Thank you for joining me back here, for Day 19 of our journey through "Storyteller", the latest Bible Study from Sarah Koontz at livingbydesign.org.
Today we are reading Matthew 18: 23 - 35, the parable of the unmerciful servant...
“Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt. “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. “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. ‘Be 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. “When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”
NOTE FROM SARAH KOONTZ: "I’d like to start today’s devotional by stating that this parable is not about salvation. The Bible clearly states that salvation is a gift of grace (Eph 2: 8 - 9), freely bestowed upon us by God (Tit 3: 4 - 5). If we look at the surrounding context, we clearly see that Christ is teaching the disciples about brotherly love and forgiveness (Mt 18: 15, 21). Therefore, the purpose of this parable is to address the issue of human forgiveness, not the promise of heavenly forgiveness."
Have you ever heard the saying: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”? We say it to protect ourselves from being hurt again and again by the same people.
But in today's parable, Jesus says something radically different: He tells His followers (and us) to forgive “seventy-seven times.” Yikes!! Sometimes it's hard to forgive just once! But 77 times? 'Actually, since 7 was the number of completeness, Jesus’ 77 times could be more accurately translated, “infinity times infinity”' (Kimberly Leetch). So ... forever, then.
Why is it so hard to forgive? A big part of it is that we're worried that if we forgive someone for the same thing more than once, we'll continue to get hurt again and again?
To deal with this question, it's helpful to first look at what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness isn't t being a doormat and letting people walk all over us; forgiveness isn't giving people permission to hurt us; forgiveness also isn't necessarily reconciliation.
So, if it's not those things, what is forgiveness? I love how Kimberly Leetch explains it: "Forgiveness is the willingness to let the scales of justice remain unbalanced, and to accept the imbalance as it is. Forgiveness is freedom to let go of the hurt and move forward in peace." Forgiveness isn't a way to demand justice and restitution from the other person - leaving the scales unbalanced means leaving the other person for God to deal with, whatever firm that might take.
C. S. Lewis once said, “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. ” God's will is for us to forgive our enemies. He wants us to put away all wrath and malice and bitterness.
The secret of the parable is the secret of the Gospel - God has forgiven the inexcusable in you! The Gospel isn't a message requiring you to pay God for your sins. Rather, it's the glorious news that Jesus paid it all!
And then the parable tells us that as recipients of this stunning love, fully forgiven of all our sins, we are now to extend this love and forgiveness outwards towards everyone - even our enemies.
Jesus is very clear in our Scripture passage today: Father God gets angry when He sees His children having unforgiving, unmerciful, and uncharitable hearts. His will is that as Believers we should be gracious, and tender, and kind. And not only to those who we think deserve kindness; not only to those who are kind to us; not only to those with the "right" social or financial status, or the "right" cultural or racial background.
Jesus simply instructs us to forgive just because God first did it to us!
"This parable teaches us that forgiveness is an essential character trait among Christians. As recipients of God’s transforming grace, we are expected to extend mercy in all our interactions" (Sarah Koontz).