Parables of Jesus
The Unforgiving Servant
Love and Forgiveness
Read: Matthew 18:23-35
SeeThe Parable of the Unforgiving Servant is a parable of Jesus which appears in the Gospel of Matthew. According to this lesson, it is important to forgive others as we are forgiven by God, as illustrated by the example of this unforgiving servant.
The parable is told as an answer to a question by Peter about forgiveness: "Then Peter came and said to him, 'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?' Jesus said to him, 'I don't tell you until seven times, but, until seventy times seven.'"
The parable ends with the Unforgiving Servant being put in prison. Although there is no Bible reference a debtor paying debts from prison, the Roman Constitution (under which the Judeans were governed), had a detailed set of laws on debtors that provided that a debtor who does not pay could be taken to court and put in chains and made to work off the debt through servitude. A debt that cannot be paid resulted in slavery to the creditor or sale on the slave market. Alsom under this Roman law, debtors were sometimes delivered by their creditors to tormentors, who put them in prison, and scourged them, (a practice ended by Emperor Constantine the Great years later).
The phrase, "unless you forgive from your hearts" indicates that outward forgiveness is useless, but that instead it must come from the "heart", with the threat of being refused forgiveness by God if we do not forgive. According to St. James, "judgement will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy"
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"The Unforgiving Servant"
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