Forgiveness
Matthew 18:23-35
Given the length of the scripture that covers our topic today, I will let you look it up and read on your own. But, I will give you the low down on it during our post. However, don’t take my word for it. I do encourage you to read the scripture in detail yourself.
Our scripture is a parable of Jesus. Jesus loved to use parables in teaching His lessons from time to time. He would use these stories to help his audience understand the lesson more easily. He would use examples from everyday life back then so they could relate. Our main scripture happens due to the previous two verses.
Peter comes to Jesus asking Him how much should he forgive someone. Peter makes the suggestion that he should forgive someone seven times. Now Peter was thinking that he was being generous in suggesting that he forgive someone seven times. Jesus had a different idea. Jesus tells Peter that he should forgive someone seventy times seven. So does that mean we should keep count and forgive someone 490 times and stop there? This is not what Jesus is saying and, He uses our focused scripture to illustrate what He meant.
Beginning in verse 18, Jesus tells us about a certain king who brings a servant before him who owes him quite a bit of money. In fact, Jesus says the servant owes the king 10,000 talents. How much is this? Well, it is believed that one talent equaled 6000 days wages. Based on our calendar year, that means the servant’s debt would have taken 164,384 years to pay off if all the money he made went to pay the debt. Needless to say, it was a hopeless debt in regards to the ability to pay it back. The king says that the servant, the servant’s family, and all the servant’s possessions were to be sold off to help pay the debt.
The servant then proceeds to fall on his face and beg for mercy and asked for the opportunity to repay the debt without being sold into slavery. The king is moved by the servant’s request and tells the servant that his debt is forgiven and releases him. So, what does the servant then do? You would think that he went straight home to tell his wife and celebrate. But that is not what happened. The servant immediately went and approached a fellow servant who owed him money. He grabbed the second servant by the throat and demanded to be paid. The second servant asked for mercy and requested a chance to pay his debt which was in the amount of 100 pence. This amount is basically 100 days wages back then. The first servant refused mercy to the second servant and had him thrown in prison until the debt was paid.
This was all witnessed by other servants who immediately reported the incident to the king. The king called the first servant back before him and questioned him about what happened. The king pointed out that he had forgiven an unpayable debt. How could he not have had the same mercy on the second servant for a much much lesser debt?
This is the lesson Jesus was trying to get across to Peter and to us. As a child of God, we have been forgiven an unpayable debt. We were facing a deserved eternity in hell. How then are we so hesitant about forgiving others. If we truly have the love of God in our hearts, forgiveness should be part of our nature. Yet it is so hard. We should be willing to have unlimited forgiveness for others because that is what God has for us.