Sermon Tone Analysis

The ultimate example of debt and forgiveness

The Limits of Forgiveness

Rabbis of the day discussed this matter and recommended to limit forgiveness to 3 times....

So Peter’s “seven” even seems generous!

Jesus subverted this thought though altogether by alluding to an Old Testament story… Ironically the unlimited vindictiveness of Lamech

Two cases of “seven”, the number of completion, denotes more than a mere number.

But Jesus uses this Seventy-Seven for forgiveness.

The unimaginable size of the original debt (the talent was the highest unit of currency, and ten thousand the highest Greek numeral—‘a billion pounds’ would convey the impression

If that is the measure of the forgiveness the disciple has received, any limitation on the forgiveness he shows to his brother is unthinkable.

The fact that the second servant’s debt is one six-hundred-thousandth of the first emphasizes the ludicrous impropriety of the forgiven sinner’s standing on his own ‘rights’.

Those who will not forgive cannot expect to be forgiven

The point was made strongly in the Lord’s Prayer and the comment which follows it (6:12, 14–15), and the use of ‘debts’ for sins there is illuminated by the emphasis on debt here (vv.

24, 28, 30, 32, 34 all use the same word or its cognates).

If the church is the community of the forgiven, then all its relationships will be marked by a forgiveness which is not a mere form of words, but an essential characteristic; from your heart excludes all casuistry and legalism.