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Forgiveness


    I love Matthew 18:22-35. This passage teaches us so much about forgiveness. In this parable, we understand the depth of forgiveness that comes from God. We also appreciate the depth of forgiveness we should offer others. To best understand this concept, we must look at the values that are forgiven.


    A servant is brought in front of a king who was settling accounts. This servant owed the king 10,000 talents. He could not pay it back. The king then prepared to sell the man and his family into slavery and sell all his home with its goods to recoup his money (Matthew 18:25). This would only give the king a fraction of his money back. In Ancient Rome, slaves went for 500 denarii for a male and a female upward to 6,000 denarii. In 79 AD, a recorded price in Pompeii indicated "that a slave sold for 2,500 sestertii or 625 denarii." 1 We can make some simple estimations about how much he, his wife, and kids would bring. A male slave would get 500 denarii. A female would bring upwards of 6,000 denarii; let us use 6,000 denarii. He would have had around 5 -6 children. They would not have got much because only a few would live to adulthood. So let us say each child brings 100 denarii a piece making them bring, as a whole, 600 denarii. We are at 7,100 denarii for the people. Maybe a meager 25,000 denarii for an average villa home.2 That would mean the king would only recoup 5.35 talents back by selling everything. This math lets us know how big of a debt this is.


    The servant said he would pay it back (Matthew 18:26). Let's look at how long it would take to pay this debt back. The servant owed 60,000,000 denarii. A legionnaire who made decent money made 228.1 denarii a year. 3 Taking the typical day's wage of 1 denarius will take 164,383.5 years to pay it back. The average life expectancy was 35 years of age. However, that took into account the child mortality rate. If you made it to adulthood, you could live to 60 or 70 years of age. 4 This man is grown, married, and has kids. It is safe to say he could live to tell he was 60 years old. If he never took a denarius a day for anything but to give it back to the king, it would take him 2,739.7 life spans to pay it back. If he made a ¼ of denarii and paid it again using the rest to live on it would take him 10,958 life spans. In short, he cannot pay it back. The king forgives this debt that could never be paid back because the man begged him to (Matthew 18:26). That is forgiveness. The king knows he will never see his money. Just like God knows, we can never even come close to repaying Him, by our life of service, the cost of our sins. He still forgave us. This also lets us know how much debt and the wages of sin Christ poured His blood out to pay for on the cross (Revelation 1:5).


    God expects us to offer the same level of forgiveness to others (Matthew 18:33-34). The servant did not do that. He went to a man that owed him 100 denarii, a drop in the bucket of what he owed the king. He then demanded payment (Matthew 18:28). The man could have paid this back in a 1/3 of a year up to a year and a half's time. Instead of being compassionate and forgiving the debt, he put him into prison until the debt could be paid (Matthew 18:29-30). How do you pay an obligation when you cannot work? The man would be indebted to whoever bailed him out.


    The king hears of this atrocity then demands his payment from the servant's flesh (Mathew 18:32-34). The man would never pay all he owed. It was just torcher until death. There is no way the man would pay back the king in prison or torcher. However, that was just punishment, in the king's eyes, for not spreading the same mercy and compassion as he had. God will do the same thing to us. He has forgiven us that mountain of debt that our sins have created. We could never pay them back. That is why the wage of sin is death (Romans 6:23). That means we are to forgive others. What they do to us, and we forgive them for is a fraction of what God has done for us. That is why we should be able to forgive someone up to seventy times seven times (Mathew 18:21-22), which means every time.  


    God forgives us this much. We learn this in 1 John. 1 John 1:9 makes it clear we are to confess our sins. The word "confess" in verse nine means to say something that is already known. That means God knows we sin. God already knows it when we say it. He still forgives us when we ask for it. We have that because of the blood of Christ. Therefore, we should give it to others. I do not want to be like that servant who held back compassion, forgiveness, and mercy from another on judgment day.





  1. United Nations of Roma Victrix. "Ancient Roman Slavery." UNRV Roman History. 2019. September, 2019. https://www.unrv.com/slavery.php
  2. com. September, 2019. https://www.answers.com/Q/How_much_did_houses_cost_in_ancient_Rome (Links to an external site.)
  3. Ulvog, Jim. "Average pay for Roman Legionnaire." Ancient Finances. February, 2018. September, 2019. https://ancientfinances.wordpress.com/2018/02/13/average-pay-for-roman-legionnaire/ (Links to an external site.)
  4. "CORRECT YOUR TOUR GUIDE: TWO MAJOR MYTHS ABOUT ANCIENT ROMANS". Revealed Rome. June, 2012. September, 2019. https://revealedrome.com/2012/06/ancient-rome-daily-life-women-age/

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