Love and Forgiveness

Rolling Stone

Parables of Jesus: Love and Forgiveness

January 20, 2013

Review: Forgiveness in The Prodigal Son

The Two Debtors – Luke 7:41-43 (36-50)

Which came first: love or forgiveness? (47)

What saved the woman? What is the evidence of this? (50)

Do we believe that Jesus can forgive sin?

How can we show our faith without having a physical Jesus in our presence like the woman?

The Good Samaritan – Luke 10:29-37

“What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” What is Jesus’ answer?

“Who is my neighbor?”- Why does the lawyer ask this? What would be a better question?

How can I be a better neighbor? How does Jesus answer this question?

How do we respond to this answer?

The Unforgiving Servant – Matt 18:23-35 (21-35)

Background info: 

• ten thousand talents. In NT times, it was a unit of monetary reckoning (though not an actual coin), valued at about 6,000 drachmas, the equivalent of about 20 years’ wages for a laborer. (A common laborer earned about one denarius per day.) In approximate modern equivalents, if a laborer earns $15 per hour, at 2,000 hours per year he would earn $30,000 per year, and a talent would equal $600,000 (USD). Hence, “ten thousand talents” hyperbolically represents an incalculable debt—in today’s terms, about $6 billion.

• a hundred denarii. This was still a large amount (equivalent to about 20 weeks of common labor, or about $12,000 in today’s terms), but compared to the debt that the wicked servant himself owed ($6 billion), it was a relatively small amount.

The forgiveness of such a massive debt is a dramatic illustration of

1. the massive debt that people owe, because of their sins, to the holy, righteous God

2. their complete inability ever to pay such a debt (“For the wages of sin is death … ,” Rom. 6:23a)

3. God’s great mercy and patience (Matt. 18:26, 29) in withholding his immediate righteous judgment that all people deserve for their sins

4. God’s gracious provision of Christ’s death and resurrection to pay the debt for sins and to break the power of sin (“but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Rom. 6:23b)

The two central points of the parable are:

1. that the gift of salvation is immeasurably great (“how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” Heb. 2:3)

2. that unless a person is comparably merciful to others, (a) God’s mercy has not had a saving effect upon him (Matt. 18:32–33), and (b) he will be liable to pay the consequences himself (vv. 34–35).