The Parable Project: The Unmerciful Servant (Ep 139)

Introduction

---

Jason: Thank you for listening and welcome to the podcast. We are your host, Jason.

Laura: and Laura.

Jason: That's right. Laura and I are back for another Parable Project episode, and today we're covering the parable of the unmerciful servant. At the heart of this story is a theme that strikes at every one of us, forgiveness, not the polite kind, where we say, no worries, and move on.

Now, this is about forgiveness, so radical, so unmeasured that it feels almost impossible, and yet this is the forgiveness God extends to us and what he calls us to reflect in our relationships. We'll look at what this means for us as followers of Christ in a world that values vengeance over forgiveness.

So let's turn our attention to Matthew 18 verses 21 through 35, as we try to uncover what Jesus meant in this parable.

Catch-Up and Personal Updates

---

Jason: Welcome back, Laura. How you doing?

Laura: I'm doing great. Jason, how are you?

Jason: Not bad. We're having fun, technical difficulties today, but we're making it.

Laura: Oh, yeah, we'll get through this.

Jason: We absolutely will. So what's new with you?

Laura: Well, since the last time we recorded an episode, I have officially moved to Texas.

Jason: Hooray.

Laura: Oh, yes, absolutely. Hooray. I've been here let's, almost three months. God. Lord. Has it been that long

Jason: Surprise.

Laura: surprise? No, I mean, since we last recorded an episode.

Jason: Yeah, it's been a minute. There's been a lot going on.

Laura: Oh, tell me about it. Trying to get settled into school and settled into church and settled into choir, and it's been a lot, but it has been so good.

Jason: That's great. Yeah. You, you know, but I'll let everyone know. The kiddo and I went and saw miserable, uh, about a month ago. Um, today, earlier today, we auditioned for another play. I dunno if the listeners knew that, but apparently that's a thing we do now. Um, had some great guests over the last few weeks and of course, shameless self-promotion.

I am working on Acts of the Apostle as a series, so that's, that's been interesting.

Laura: I will have to go back and listen to all those again.

Jason: Yeah, those are, it's uh, it's fast becoming one of my more favorite books now, now that I'm diving into it a little bit deeper.

Laura: Yeah, X is definitely a fascinating story.

Jason: Yes, definitely fascinating.

Introducing the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

---

Jason: But as far as today, so you pitch this idea. I thought it was a great idea for this parable about a week or so ago. We've had some crazy storms roll through Arizona and lightning and thunder woke me up at like two 30 in the morning, one morning, and I couldn't get back to sleep.

Too excited. I love storms, so I just sat up and started going through this parable and writing notes and this, I mean, this is gonna be an amazing episode. I can just feel it.

Laura: Oh yeah.

Context and Background of Matthew 18

---

Jason: Well, we should probably jump in and I thought, I thought a good place to start is kind of the events leading up to the parable.

And, uh, one of the fun things that I found was Matthew 18 as a whole is sometimes called the community discourse. It's, it's about Jesus' teaching on humility, caring for the little ones, handling conflict in the church and stuff like that. So I thought that was kind of a neat find,

Laura: It's kind of funny you should mention that. 'cause in the, uh, study Bible I have. very beginning of Matthew 18, it does say discourse. Jesus teaches about community life.

Jason: right? I had no idea. Learned something new.

Laura: Tell me about it. With my church group, we went to the ICR Creation Museum today here in Dallas, and my goodness, some of the things I saw and learned, I'm like, mind blown.

Jason: A little jealous over that little jealous.

Laura: well, you might have to just make a business trip to Plano, just saying, I know. I said, uh, at the beginning of Matthew 18, in my study Bible it says, discourse.

