Name: Nikki S.

Uriarte

ReEd1 MWF

Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

Matthew 18: 21-35

Summary:

Jesus begins by saying, in reference to forgiving, "For this reason the kingdom of
heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves."
(Matthew 18:23)

This king has one servant who owes him ten-thousand talents. Since a talent
was worth more than 15 years of wages for an average worker, this many talents would
be at least 150,000 years worth of money. Jesus is making the point that this man owes
a lot of money.

In order to have this money returned, the king orders that this man be sold along with
his family and everything he owns. The servant pleads with the king, and the king is
merciful. He actually decides to completely forgive this massive debt.

This servant then leaves the king's presence. However, on his way out, the
servant meets one of his own slaves who owes him a hundred denarii. A hundred
denarii would be about 100 days worth of debt, which is a significantly smaller debt than
what was owed to the king.

The king's servant grabs his own servant by the throat and says, "Pay what you
owe." (Matthew 18:28) This second servant pleads with the first, but the first one is
unmerciful and unforgiving. He throws his slave in jail until he can repay the debt, which
means that this servant would be in jail forever since a person cannot make money
while in prison and would never be able to repay the debt.
 Those witnessing this event were greatly distressed, so they went and told their
king what had happened. The king then requests to see the first servant and says, "You
wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not
have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?" (Matthew 18:32-33)

Then the king, in his anger, had the first servant tortured until he could repay his
debt. Like the second servant who was sent to prison, a person cannot make money
while they are being tortured which means this first servant would be tortured forever.

Deep Meaning:

The main lesson of the story is about forgiveness. Forgiveness is about releasing
a person from the debt they owe, which means there is no grudge or sense of revenge.
It means once you forgive a person, there’s no such feeling of regret or hate that you
will feel against that person. We should forgive that person without expecting any return,
or you will not expect him to pay you back what he owes you. For God said in the
parable we should forgive not seven times but seventy-seven times which means we
should forgive a person boundlessly, no matter what he owes in us. When someone
offends or sins against us we should be willing to forgive him from a heart of gratitude
for the grace to which we ourselves are debtors. We should forgive purely from our
heart.