When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralysed, suffering terribly”... Matthew 8:5-6
Jesus... entered Capernaum. There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was ill and about to die. The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant... Luke 7:1-3
Do you notice anything in particular about the two quotations above, one from Matthew and one from Luke?
It’s clear that they are telling the same story, about a Roman soldier who is desperate to get Jesus to come and heal his servant. But for some reason there are significant differences in the details of the story. (You need really to read the whole accounts given in Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10.)
In Matthew’s account the centurion approaches Jesus personally, and Jesus heals the servant without coming to the house. In Luke’s account the centurion approaches Jesus through a delegation of “some elders of the Jews” and the same thing happens: the servant is healed at a distance. But Jesus and the centurion never meet.
There are other passages in the Gospels where a similar thing happens - the story is basically the same, but some of the details are different, if not contradictory.
Two obvious questions arise...
First, why does this happen? And second, is it something that should trouble us, given our belief in the inspiration of the Bible?
(1) Why does this happen?
To answer this we need to put another question first: how in fact did the four Gospels come to be written in the first place?
This is something which most of us never stop to think about. And why should we? After all, we have the Gospels, and that’s what matters. If we give it any thought at all, we probably imagine Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each sitting down, praying, and proceeding to record all the things God led them to set down in writing.
But it wasn’t quite like that! Luke himself tells us at the beginning of his Gospel that “many people have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us...” (Luke 1:1).
In other words, in those earliest days after the resurrection, various people wrote down accounts of incidents in the life of Jesus, and of his words. When the Gospel-writers set about composing their books, they presumably had access to some of these accounts and worked them into their Gospels (all, of course, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit).
It’s worth remembering that Luke wasn’t one of the twelve, so he will probably not have personally witnessed the events he records: he depended on those who were “eye-witnesses and servants of the word”, people who “handed down” the stories (Luke 1:2).
Is this what happened with the episode of the centurion’s servant? The basic story is much the same, but the differences are quite substantial. Was Matthew working from one document and Luke from another?
When historians today write their books they take great care to make sure that they have got everything just right. Anything that might seem like a contradiction or inconsistency will be pounced on mercilessly by their critics. And quite right too.
But of course it just wasn’t like that in the ancient world. Everything depended on eye-witness reports and personal memory - no recording devices, cameras, even short-hand. And as we know, two people giving eye-witness reports of the same incident - a car accident, for example, or a political event - will produce accounts which do not tally completely.
So, if this helps explain why this happens...
(2) Is this something that should trouble us?
Surely not. We should not expect the Bible to be something it never claims to be. It’s true that Luke, in those opening verses of his Gospel, insists that he has “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” (Luke 1:3); but the fact remains that the New Testament belongs to a particular time, place and culture - so a polished, scrupulously researched, modern-style historical record was never a possibility.
It’s worth saying too, of course, that many of the seeming inconsistencies in the Bible can be resolved without too much difficulty. But where that is not the case, it’s a waste of time and energy to tie ourselves in knots trying to find some solution. (I read about a man who, desperate to harmonise the Gospel-accounts of Peter’s denial of Jesus, ended up concluding that the cock must have crowed six times.)
The message is simple... Let the Bible be - the Bible! Let it be what it is - a big, baggy, immensely varied collection of ancient documents which God has given as a gift to his church.
We are not to try and pin it down, like a butterfly in a glass case, or to strap it into a strait-jacket of our own devising.
No... Let it breathe! Let it sing! Let it fly! Let it teach and comfort, let it challenge and rebuke, let it puzzle and inspire. But let it not reduce us to fretting about things which have perplexed the church for two thousand years, and which it’s a waste of time to agonise over.
The Bible is what it is. Let’s get used to it - and be thankful!
(Perhaps next time we’ll come back to the centurion’s servant and see what really matters about the story...)
Father, thank you for your written word, the Bible. Help me day by day to take it seriously as I read and digest it. May it shape my thinking and inspire my living. And may it lead me, little by little, to become more like your living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Amen.