Jesus teaches about community. it kind of, it goes on, uh, the notes in that, you know, for the whole chapter, say this. Fourth major discourse in Matthew focuses on responses to the Messiah. by the disciples and rejection by the Jewish leaders and most of the populace. In light of this growing polarization, Jesus began to instruct his followers on the nature of community life. For a community to live according to Jesus's standards, it must live with humility versus one through five versus six through nine, compassion versus 10 through 14 discipline versus 15 through 18. Forgiveness verses 18 or verses 21 through 35, and it says, as with the other discourses, a concluding formula, chapter 19 verses one and two, bridges to the next section.

Jason: That's neat. Yeah.

Peter's Question on Forgiveness

---

Jason: This, this whole thing starts with, uh, Peter's question in verse 21. Um, Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brothers and sisters who sin against me up to seven times? And I thought this was interesting because context is important. Three times was acceptable, taught by most Jewish rabbis at that time.

So Peter's saying seven was. More than generous. Right.

Laura: Right. That was more than double what the rabbis were teaching them to do. So that should be sufficient, right?

Jason: Right. And then Jesus tells 'em, uh, I tell in verse 22, I tell you, not seven times, but 77 times, or I've seen it seven times 70, I believe, or something like that. It's, it's worded differently, but it's, you know, somewhere in that neighborhood.

Laura: right. Um, the new Living Translation does put it 70 times seven,

Jason: Yeah.

Laura: so, which is. I mean when you do that math, it's 490. That'll love Bible math. Right?

Jason: Toilet paper math.

Laura: I was hoping you'd pick up on that.

Jason: If you don't get that joke, go listen to our Revelation series.

Laura: exactly. I mean, so what on the 491st offense there, Scott? Free. know, you don't have to forgive him anymore.

Jason: Right, and I, I, I wanted more substance to the context here, and I trace this back thanks to commentaries and, and stuff like that, to Genesis four verse 22, where lame, a descendant of Cain is boasting about extreme vengeance. I mean, if anyone hurts him, he's gonna return it 77 times over is what he says.

Basically, a declaration of, of escalating in unlimited vengeance. And Jesus is flipping this upside down and talking about multiplying and unlimited forgiveness. So we have, you know, sin multiplies vengeance, grace, multiplies mercy, and it, it's a clear comparison of a broken world versus perfection in the kingdom of God.

So I have, I have a weird segue here. You're gonna love this, uh, a scrap trail. Uh, I wanna to shift gears. Yes. Shift gears to the curse of Cain. In Genesis four verses 11 and 12, and in NIV, it reads, you are now under a curse and driven from the grounds which opened its mouth to receiver brother's blood from your hands.

When you work the grout, it will no longer yield its crop for you. You'll be a restless wanderer on the earth. I started looking through various translations of this as well as Interlinear, and they all reference now in terms of timing, like now you will experience this. And I wasn't able to find a reference to this being a forever curse.

So my question for you, and I'd love your feedback on this, could this be Jesus breaking the curse of cane?

Laura: that that, that's actually a very good question. know. I would have to do a little bit more digging into

Jason: Yeah, think about that. I mean,

Laura: but now the word now could indicate that it's effective immediately,

Jason: right.

Laura: and not necessarily it will stop at some point, or it's not just for that moment, because as it goes on, it says, you know, Cain's kind of crying to God and says, my punishment is too great. Anyone who finds me will kill me. The Lord says no, for I will give a sevenfold punishment to anyone who kills you. then God puts a mark on cane to warn anybody who might try to kill him. that tells me that the curse on cane lasted the rest of his life. So doesn't say, it doesn't seem to specify that the. Curse on cane extends to his children. So to me that says that this curse, that word now that you mentioned was indeed it begins immediately and lasts for the rest of your

Jason: And that could be, it could be a metaphorical break. I don't know. It's just something that swirled in my brain when I was reviewing my notes.

Laura: Which is totally, totally understandable. Like I've kind of puzzled over some things like that, does this, like when we did revelation and the word was behold, I'm coming soon, that word soon we found as we kept digging and digging and digging, didn't mean in the very near future. It meant quickly. Like when he comes, it will be fast. Not necessarily

Jason: Right.

