“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?””
Matthew 18:21 (NIV)
Seven times to forgive someone seems like a lot to me!
Let's be honest- how many people do you know that you have had to forgive 7 times?
Don’t count your spouse - hopefully there is an unlimited amount of forgiveness for them.
Don’t count your children- hopefully there is an unlimited amount of forgiveness for them.
But what about our parents - our siblings - our classmates - our co-workers - our neighbours- our church siblings?
Forgiveness in this passage means restored relationship.
You could make the Scriptural case that forgiveness always means restored relationship, but I hesitate to say that because of abusive relationships- and Matthew doesn’t address the abusive relationship (though Luke does in 17:3,4 for true repentance rules out abuse) - for his concern seems to be that we understand our Lord’s teaching about our NEED to forgive in order to be forgiven. The story that is our Lord’s answer to Peter’s question ends with an example of the unforgiving Christian being thrown in prison and being tortured until he has paid back in full, and a direct Word from Christ that this is how our heavenly Father will treat us unless we forgive others from the heart.
If I ask you to think of a person who won’t forgive - who jumps to mind?
Hopefully not you.
Are they not in a prison - kept by bars made of their stubborn refusal to forgive?
We NEED to forgive, we NEED to love mercy, we NEED to practise mercy by forgiving
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