to me: in verse 8, the centurion mentions authority and then goes on to compare his authority over his soldiers to Jesus’ far greater authority to heal sickness. Here’s another: in verse 9, it says Jesus marveled at the centurion. This is one of my favorite words in Greek and I think if someone does something that makes Jesus marvel, we should pay attention. What makes Jesus take notice? That’s another key word in verse 9: Jesus says, “not even in Israel have I found such faith.” Part of what makes this word so important is that it is the centurion who has the faith, a Roman rather than a Jew. That makes it really important to the story. I bet you’ve found some more great key words, too. 
• Ok, last thing we’ll do for now is make a basic outline of the action of the story. I like to write out a short outline of what happens. You can group several verses together if they are describing the same thing, and then write a phrase or at most, one sentence, summarizing what happened. Sometimes it really helps to see how the action of a story unfolds. So take a couple minutes to do that. Pause here, do that, and come back when you are done. 
• Ok, what did you get? There are many different ways you could do this, so not necessarily right or wrong, but it might be something like this. I outlined it in four steps:
  • 1–2 The Setting: a centurion has a sick servant and wants help from Jesus
  • 3–5 The Ask: the Jewish elders ask Jesus to come heal the servant
  • 6–8 The Interruption: the centurion sends friends to ask Jesus to heal his servant from a distance
  • 9–10 Amazement and Action: Jesus marvels at the centurion’s faith and heals the servant.

There is a lot more we could do to read this passage, but that’s a good start. If you have time, do the same steps for some of the other passages we are reading today.

That’s all for today. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with a friend and follow us on Apple Podcasts.

This content is sponsored by Trinity College of Louisville. We shape young men and young women for Christ and for the church. Learn more at TrinityCollegeLou.com. Until next time, keep growing!