Laura: soon, right?

Jason: Anyhow, context is important. I wanted to get that out there. Um, but I think we can move on to the king and the first servant.

The King's Mercy and the Unpayable Debt

---

Jason: Um, and if, if it's okay, I, you know, I'll, I'll take this one and you can take the next one or we can, okay.

So, so the, you know, starting with the king in the first servant, Matthew 18, verses 23 through 27.

Therefore, the king of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants as he began the settlement. A man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold or 10,000 talents in other versions. Was brought to him since he was not able to pay the master ordered that he and his wife and children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt at this, the servant fell on his knees before him be patient with me.

He begged and I'll pay back everything. The servant's master took pity on him canceling the debt and let him go. So there's a lot to unpack. There we're, you know, setting the scene. The king wants to settle his accounts. We'll start there.

Laura: Which is perfect, which is perfectly understandable. I mean, if people owed me money, I would definitely want

Jason: and he has an expectation that the servant will be faithful and honorable in how business is conducted.

Laura: Absolutely.

ng? If you go back to Matthew: 1823

Laura: So in the context of the parable, the king could very well be

Jason: Yeah, and that's what I was getting from it. In fact, uh, Matthew Henry, the parable represents the dealings of God with us. Um, the Expositor Bible commentary, the king obviously represents God is what they say. David Guzzi says, the king in the story is God. So I think it's relatively safe to suggest that's who it is.

Who represents.

Laura: Yeah, that's definitely who I've always thought of as Jesus talking about was this. Was God, but he was putting it into a context of a king because the disciples and the Pharisees, so the Pharisees would not very kindly to God just forgiving somebody of these millions of dollars that

Jason: and that brings up another point that 10,000 talents. I've seen estimates from being worth anywhere from 12 million to 1 billion US dollars, depending on which commentary you read,

Laura: And then

Jason: right? Counting for inflation, I mean, so I love math. The average salary in the US is $63,795 a year. Now, if a hundred percent of that salary went towards paying back a $12 million debt will go to the low end. It would take 188 years to repay. So, and I don't thinks have an average salary.

Laura: No, absolutely not. Um, the commentary I have, um, you know, you say 10,000 to talents and then approximately $12 million to several billion. But basically it boils down to about 375 tons of

Jason: Oh wow. That's a lot of silver's.

Laura: So that's what, 750 tons or 750,000 pounds of

Jason: That's a lot of silver.

Laura: That's a lot of silver. What does one do with all that silver make

Jason: Yeah. Move it carefully. So the debt's unpayable.

Laura: on you. You're, you're not, you, you're not going to address my lay mis reference

Jason: Oh, the candlestick. Yeah, that's,

Laura: and the silver candlesticks. Ah,

Jason: yeah. I miss that one. I'm

so ashamed of myself.

Laura: Ugh. Ah, don't be, everybody misses stuff

Jason: Yes. I bought your soul for God. Oh, so unpayable debt. And this, you know, represents our unpayable debt of sin before God.

Laura: And yet

Jason: Yet?

Laura: God sent Jesus and paid

Jason: Yeah, that's what the king, that's his answer. He is like, okay. You know, initially, well, initially he's like, I'm gonna sell you your family and everything you own. And, and to understand this in context, again, love context. A servant on the high end would go for one talent. So this isn't gonna satisfy any debt.

But it brings a measure of justice and that I think is the important lesson here is that we're taking, we're looking at this from the perspective of justice as well as this unpayable debt.

Laura: Yeah, because if, let's say the guy had three kids, him, his wife, and three kids, five

Jason: Yeah.

Laura: to cover a debt of

Jason: At best, I mean, at best.

Laura: at best, at best, and then plus everything he owned, which as a servant probably was not

Jason: Right. So of course the certain begs for patient and he has, he begs for patience. It's, it's nothing else. He wants to be given time to pay back this debt,

Laura: Right. Most people miss that. Like he's not begging for mercy. not begging

Jason: right.

