It wasn't a debt to the king. Can I forgive you for a debt you have to someone else? That debt is between you and them. Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's. The servant should have forgiven his debtors, before asking to be forgiven his debts.The loving king if he had cared so much for that other servant of his would have paid or
given a decree to let him out of prison. It was owing viritually near nothing.
a pence \not talents of gold or silver
I just don't see where there was great love from the king for the second man.
God does chastise us and we do pay for sins we commit in this world here in the world. If we smoke, we get sick. If we lie, we lose someone's trust. If we commit adultery, we lose our family. If we cheat, we lose what we won. We are slaves to labor, because Adam betrayed the labor of God. Those are just results of sin, but for committing sin there is nothing we can do to remove it, we can never pay the wages of sin. That's why in the parable it was such a large amount. The only way to remove it is forgiveness, because Jesus paid the wages of sin. The parable is Jesus' answer to Peter's question: how many times should you forgive your brother. His response is saying how can you not forgive 7 times or 70 times 7 when you are forgiven for all. In the Lord's prayer it says "forgive us our debts, as we forgive or debtors." We are forgiven now and we must forgive now, it's not something that will happen in the near or far future, it's something that happens while on earth.
so it was not forgiven?he simply "Owes all" which in the original case - was more then the average person could pay in ten lifetimes.
God does not work that way, He forgave us first.It wasn't a debt to the king. Can I forgive you for a debt you have to someone else? That debt is between you and them. Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's. The servant should have forgiven his debtors, before asking to be forgiven his debts.
That is true, because God uses us in spite of where we put ourselves. But, the truth is if we commit a crime we are punished, even if it's not in prison, you still pay for that crime (physically, mentally, or spiritually). Sin is no different (on earth).A couple of things:
Are you suggesting the situation you got yourself into as a Christian is the result of past sins? What I have taught even Christians in prison is: “You are where you are not because of the bad you did, but because of the good you can do”. It does not matter if you are “paying society” for some crime or are here because you were falsely accused or because you are being persecuted and you can be let out tomorrow if God could use you better someplace else.
There is nothing in this parable about “Adam” causing anything or Christ paying anything. God’s forgiveness is not the result of Christ’s ransom payment to the kidnappers.
Christ wonderfully answered Peter’s question with 70 times 7, but putting yourself in the place of the apostles and thinking 7 times would be extremely generous, what would be your follow-up question after hearing this answer? (“How am I going to keep from being taken advantage of by my brother?” would be the question on my heart), so does Christ answer that question with this parable because this parable answers that question for me.
He has already forgiven us for everything we will ever ask him to forgive and more, but we exist within time and within time we should only ask as we have given. Maybe that's not an important lesson to you, we are all different. It shows me that if the servant would have forgiven his debtors first, he would have never ended up with the tormentor.God does not work that way, He forgave us first.
Jesus is not “directly” talking about God, but indirectly using an earthly king/master to describe how God and the kingdom work.
There is nothing in this parable which suggest: the wicked servant’s legal actions against the second servant created a second “debt” with the master (the debt is referred to as “the debt”).
The second servant is in prison for legal reasons which can happen with any of us, but with a generous Master like the one being described the master will pay his debt or leave him in there to do the master's work from prison (this is what can happen to us).
What hardship do you see Paul going through for being the chief of sinners?That is true, because God uses us in spite of where we put ourselves. But, the truth is if we commit a crime we are punished, even if it's not in prison, you still pay for that crime (physically, mentally, or spiritually). Sin is no different (on earth).
2 Corinthians 11What hardship do you see Paul going through for being the chief of sinners?
right which makes it sound like hell for the first servant, but the second servant was not put there by the Master (God) so this looks like just debtor prison.The parable does not describe any "master's work" done in prison other than torturing the wicked servant.
hi you really asking a lot of speculative questions on this and making much more of the parable than should. A good rule of thumb is not to make the parables the basis for your theology or doctrine. When Jesus taught the disciples to pray part of that prayer begins with our Father who art in heaven...then it gets to forgive us our debts as we forgive others. In this story the 1st servant represents all of us who have a debt to God in sin that we could never pay. God in His mercy will forgive a man of all unrighteousness. Think of David a murderer and adulterer and in his day the law said he should be stoned to death. The Lord forgave him and called him a man after His own heart. Now the rich man is owed a debt and that is like us having someone who has done us harm and when he refused to forgive the other man his debt and extend the same mercy that was shown to him it revealed his heart. The mercy of God is based upon repentance and the one who is born of God is not going to have this mentality. When he was cast into prison the main verse of interpretation is given.I am teaching an adult class on the parable Matt. 18: 21-35 “The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant” and would like your comments on this parable.
