Matthew 18

So i decided i'll just write down a quick reflection of what I learned while studying the bible with my friends in small group!

Last week we went through Matthew 18...particularly v21-35 on the unforgiving servant.

Some things we talked about was the following:
1. Can you forgive if the other party didn't ask for forgiveness?
2. What does it mean to forgive?
3. What does v35 mean?
4. Does a plea for forgiveness demand forgiveness?
5. What does it mean in v17 when it says treat them like a Gentile/tax collector?

Initially, I found the first question really interesting because if you look at our relationship with God, we don't receive salvation unless we repent first. But here, Jesus says to forgive 70x7 times (aka a lot). Even if that person hasn't asked for forgiveness and sinned against you, you need to forgive. If you look at the previous paragraph, it talks about how to go about doing that. Which leads the the last question. Treating them like a Gentile has nothing to do with being unforgiving, but rather, the opposite really. We treat them as an unbeliever who needs to hear the gospel and who has a need for Christ in their life.
So, what does it mean to forgive? I think it has to do with making peace with yourself and that other person and reconciling it and not holding on to the past. There really is wisdom in that whole "forgive and forget" thing! Obviously, be wise and learn from the past, but learning to see past things and learning to give the person a chance to build back their trust from you. Even if the other person doesn't seek forgiveness, we are still called to forgive them in our heart and wait for them. Kind of like the prodigal son's father...who waited at the window every day for his son to come back and just embraced him when he came back...and just loved him where he was at! (that story always gets me...every time!)
What does v35 mean? Basically it's saying that we ought to forgive like God forgave us. God forgave us a way greater debt...a debt that was impossible (like in this case, 10k talents...which means 10000 x 20 years worth of wages!) If someone did that to us and we were truly grateful, we'd do the same to others because we would have been moved by what they did to us!

Okay, just for fun, google says in Australia, the average income before tax is $74724! lol okay so to do the math... 74724x20 years = $1494480 = 1 talent! This guy owed 10000 talents...so lets just add on 4 zeros to that number to get...$14,944,800,000!! omg... that is almost 15 billion Australian dollars!!! (which is around 11.2 billion USD...just to keep things standard)! that is crazy!

One thing I really liked that we brought up was that forgiveness hurts. This guy who forgave this man the 10k talents...that's a lot of money! That hurts to just say, I forgive you, you owe nothing! In the same way, for God to forgive us this impossible debt, Jesus had to die on the cross for us.
So, we forgive because God forgave us! But does a plea for forgiveness demand forgiveness? Not really, but we should! Demand is the wrong word. It really comes back down to the whole, we forgive because he forgave us! If we really are changed by it, we should forgive. That doesn't mean we need to forgive immediately...but make an effort and try actively to forgive. Some things are hard to forgive...some things we'd say is impossible to forgive...and that is when we need to rely on God for strength for those things.

Jireh