Laura: to be forgiven. He's begging for time to pay it so that he and his family don't get thrown in prison.

Jason: It's, it's wild.

Laura: that part's kind of blowing my mind

Jason: Yep.

Laura: Just for the sheer fact that most people wouldn't, wouldn't ask for more time to pay it,

Jason: I don't know.

Laura: they, maybe he only asked for more time to pay it because he didn't even possibly think that it could

Jason: Maybe that's another thing we have, you know, our debts to God, our sin. A lot of people feel like they can't be forgiven.

Laura: Yeah. So he's like, just give me time. I'll pay it. I don't want you to forgive it completely, because I know that's not possible, but

Jason: Yeah.

So Spurgeon wrote on this. I'm gonna be Spurgeon heavy in this episode. Many a poor sinner is very rich in resolutions. This servant debtor though thought he only needed patience, but indeed he needed forgiveness. It's wild, right? And of course, the king does. He, he knew the debtor could never pay his dads selling and wouldn't do him any good.

So he shows mercy prompted by compassion, despite whatever promises a servant made and forgave it. A lot, lot there.

Laura: And didn't even make him promise not to

Jason: That's true. He didn't, I didn't even think about that. He just like forgive it.

Laura: You know, he didn't say, he didn't say, well, don't go spending any more money. Don't go borrowing any more money. You know, like Jesus would've said, go

Jason: True.

Laura: more. You know, but that's, but Jesus. And, but he knows that even, you know, tying this into the, uh, woman caught in the act of adultery. Yes.

He tells her, go and sin no more, but. also knows that she's a human and she's going to continue to

Jason: Yeah.

Laura: Maybe not that specific sin, but there will be other mistakes. There will be other instances because we're human beings and that's just the way it goes. But this king is not expecting guy, he just forgave of this massive debt to not go rack up more

Jason: Yeah,

Laura: He's not expecting that. He knows

Jason: absolutely.

Laura: because he knows the guy's

Jason: If only we were.

Laura: If only we were, that will come. That will come at the end of everything, and then we will be made perfect, and then we won't have to worry about

The Unforgiving Servant

---

Jason: Yeah, so let's talk about the servant and his fellow servant, um, versus, I have doted verses 28 through 30, if you wanna take that one.

Laura: All right, I will. I will pick that up. But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time, patient with me and I will pay it.

He pleaded, but his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

Jason: So first servant finds second servant who owes a debt not nearly as much. Yeah, I have a hundred denari. Um, the equivalent of about, uh, I know a few months wage. Well, I, I have a few months wage, but yeah.

Laura: or a few. Um, a hundred, uh, one denari was about a full day's

Jason: Bear,

Laura: So what, three and a

Jason: yeah. Much smaller compared to 10,000 talents.

Laura: Oh,

Jason: Okay.

Laura: Um, according to my commentary, it says the first servant's debt was about 1 million times greater than

ly. Yeah. I've seen, uh, one,: 600000

It's crazy.

Laura: Oh, absolutely. And then the fellow servant begs for the exact same thing that the first guy begged for, forgiveness, not canceling the debt,

The Unmerciful Servant's Debt

---

Jason: Yeah. And he could have done it.

Laura: Oh, he could have absolutely, but he

Jason: No, he wouldn't wait.

Laura: Not, he couldn't wait.

Jason: Yeah. And this, this, this analogy is the debts we owe to each other versus the debts we owe to God. You know, what we owe to our fellow men pales in comparison to, to the massive debts we owe to God, to the sin debts that we owe to God.

Laura: Yeah. I mean, one could also say, this guy, the unmerciful servant, the unforgiving servant, whatever his name happens to be, he was just forgiven a huge debt that he would never in a million years have been able to pay back. But then he turns around and can't forgive this little itty bitty drop in the bucket that his other, that this other servant owes him.