Jesus... entered Capernaum. There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was ill and about to die. The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant... Luke 7:1-3
Do you notice anything in particular about the two quotations above, one from Matthew and one from Luke?
It’s clear that they are telling the same story, about a Roman soldier who is desperate to get Jesus to come and heal his servant. But for some reason there are significant differences in the details of the story. (You need really to read the whole accounts given in Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10.)
In Matthew’s account the centurion approaches Jesus personally, and Jesus heals the servant without coming to the house. In Luke’s account the centurion approaches Jesus through a delegation of “some elders of the Jews” and the same thing happens: the servant is healed at a distance. But Jesus and the centurion never meet.
There are other passages in the Gospels where a similar thing happens - the story is basically the same, but some of the details are different, if not contradictory.
Two obvious questions arise...
First, why does this happen? And second, is it something that should trouble us, given our belief in the inspiration of the Bible?
(1) Why does this happen?
To answer this we need to put another question first: how in fact did the four Gospels come to be written in the first place?
This is something which most of us never stop to think about. And why should we? After all, we have the Gospels, and that’s what matters. If we give it any thought at all, we probably imagine Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each sitting down, praying, and proceeding to record all the things God led them to set down in writing.
But it wasn’t quite like that! Luke himself tells us at the beginning of his Gospel that “many people have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us...” (Luke 1:1).
In other words, in those earliest days after the resurrection, various people wrote down accounts of incidents in the life of Jesus, and of his words. When the Gospel-writers set about composing their books, they presumably had access to some of these accounts and worked them into their Gospels (all, of course, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit).
It’s worth remembering that Luke wasn’t one of the twelve, so he will probably not have personally witnessed the events he records: he depended on those who were “eye-witnesses and servants of the word”, people who “handed down” the stories (Luke 1:2).
Is this what happened with the episode of the centurion’s servant? The basic story is much the same, but the differences are quite substantial. Was Matthew working from one document and Luke from another?
When historians today write their books they take great care to make sure that they have got everything just right. Anything that might seem like a contradiction or inconsistency will be pounced on mercilessly by their critics. And quite right too.
But of course it just wasn’t like that in the ancient world. Everything depended on eye-witness reports and personal memory - no recording devices, cameras, even short-hand. And as we know, two people giving eye-witness reports of the same incident - a car accident, for example, or a political event - will produce accounts which do not tally completely.
So, if this helps explain why this happens...
(2) Is this something that should trouble us?
Surely not. We should not expect the Bible to be something it never claims to be. It’s true that Luke, in those opening verses of his Gospel, insists that he has “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” (Luke 1:3); but the fact remains that the New Testament belongs to a particular time, place and culture - so a polished, scrupulously researched, modern-style historical record was never a possibility.
It’s worth saying too, of course, that many of the seeming inconsistencies in the Bible can be resolved without too much difficulty. But where that is not the case, it’s a waste of time and energy to tie ourselves in knots trying to find some solution. (I read about a man who, desperate to harmonise the Gospel-accounts of Peter’s denial of Jesus, ended up concluding that the cock must have crowed six times.)
The message is simple... Let the Bible be - the Bible! Let it be what it is - a big, baggy, immensely varied collection of ancient documents which God has given as a gift to his church.
We are not to try and pin it down, like a butterfly in a glass case, or to strap it into a strait-jacket of our own devising.
No... Let it breathe! Let it sing! Let it fly! Let it teach and comfort, let it challenge and rebuke, let it puzzle and inspire. But let it not reduce us to fretting about things which have perplexed the church for two thousand years, and which it’s a waste of time to agonise over.
The Bible is what it is. Let’s get used to it - and be thankful!
(Perhaps next time we’ll come back to the centurion’s servant and see what really matters about the story...)
Father, thank you for your written word, the Bible. Help me day by day to take it seriously as I read and digest it. May it shape my thinking and inspire my living. And may it lead me, little by little, to become more like your living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Amen.
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