The teaching about “seven times seventy” and the parable about the limitless forgiveness of the king is a profound parable about God’s overwhelming grace and abundant forgiveness.
There is no bottom to the well of God’s forgiveness.
There is no way that we can repay God for the enormous debt that His Son paid for our sin. Some of our sins are deep-seated habits that are repeated endlessly and when we ask God to forgive our oft-repeated sins, God does.
It's a tremendous grace considering what God does with our confessed sins. He doesn't send our sins to a temporary recycle bin, just in case He needs to remind us of them later. They're totally removed from the hard drive!
God’s forgiveness is so infinitely and unfathomably great that such forgiveness should inspire us to forgive the people who hurt us in this life. We are invited to have the same attitude towards others’ sins as God has to our sins.
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Jesus teaches us that we are not to seek revenge, but to forgive our brother and sister “seven times seventy”.
Seven times seventy! There is both power and symbolism in that number. It represents infinity – limitlessness and unfathomable. The number, seven times seventy, reverses the seventy-seven in Genesis 4:24: If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.
Jesus is teaching to forgive by reversing the statement of Lamech in Genesis 4.
The phrase “seventy-seven” refers to the number of times a person gets revenge. Jesus breaks that cycle of hate and revenge. Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:22 intentionally reverse the cycle of human revenge.
Forgiveness trumps revenge in God’s blueprint for life.
Friend, “Seven times seventy”… these words are deeply embedded in our Christian memory bank. How do we apply this to our own daily
The Lord was so gracious that he died for us so that we can repent, and we should use that gift for granted.
Forgiveness and justice are very similar than we believe them to be. We believe that justice is
“You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You can’t earn that or deserve it” (Portis 40.) Everything you do, good or bad, carries some sort of judgment from the Lord. You might slip through the cracks from this world judgments and law, but you will be judged according to your doings, in this world by God. You can’t earn nor deserve the Grace of the Lord, because it was already given to us in the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:25.) This gave us Grace to be forgiven after our sin if we repent from further sinning’s. This means you can’t go and commit a crime of revenge, knowing God’s words
Even though the seventh man was responsible for the lost of his best friend he also brightened K’s life in many ways. The seventh man had the mentality that K hated him for killing him when really K was okay with dying. He lived a happy life and the seventh man realized that after studying K’s paintings. I think the seventh man should forgive himself as even though he cost his friend’s life, he also made his life better by being a part of it. Forgiving yourself after one mistake is hard for everyone, but realizing what we’ve done for others can wash those terrors away like the ocean with
One aphorism that hit me is “To learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others”. I had a few people in my life that had hurt me so much that I hated them. But, I was so miserable that I was not happy. I prayed to God to help me forgive them, a little by little I learned to forgive myself and then forgive them.
The rattling story of Joseph told of a man who must struggle with the most horrid betrayal from his family in which he learned to forgive them and even helped them flourish in later life. Justified by a need to make them properly atone for their sins, Joseph put his brothers through hell and back. In the end, Joseph ended up feeling happier for reconnecting with his family and saving them from the ominous hands of the famine that plagued Canaan. Although it may seem that the Bible suggests exonerating those who have deeply wronged one shows weakness and too much leniency, forgiveness allows one to become a stronger person and allow for the restoration of bonds amongst once-close companions.
Revenge will most often never be the same as justice, as human nature and emotion get in the way of absolute justice. Works Cited Alexandre Dumas, the Bible, Hammurabi's Code, Francis Bacon, Twelve Tables.
Sometimes in our lives, someone whom we care about and trust ends up betraying us or acting in a way that feels like a betrayal. We feel hurt by their actions and wonder why they would do such a thing, asking ourselves what we had done to deserve it. Then things go one of two ways: either we forgive and forget or we feel the need to take revenge; we want them to feel the pain we felt and understand what they’ve done, although ultimately, our vindictive actions only serve to hurt us further.
Today, we take this parable very lightly, as we have been brought up in a culture that forgives people’s faults easily. Most people think, “Yeah, I forgive everyone who harms me.” However, if you think about it, this just isn’t true, as everyone has a couple of people they hold a grudge against, and this parable is telling us to stop holding that grudge. Forgiving is a huge part of Christian teaching and should not be taken lightly.
“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”(Matthew 6:14-15, NIV) Husain Haddawy’s The Arabian Nights discusses many situations in which individuals learn to forgive others for the wrong that they have done against them. The Bible refers to the idea of forgiveness as an act not only for the person that has wronged you but for yourself; in order to grow, we have to forgive because if we do not, God will not forgive us. Haddawy’s literary work emphasizes the importance of forgiveness through the stories relating to the Demon and King Shahrayar.
Is it possible to forgive a wrong done to someone else? Should only those who repent be forgiven?
A strong Christian lesson on the true nature of forgiveness can be found in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount:
The substance of forgiveness is known to be an important thing and concept in the teaching of Jesus. In the Bible, Jesus has made it clear that unforgiveness is known to be a serious sin nurtured in the heart. As per Jesus Christ, it is said that the person needs to be forgiven even if a serious problem is caused due to him. If not, even we would not be forgiven from God. As per Jesus, if you forgive the sin done by the people, your heavenly will also forgive you if you have committed any sin. We would always want the heavenly father to forgive us for whatever wrong things or the mistakes that we do. In fact, we always think that it is the duty of God to forgive us. However, we never consider that the degree of offence we have done. We always think that he is the God and it is his prime duty to forgive us no matter what we do. But if somebody does the same thing to us, we always feel that it is not important to forgive them we think that we should not let them go just by forgiving them. Hence, the most important thing that needs to be considered here by us is that we should learn to forgive people (...
Forgiveness has set me free. My moments of the perpetual journey of repeated practice and willingness to forgive has
Steven Standiford, chief of surgery at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, says that unforgiveness can make people sick. Emotional wounds are more harmful to our health than we realize. Built up anger will weaken your immune system causing you to feel sick more often. For this reason, we must make forgiveness a lifestyle rather than a one-time event. We must learn how to surrender the burden of anger and resentment over to God and allow Him to heal the wounds caused by others. When we forgive from our hearts, we will begin to experience the peace of God in our souls. Unforgiveness is an unnecessary weight that we carry around not realizing that it’s weighing us down and hindering our growth.