Understanding True Forgiveness

---

Laura: Which makes me wonder, did that servant truly understand the forgiveness that he

Jason: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a good question. I, I'm guessing No, based on his response.

Laura: Probably not, because when we pull it back around bring it to its logical conclusion between, you know, with it being us we, you know, God is. The master or the king, you know, he's forgiving us of something we can't pay and we turn around and somebody maybe looked at us wrong one day or treated us badly or in the blank, you know, maybe said something rude, maybe cut us off in traffic, maybe. I don't know. I mean, everybody has different things that people have done to them.

Jason: Yeah, absolutely.

Laura: Even up even so far as

Jason: Yep.

The Hypocrisy of Unforgiveness

---

Laura: and we as believers have a choice. We can choose to forgive as God our king has forgiven us because we know how much we've been forgiven, or we can hold it against that person because we think that what they owe us is more than what we owe God.

Jason: I have another quote on this one.

Laura: Okay, go ahead. Nice segue.

Jason: Our, our little claims against our fellow man are too apt to be pressed upon them with unsparing severity. Something to consider

Laura: Yeah. And then when you consider that whatever somebody has done to us, God has already forgiven them for it, especially if they're a believer, why are we holding it against

Jason: now. God forgives us for the infinite. So the question we have to ask ourselves is, can we re forgive others for the finite?

Laura: Absolutely. And not just others, but ourselves too. I mean, think of how many times we mess up. We screw up, we make mistakes, and then we beat ourselves up for it

Jason: Yeah.

Laura: and we think, well, we don't deserve these good things. Because we made this mistake 5, 6, 7, 12 years ago, still beating ourselves up for it, so we shouldn't have anything good, even if we're not vocalizing it even thinking it consciously, still down in our subconscious. Why are we punishing ourselves for something God already punished in Jesus.

Jason: Yeah. I think it's good to be critical of our behavior, but not.

Laura: Oh, absolutely. I'm not, I'm, that's not what I was getting at. I'm talking about like somebody who commits an indiscretion and then even 20 years later is still beating themselves up over it. It's like, okay, you've been forgiven. Why haven't you

Jason: Yep.

Laura: yourself?

Jason: Yep. And this, this act of hypocrisy doesn't go unnoticed.

Laura: No it does not. Segue back to the story.

The Consequences of Unforgiveness

---

Jason: Matthew: 1831

Anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay back all he had owed. I dunno about you, Laura. This, this doesn't bode well.

Laura: No, because that debt is unpayable that, that, that debt is unpayable. So this man is basically being tortured for eternity. 'cause if he's in prison, he's not working. Therefore he cannot earn money the debt. Which leaves it up. Which leaves it up to his family to pay it for him.

Jason: In culturally. Yes, absolutely. There's a weird. Thing that came to my mind here and I kind of dug into it, is this idea of a, of a conscience issue. And the parable doesn't actually say there's a conscience issue, but I think it's implied because his first servant's peers recognize this wrong, but he didn't recognize it in himself.

The Importance of a Faith Community

---

Jason: And I, I think that is alludes to how we are sometimes blind to our own sinful and selfish ways, and why it's so important that we are a part of a faith community.

Laura: That makes sense because. You're right. He didn't see anything wrong with what he did, and he did. And it was his friends, uh, not, maybe not his friends, but some of the other servants saw it and they're like, oh, no, no, no. But what I find interesting is instead of giving the guy a chance to correct that mistake, he was just thrown in prison to

Jason: Right?

Laura: There was no chance for

Jason: Yep.

And there there's a, there's an interesting word here, word choice. Uh, he calls him you wicked servant. And that word comes from the Greek word, uh, ROS, which you see a lot throughout the New Testament, translated as the word for evil. I mean, Matthew, Luke, John, acts, Romans, it's all over the place. If you look in, you know, in, in like in ary.