A lot of commentaries (especially Calvinistic Commentaries) tell us what this parable does not teach, but give little support for what it does teach, so what is it teaching us?
What can we hopefully agree with from the information given and please give other options if you have them and scripture to back it up:
- It starts off ““The kingdom of heaven is like…” so if it is consistent with all other Kingdom Parables every noun and verb in the parable would have to have a parallel spiritual kingdom meaning (stand for something in the kingdom)?
- Since this is a Kingdom parable could it be talking about a time prior to Christ going to the cross?
- The “king”/”master” would refer to God since Christ ends with “This is how my Father in heaven will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” Options?
- The first debtor (man/servant) has to be a sinner, but could this be a saved Christian (servant) and/or just any unbeliever?
- The “debt” is huge 10,000 bags of Gold (5+ billion dollars) or 10,000 bags of silver (100 million dollars) no matter, either is way above what could be paid back by a servant. Gold or silver, this is virtually an impossible amount for one person to ever owe in the first century and everyone Jesus was addressing would have realized this. Spiritually this debt would represent each of our debts created by our sinning against God and Jesus said: “The man was not able to pay”?
- The servant did not just slip into this huge debt over night, but would have had to take years or a life time to get so deeply in debt, so he is not coming to the master unaware. To be trusted by the Master with such a huge amount of money; suggest the servant understood economics and the value of the money or would have learned about it over time.
- The servant asks ‘Give me time,’ he begged. ‘I’ll pay everything back.’ Is this a lie to the master or how could he not know he could not pay it back? Was the Master so stupid as to entrust a stupid servant with this much money?
- Would/could the Master have felt the servant could pay this back over time?
- Jesus said: “He forgave him what he owed”, but was that what the servant was asking for?
- Could the servant have felt: “he got away with something by asking for more time”, “the master is gullible”, “he still owes master but gave him more time”, “the master must like him”?
- Matt.18:28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. This sounds like: the first servant immediate went out and found a fellow servant of the Master with little time elapsing, so is he unloving to a servant of the master?
- Jesus teaches us in Luke 7:36-50 “… he that is forgiven much loves much…”, so since this first servant was forgiven of such a unbelievable huge debt he would automatically and have to have an unbelievable huge Love which would easily be seen in his actions toward another servant of the master since servants of good masters were almost treated as family members. How could this servant be unloving toward a servant of the Master if he Loved the master?
- Did the Master expect the servant to show great Love?
- How could the Master “handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.” Since the master had forgiven the debt the servant owed, so the servant owed the Master nothing?
- If the servant has to payback this unbelievable huge debt before the torture can stop how long will that take and does that not sound like hell?
- Since the servant shows no great love after the Master forgave him and since the servant still owes the master the huge debt forgiveness must not have taken place even though the master did His part perfectly was there a part the servant had to play to complete the forgiveness transaction?
- If there is a part the sinner must play (humbly accepting the pure charity) in the forgiveness process would it take anything away from God’s sovereignty?
The first servant lacked Godly type Love which is shown by not forgiving the second servant, but He could have gotten Godly type Love (unselfish Love) if he had truly humbly accepted the Master's forgiveness as a purely charitable gift (Luke 7). He had not "Love" to forgive his fellow servant with prior or after the Master's forgiveness.He has already forgiven us for everything we will ever ask him to forgive and more, but we exist within time and within time we should only ask as we have given. Maybe that's not an important lesson to you, we are all different. It shows me that if the servant would have forgiven his debtors first, he would have never ended up with the tormentor.
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