Spiritual Ponderings

Jesus absorbed every single human being into Himself on the cross to create a new race of creatures in His image. After the humans did everything they could think of to torment and tempt Him to become angry, resentful and ungodly, the demons continued the attack unseen inside of Him and God allowed the history of every human being who ever or would ever live to pass into Jesus the consequences of all their sins. Thus Jesus took into Himself the full brunt of all the sins of the world and experienced the wages of sin. He absorbed the full emotional pain that each of us feels at a microscopic level even though just our own can overwhelm us. This is why it required no less than God Himself to be able to accomplish such a feat. For an angel or any created being could never have the capacity of forgiveness and love and compassion to finish absorbing such an enormous debt without cracking under the strain and throwing in the towel. Only God Himself had a large enough capacity and the...

I have been thinking about this emerging idea of the concept of debt being changed but not eliminated by forgiveness. As I meditated again on this verse about the king wishing to settle accounts with his slaves it began to break through into something very exciting that is still just beginning to make sense. The Greek word translated accounts also means words . I have seen this previously and just thought of another useful word that could apply here, the word dispute . In a way, the king wanted to settle a dispute with his servants, for a dispute creates a tension just as a debt does. In fact, when someone fails to pay a debt and the lender attempts to collect on it, a dispute is generally what it turns into. It is becoming clear in this story that the king wanted a resolution for the tension created by this condition far more than he wanted the money itself. But my mind has been searching for something in the natural realm that might have strong correlation with what is ...

The more I meditate on this idea of forgiveness the more connections to other things begin to appear. The thought that forgiveness in essence is letting go and that the same meaning also applies to God's wrath was a startling insight to me. But then as I thought about that more I have begun to wonder about the debt part of this concept. For it seems logical to me that very possibly forgiveness may in fact not actually eliminate the whole idea of debt but rather may transform the debt into a completely different kind of debt. The debt discussed in the story of the king and his debtor was in all respects a negative kind of debt. It produced negative consequences in their relationship which is why the king wanted to put away that debt so that his higher priority of having a close relationship with his servant could be satisfied. Of course it required that the servant might be induced into making that relationship his priority or else that goal would never be reached, which sad...

And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. (Matthew 18:27) My mind suddenly went to other scenarios that raise interesting questions. It said here that this slave did not have the means to repay this debt. That is readily understandable given that this debt was equivalent to 150,000 years worth of wages. But what would have happened if the slave did have the resources in hand to repay the debt? What if he had stashed much of that money away rather than having it slip through his hands elsewhere? Would forgiveness have still been an option on the part of the king? How does this play out against the belief that God forgives unconditionally? Upon what basis is forgiveness anyway? There is a great deal about forgiveness that is not yet clear but discussion about it can elicit very strong emotions and opinions on the part of many. Throughout this chapter sins and offenses are generally the same thing depending on which version yo...

When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, 'Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.' (Matthew 18:24-26) Why did the debtor's wife and children become threatened when the king said the slave would have to go to prison? This raises serious issues in many minds, particularly in children's. And Jesus did say we must become like little children and children are not nearly so afraid to broach questions like this. It is the intimidated adults who are afraid God might get upset if we ask about such things. One reason I can see is that Jesus wants us to perceive that everything and everyone that is the least bit connected to our perceived value or that is under our autho...

For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. (Matthew 18:23) One of the features that is too often overlooked in this story of the debtor is the sharp contrast between the attitudes of the king and the slave. In fact, we so naturally feel like gravitating toward the spirit of the slave ourselves that we believe the king in the end adopts the same viewpoint and methods of the slave in preference over his previous compassion and forgiveness. But in believing and teaching this about God we only add to our own debt created by our words. If we really followed fully the example of the king we might start out with some who owe us with a seemingly stern and legalistic approach. This could be parallel to the pointing out of error in verse 15. But just as in that sequence, the whole purpose and intent of the king was not to shame and blame and humiliate the slave but to reconcile their relationship and induce the sla...

Review (Matthew 18) Who is the greatest? Unless you humble yourselves and become like this little child... Clinging to offenses entraps us. Priorities about what is most valuable. Living independent outside of covenant. Seven Sevens in the Bible Then Peter came and said to Him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times ?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven . (Matthew 18:21-22) Just how many times are we supposed to initiate this process? How much effort must I put out to stay in this covenant relationship with those around me?” Just how valuable is the covenant to us anyway? If we think there is a limit to how many times we need to forgive, then we are setting artificial boundaries beyond which we will refuse to go in our little imitation kingdom . Living in this kingdom requires unlimited grace, unlimited forg...