So he's calling, he's telling him you evil servant. And maybe that's a part of the reason why they don't go to him and correct. Because, because he's being associated with evil,

Laura: Could very well be, but even then, should he not have had the opportunity

Jason: and that may part be part of the, the parable. Why wasn't he given 3, 7 77 chances? Maybe this is also a, a, a reminder of the consequence of not having that forgiveness for each other.

Laura: Well, if you read verse 35, that's what my Heavenly Father will do to you. If you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart,

Jason: Yes.

Laura: which goes beyond just lip

Jason: Oh, absolutely. It's gotta come from the heart.

Laura: I was looking up that panero for evil. I mean, there's two different usages. One use is full of labor's, annoyances and hardships, the other is bad of a na bad nature or condition. So could be in a physical sense as in diseased or blind, or an ethical sense in evil, wicked and bad. And it kind of, it does get used in Matthew six 13 when it says, deliver us

Jason: Oh, I didn't find that, that connection.

Laura: Yeah. If I go to that verse in my. In the New Living Translation, it says, and don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. And that that word evil, poros.

Jason: Okay.

Laura: So, we know from the Lord's Prayer that the deliver us from the evil one is the devil, obviously.

Jason: Right.

Laura: this servant here is being compared to the

Jason: Yeah, I could definitely see that.

Laura: So that tells me, and I could be wrong, but that tells me that this evil servant is not supposed to be a Christian believer I don't know that any, I don't know of anywhere in scripture where Jesus compared followers to the devil himself. And if it So this evil servant is not to be a follower of Jesus, which would make sense because if he needed forgiveness, he wouldn't have been following Jesus.

Because we know that as believers, we do have that forgiveness already. And when we choose to forgive others, we are doing it. Not because we are supposed to, but because we know what we have been forgiven of.

Jason: And that's, there's, there's a whole line of notes I have on that.

Forgiveness and Repentance

---

Jason: Um, well, and a lot of people like to justify withholding forgiveness because there's lack of repentance from the other party. I mean, we look at Luke 17 four, it teaches us every, even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying, I repent, you must forgive them.

Well vote if they don't repent. So the justification here is, well, I have to repent before God for my forgiveness, so they must repent before me for my forgiveness. This is, there's a huge flaw in that flight of thinking because we don't stand in the same place as God.

Laura: Oh, absolutely

Jason: He, he didn't sin. It doesn't need to be forgiven.

Laura: well true. if you think about, think about it this way. When God sent Jesus to die on the cross, that forgiveness was available to everybody and it still is. And we don't accept that forgiveness, then we

Jason: Correct. Yep. Another Spurgeon quote coming.

Laura: all. All right. And then I'll finish my thought.

Jason: Okay. If we forgive it only words, but not from our hearts, we remain under the same condemnation. That was sobering for me to read that

Laura: Yeah. You know, 'cause like I was saying, on the one hand when God, when Jesus died on the cross. us of all of our sins, whether we repented or not, forgiveness is still there, but we don't get it until we repent. When we choose to forgive others, we are not doing it for their sake. We are doing it for our own sake so that we are not holding onto that bitterness and resentment. I heard it said once and now I'm gonna be quoting Wicked. Huh? Thanks. I've heard it said right, but that not forgiving somebody, especially as a believer, is like drinking poison and expecting the other person

Forgiveness vs. Reconciliation

---

Jason: People, people misconstrue, they, they mix up forgiveness and reconciliation. True. True reconciliation of a relationship happens when both parties agree, and this might require one or both parties to repent. Forgiveness is and can be one sided. So it's, it's, it's not to shield somebody from consequences. It, it, isn't it a mission that there was no wrong done.

We, we get that confused a lot.

