About this series:

In each of the gospels we find Jesus asking questions of his disciples, the crowds and his opponents. And we also find Jesus being asked questions - by his disciples, the crowds and his opponents. Here, we will take 10 questions people asked of Jesus, the first from Luke’s gospel to set up the series and then the rest from Matthew’s gospel.

As well as working through the specific passages, we will aim to encourage people to consider what questions they would like to ask Jesus. The hope is that by looking at Matthew’s gospel in this way, we will see more clearly who Jesus is, be inspired to follow him and learn to be honest about our own questions as we grow to become more like him.

About this talk:

‘Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive’ (C. S. Lewis). We hear inspiring stories about other people offering forgiveness; but how hard it is to do so ourselves. We know God has forgiven us, but extending forgiveness to others can still be an immensely challenging idea.

This section follows teaching about confronting someone who sins (or, depending on the translation, sins against you, see Peter’s question in v 21). Jesus established a pattern for dealing with such situations and concludes, in a much misapplied statement, “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

We can imagine Peter then approaching Jesus with a follow-up question: “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?” And presumably he considers his suggested answer of “Up to seven times?” as being generous (a rabbinic tradition encouraged forgiveness up to three times, but no further). However, Jesus’ response is to say, in essence, that there should be no end to your willingness to forgive your brother or sister who sins against you. ‘In Jewish culture, numbers often held symbolic significance. The number seven is associated with completeness or perfection, and seventy, being a multiple of seven, carries an intensified sense of this completeness. In the context of forgiveness, the use of “seventy times” suggests an unlimited or boundless approach to forgiving others, reflecting the divine nature of God's forgiveness’ (Biblehub.com).

The parable that follows beautifully illustrates the limitless forgiveness offered by the king of the kingdom of heaven (v 23). How he deals with those who have sinned against him becomes the model for how we are to deal with those who sin against us - ‘A community of the forgiven must be a forgiving community’ (R. T. France).

But forgiveness is costly to the one who forgives because it always means, in some way, absorbing the debt of the debtor. In the parable, the act of forgiveness on the part of the king means he forgoes his right to demand the debt of “10,000 bags of gold” (10,000 talents) by absorbing in himself that loss. Tim Keller makes this point:

‘Most of the wrongs done to us cannot be assessed in purely economic terms. Someone may have robbed you of some happiness, reputation, opportunity, or certain aspects of your freedom. No price tag can be put on such things, yet we still have a sense of violated justice that does not go away when the other person says, “I’m really sorry.” When we are seriously wronged we have an indelible sense that the perpetrators have incurred a debt that must be dealt with. Once you have been wronged and you realize there is a just debt that can’t simply be dismissed - there are only two things to do.

The first option is to seek ways to make the perpetrators suffer for what they have done. You can withhold relationship and actively initiate or passively wish for some kind of pain in their lives commensurate to what you experienced. There are many ways to do this. You can viciously confront them, saying things that hurt. You can go around to others to tarnish their reputation. If the perpetrators suffer, you may begin to feel a certain satisfaction, feeling that they are now paying off their debt...There is another option, however. You can forgive. Forgiveness means refusing to make them pay for what they did. However, to refrain from lashing out at someone when you want to do so with all your being is agony. It is a form of suffering. You not only suffer the original loss of happiness, reputation, and opportunity, but now you forgo the consolation of inflicting the same on them. You are absorbing the debt, taking the cost of it completely on yourself instead of taking it out of the other person. It hurts terribly. Many people would say it feels like a kind of death.'

It is important to say, though, that Jesus’ instructions and parable do not require that sin is only to be absorbed by way of forgiveness. The sin in vs 15-20 is to be confronted and dealt with as a church community in order that it does not negatively impact the rest of community life. Crimes need to be reported to the police and to be suitably punished; abuse, likewise, needs to be reported and must stop. But in all such situations, forgiveness is to be offered as a way of reflecting God’s own willingness to forgive, to protect the one who has been wronged from lasting bitterness and to allow the community to be healed rather than scarred from wrongdoing.

Please note: it is extremely important to accurately state what forgiveness is and isn’t, as this is easily misunderstood. Forgiveness is not forgetting, excusing or the absence of negative feelings; it does not mean unconditionally trusting someone who did wrong to you; it is not always a one-off act; it does not always lead to reconciliation. Forgiveness is a choice and a process; it is a courageous act of withdrawing a desire for revenge and of releasing feelings of bitterness.

The final part of the parable, and Jesus’ conclusion in v 35, is deeply sobering, reflecting his teaching in 6:14-15. To ask for forgiveness from so great a debt as we have to God (10,000 bags of gold) and then not to offer forgiveness for a far lesser offence (100 silver coins, v 28) shows that we have not truly understood the first thing about the great debt we have been released from and that God has absorbed himself.