The Centurion Story – Luke 7:1-10

In a recent posted I wrote entitled “Did Jesus Encounter A Gay Couple”, I discussed in the book ‘What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality’ by Daniel Heminiak where Mr. Heminiak wrote about the centurion and his slave boy. According to Mr. Heminiak, he suggested that the relationship between the centurion and this slave boy may have been sexual in nature. He suggested this could have been a homosexual relationship and that Jesus encountered this couple.

I would first like to thank all those who took the time to leave me a comment and provide some answers to the questions I wrote. They did help me in better understanding a few things. Please check out the preview post to see the questions and comments I am talking about here.

I really just want to take the time to discuss a few things I have learned about this story in the Bible. The most important part of this story, as my friend Mikey pointed out, is what Jesus himself said. When told of what the centurion did for the people in the area that he lived, Jesus said “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith”. Luke 7:9. Jesus focused on the man’s faith. This is the most important part of that story, the man’s faith. Mr. Heminiak missed this point entirely. This was no ordinary centurion, this centurion was a man of great faith, the likes that even Jesus himself had never seen before. How do we know this, Jesus tells us that he has never seen anyone that had this much faith.

Why is knowing that this man has an enormous amount of faith important to this story and why would this debunk what Mr. Heminiak believes to be the case to suggest this was a homosexual couple you may ask? I work a job that would be considered a lower skilled job, most likely similar to that what the slave boy may have done. The owner of the place I work has been trying to figure ways to save money, supposedly due to the current economy. One way he has done this has been to take away from the few full time hourly employees their vacation time. The owner of the place I work is not hurting for money, he is just looking to increase his profit. Now I have a friend that works in another state at a similar place of business. He was telling me about one of their competitions and how that owner of that business is treating his workers. The place he was telling me about is doing some remodeling work and is currently closed. The owner of that business is paying his employees their full pay during the time the building is being remodeled. The owner of this business doesn’t have to do this for his worker, but he is because my guess would be that he feels it’s the right thing to do. He may understand that an employee that feels valued is going to be a much harder worker than someone that doesn’t feel they are worth anything to the company.

Maybe what we have in the story of the centurion is a person that actually cares for his workers (slaves). This would be something very uncharacteristic of a centurion in Jesus time. But we do know this is no ordinary centurion. He is a man of faith! He would be the type of person that cares if someone is sick or hurt. He would be the type of person that if he could help another person out, he would. So why would it be so unthinkable to believe that this centurion knew of this boy illness or injury, heard that Jesus was in the area and felt the need to ask Jesus if he would be willing to heal the boy because the centurion valued human life.

I now believe that this story has nothing to do with homosexuality. It has to do entirely with having faith and how we are suppose to act when we have faith. We are called to love and care for the poor, the hungry, and the weak. I do not believe it would be odd for Jesus to praise someone that is living that style of life, caring for the poor, the hungry and the weak.