Laura: And it's not letting the other person off the hook either. Forgiveness doesn't say like, you know, when tying back to my students, if one does something wrong to the other and one apologizes and the other one says, that's okay. No. That you, forgiveness doesn't mean what they did was okay. It just means we are not going to hold it against

Jason: Right. If you could look at like a homeowner, um, gets robbed. The homeowner may forgive the man who robbed them, but there's still legal consequences, you know, forgiveness on a personal level that's appropriate, but there's civil and societal and other consequences that, that are also appropriate and should be, you know, the punishment should, should be handed over, you know, by the magistrates or or whoever, more on that c Romans 13, but.

We have to understand that forgiveness, forgiveness is a, is a freedom. You know, we get, we get released from the debt that somebody else owes us.

Laura: Exactly.

Jason: So I have a David Guzzi note on this too.

Laura: Oh, your boy music.

Jason: boy Guzzi, I think it's an important point, so I put it in in my notes. Um, he wrote in his commentaries, it would be wrong to make this into an idea that unforgiveness itself.

Is the unforgivable sin. It is better to say that forgiveness is evidence of truly being forgiven, and that habitual unforgiveness may show that a person's heart has never really been touched by the love of Jesus.

Laura: Absolutely.

Jason: I read that and I was like, wow, you.

Laura: I mean, it's like, I'm not quite sure the top of my head who it was that broke the perfume bottle over Jesus' feet and washed her, washed his feet with her tears and dried it with her hair.

Jason: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Laura: and then Judas is like, we could have taken all that, we could have sold that perfume and given all the money to the poor. And, you know, help the poor that way. And Jesus looked at him and was like, seriously, dude? And what Jesus was trying to get at was she knew because some people say it was Mary Magdalene's, other people think it was Mary, the sister of Martha. I'm not sure off the top of my head without trying to flip through my Bible and find out,

Jason: I just thought it was Mary Magdalene. I, yeah. I thought it was Mary Magdalene, but, but I could be wrong.

Laura: say it. Well, now I've gotta look it up. Um, now I have to look it up.

Jason: Yeah, for forgiving others is hard. It's hard. It, it's, sometimes it takes time and, you know, if you're struggling with it. My advice to anyone who is struggling with it is turn it to the Lord, Lord, I'm hurting. I'm struggling to forgive. Please grant me the wisdom I need. To get past this and you know, if we look at James one, five, if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who give us generously without finding fault.

Right. But it's, it's, it, it takes time Sometimes it's not always easy. It's not like, snap your fingers. Okay, we're done.

Laura: exactly, and it's a choice. And it may not be a singular choice. It may be day after day after day, even minute after minute. Sometimes. I mean, a month ago, Charlie Kirk was shot in Gild, and at his funeral, his wife stood up there and she said, I forgive him through tears. That pain will never go away, and she's gonna have to make that choice to forgive that whoever it was that did it. I'm not gonna get into the conspiracies right now, but this is neither the time nor the place for it. But she's gotta make that choice every day, whoever did it. She's gotta make that choice to forgive forgive and forgive again. Even though it was a one A, it was one action, and this is where it goes to the 70 times seven. It was one action, but she's gotta choose that forgiveness. 7, 14, 21 to 490 times or more to forgive whoever did it anyway. Luke six. Uh, Luke 7 38 is where the story is. Um, where'd it go? Luke 7 38. The perfume bottle, uh, says Jesus is anointed by a sinful woman. having dinner at Pharisee's house. A certain immoral woman from the city heard he was eating there. She brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume, knelt behind him at his feet. Weeping. Her te tears fell on his feet and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting the perfume on them, and the Pharisees were like, doesn't know this woman's a sinner.

If he, if this man was a prophet, he would know that this woman is a sinner. And then really does tie into the story. We, uh, to the parable we just read, Jesus told them this story. A man loaned money to two people, 500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other, but neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that? And Simon Peter answered, I suppose, the one for whom he canceled the larger debt, and Jesus said, that's right. He's like, this woman is a sinner. knows has been forgiven. knows how many of them have been forgiven, which is all of them. So she has shown me much love by putting this perfume on my feet, by crying, by wiping her my feet with her hair, which probably tickled, but nevermind. Um. The person who only believes they've been forgiven a little bit or only gets forgiven of a little bit, will only show a little bit of love.

