"There was never anybody who has spoken like him". John 7:40

 Imagine a scenario:

There is a public disturbance in Lower Hutt city. Crowds have accumulated outside Queensgate Mall. Traffic is at a standstill. Shop owners are complaining and they call the cops. Two squad cars turn up. Sirens wailing, blue and red lights flashing. They see that the cause of the crowd is a man speaking. He is standing on a bench at the bus stop. His voice carries clearly over the hundreds of people listening. The four police people, two male and two female, listen. They stand still, clearly impressed. Eventually they look at each other and go back to their patrol cars and head back to the police station. The sergeant asks if they had got the situation under control. They shake their heads and look down. One says softly "There has never been anybody who has spoken like him".

That was the situation in today's Gospel. Instead of young police officers, imagine hardened Roman soldiers tasked with keeping peace in the newly occupied territories of Judah and Israel. They were amazed at the teaching of Jesus. It must have spoken to their hearts to return to the legionnaire without following the orders to disperse the crowd. To this day the word decimate originated from the Roman practise of killing every tenth soldier if there was cowardice or disobedience.

Back at the scene some of the crowd are arguing about who the teacher is. One suggests a prophet, others say maybe he is the Christ, the expected one. But someone says no,  "he came from Nazareth. The Christ will come from Bethlehem". We see how important correct interpretation of scripture is. We know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but his parents probably lived in Galilee. An easy mistake. "Prophets do not come from Galilee" The Pharisees said, and plotted to kill Jesus for blasphemy.