Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Jeremiah 27-31
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 18:23-35
Jesus: If you want to understand the kingdom of heaven, think about a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. Just as the king began to get his accounts in order, his assistants called his attention to a slave who owed a huge sum to him—what a laborer might make in 500 lifetimes. The slave, maybe an embezzler, had no way to make restitution, so the king ordered that he, his wife, their children, and everything the family owned be sold on the auction block; the proceeds from the slave sale would go toward paying back the king. Upon hearing this judgment, the slave fell down, prostrated himself before the king, and begged for mercy: “Have mercy on me, and I will somehow pay you everything.” The king was moved by the pathos of the situation, so indeed he took pity on the servant, told him to stand up, and then forgave the debt.
But the slave went and found a friend, another slave, who owed him about a hundred days’ wages. “Pay me back that money,” shouted the slave, throttling his friend and shaking him with threats and violence. The slave’s friend fell down prostrate and begged for mercy: “Have mercy on me, and I will somehow pay you everything.” But the first slave cackled and was hard-hearted and refused to hear his friend’s plea. He found a magistrate and had his friend thrown into prison “where,” he said, “you will sit until you can pay me back.” The other servants saw what was going on. They were upset, so they went to the king and told him everything that had happened.
The king summoned the slave, the one who had owed so much money, the one whose debt the king had forgiven. The king was livid. “You slovenly scum,” he said, seething with anger. “You begged me to forgive your debt, and I did. What would be the faithful response to such latitude and generosity? Surely you should have shown the same charity to a friend who was in your debt.”
The king turned over the unmerciful slave to his brigade of torturers, and they had their way with him until he should pay his whole debt. And that is what My Father in heaven will do to you, unless you forgive each of your brothers and each of your sisters from the very cockles of your heart.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Jesus is still in the throes of His fourth sermon. He talked about brothers and sisters in the congregation who needed correction and how to deal with them. Peter asked how many times he had to forgive and Jesus responded with what seemed a ridiculously large number of times. He really says, don’t count, just keep forgiving. Then He gives us this illustration to understand the scope of forgiveness we should have because of the scope of forgiveness we have received.
In our country, we’ve kind of lost all sense of number value in the last couple of generations. With Congress and our states tossing out $1tn budgets in the same way they treat $1,000 price tags, it’s hard to keep up with what all the government numbers mean. Particularly when our leaders don’t tell us what those numbers really mean to our children’s children. We hear the numbers but it doesn’t translate very quickly to us that each of your children and each of my grandchildren (they are 7,5, 4, and not quite 2) owe just under $40,000 each if we all paid our part of the national debt. See, we just don’t understand real numbers any more.
Changing the numbers to something a little more meaningful as “The Voice” does in its translation helps us grab hold of Jesus’ illustration. The king forgave the slaves debt that amounted to more than a laborer (that’s you and me, much more than the slave) could make in 500 lifetimes. Did you get that? The laborer made significantly more than the slave, but it would take 500 lifetimes, not years, but lifetimes, to earn enough to pay off the debt if he gave every penny to the king.
Now you get an idea of the size of the slave’s debt. Jesus gives a clue as to how he could run up such a bill, perhaps he was an embezzler. So not only did he owe the king money, but he was also a criminal. The king had every right to put him in jail and throw away the key. Instead, the king forgave him because the slave asked repentantly.
But when the slave failed to forgive a fellow worker a significantly, 100 day’s pay versus 500 lifetimes pay, the king reacted. So in today’s average market what would that be, just so you get a feel for the numbers? Assuming a person works for 45 years, that’s probably a few years short, but we’ll use that number for this argument. And the average wage for a laborer today is about $25/hour, and the laborer takes two weeks vacation every year. That’s $2,250,000 earned in one lifetime with no overtime, just straight 8 hours a day five days a week. So compare that slave’s debt of $1,125,000,000,000, there’s that trillion dollars we have no concept of as a number. Versus the debt the king’s slave failed to forgive of just $20,000.
I guess he went to the same schools a lot of our kids in the last couple of generations went to. We just don’t understand how gracious God is when He forgives our sins, that $1tn debt when we are so reluctant to forgive those who do petty things against us that irritate us, that $20,000 debt. Can we get ourselves back to school to figure out how different these numbers are again? Can we begin to understand the vast level of love God has for us when He forgives us? Then can we exercise just a little of His great love to share some of that forgiveness with those around us?
Jesus says we must forgive from the very cockles of our heart. Ever heard that expression? It means the ventricles of your heart. You see, when you love someone, it makes your heart beat a little faster, a little harder. It warms your heart. It’s a great expression that came to us from the Latin. Forgive until your heart is warmed. You’ll like it. God promises.
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