Theological Insights on Forgiveness

---

Jason: There's, there's a lot of great theological themes in this parable from the unbound. Undeserved forgiveness of God to forgiveness really isn't optional for us. It's evidence of being transformed by God's grace. You know, if you, if you've truly been touched by Jesus, by his love. You'll understand that forgiveness, and as hard as it is, you'll extend it to others.

Laura: Absolutely

Jason: I mean, it's in the Lord's Prayer. Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. Matthew six 12,

Laura: Absolutely. Or if, if you spent five years teaching a Lutheran school, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassed against us.

Jason: uh, Oso Echoes. Colossians three 13. Forgive us as the Lord forgave you. It's very simple.

Laura: Exactly, but even though the Lord's Prayer does say, forgive us as we have forgived other people, we don't really want that.

Jason: Right.

Laura: don't want God to forgive us. The with the measure that we don't want God to forgive us with the measure that we forgive others. Because if we are truly honest with ourselves, how many of us still hold grudges against people? How many of us still think about, well, he did that to me, or she did that to me, or whatever. And I'm still mad about it. And I wish they would

Jason: Yeah.

Laura: many of, I mean, to be honest, there are, and maybe not, maybe I don't wish people would pay, but I do still kind of hold it against them. I'm still mad about it, you know?

So I know for a fact that I haven't true, I mean, I'm working towards it. Don't get me wrong. But to say that I've truly completely forgiven people of things they've done to

n: Yeah, well, I mean, Romans: 1219

Laura: Yeah. And that's very hard to do and very hard to teach students, especially if you teach at a public school now,

Jason: Oh my gosh. Can't even imagine.

Laura: But you, you mentioned that verse in Colossians. I can't remember the exact reference.

Jason: 13.

Laura: Three 13. And yes, I'm one of those people that, to find books in the Bible, I have to sing the song that I learned when I was a little kid. All right, so it's in the New Living Translation. It says, remember the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. I'm not entirely sure. I like the way that's worded. I. it were me, I would word it more as forgive others because the Lord has forgiven

Jason: Yeah.

Laura: You know, take that into consideration. Realize he forgave you of a debt you could not pay. And believe it or not, he forgave that person of the thing that they did. So knowing that God doesn't hold it against them, why are you? Because it's not hurting them.

Jason: Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Laura: them. not hurting them in the slightest.

Jason: Exactly.

Conclusion

---

Jason: so I think that's a great place to wrap this up as we close today's episode. Let's step back and remember the heartbeat of this parable. We are the servants who owed an unpayable debt. Our sin was far beyond anything we could ever repay. Yet God and his mercy canceled that debt through the blood of Jesus Christ.

And what does he ask of us to reflect his mercy? To take the forgiveness we've received and extend it to others, not seven times, not 77 times, but endlessly and from the heart. And this isn't easy, forgiveness never is. It's not about pretending the wound didn't hurt or excusing the wrong Forgiveness is about releasing the debt because we know that our king has released ours.

If you remember anything, remember the words of Paul in Ephesians four, verse 32. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ, God forgave you. That's our calling as citizens of the Kingdom, where the world multiplies vengeance, we multiply grace where others demand payback.

We live out our mercy. So here's the challenge that I have for everyone this week. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring one name to mind. If you have one, great, somebody you need to forgive, maybe someone you've been holding a debt against for a while. Pray for that person. Release him into God's hands. And in doing so, you'll not only reflect the heart of the king.

You'll also step into the freedom that comes with that forgiveness. So until next time, keep loving your neighbors. Dive into God's word daily. May the Lord bless you and keep you and feel you with his peace. Take care. God bless, and we'll see you in the next episode.

Share Episode

Shownotes

Transcripts

Follow

Links

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube