How often should we forgive others?

The ministry of Jesus could be summed up in one word, Forgiveness. Peter asks the Lord about the issue in Matthew 18:21-35. For those of us who like to hold grudges the answer is disappointing to say the least. I will tell the story in my own words.

One day Peter walks up to Jesus and asked Him a serious question. Peter said, “How many times should I let someone sin against me and still forgive him? “Up to seven times?” “I think seven is a nice round number.” “What do you say Jesus?” Jesus raised his eyebrows and said, “Not seven times, but seventy times seven.” Then Peter raised his eyebrows. Peter said, “Seventy times seven, are you crazy?” “Everybody will be gettin away with murder.”

So Jesus called His disciple chums together and told them a story. The disciples knew the story was made up, but it was Jesus’ way of setting the record straight about how God sees things.

“Once upon a time there was this king and he had lots of servants and people who worked for him and he told them all to appear before him and come clean on their debts. The first servant owed hundreds of millions of dollars and had no way of repaying the debt. So the king said that he should be tossed into Debtors Prison and his wife and children were to be sold in order to pay back the debt. But the servant fell down on his knees and begged the king for mercy claiming he would pay it back to the last penny. The king felt compassion on the servant and dismissed the debt, allowing the man to go free.

“Lo and behold that servant found a fellow servant and grabbed him and said ‘Pay me the fifty dollars you owe me.’ Then that servant begged for mercy and said he would pay it all back when he could. But he would not hear of it and tossed the slave in prison until he paid the fifty dollars. Some of the king’s servants saw what had happened and went and reported it to the king, who immediately summoned the slave to his throne room.

“The king said to the slave ‘You low life, I forgave you all you owed me even though it was more than you could have made in many lifetimes and yet you would not forgive a fellow slave who only owed you fifty dollars.’ Then the king ordered the slave thrown into prison and tortured until he repaid everything.”

Then Jesus finished by saying, “This is what my heavenly father will do to all of you if you do not forgive each other.”

Then one of the apostles said to Jesus, “The other day Peter told everybody that I had bad breath. I was steamed, I’m still steamed about it.” Hey, you want to say something bad about my wife go right ahead, you can even say something bad about my dog but when you start talking about my breath now that’s where I draw the line. “Besides Peter’s feet sink.” Then Peter said, “What, why I aught to knock you block off.”

Then Jesus separated the two and told them and told them that if they couldn’t forgive each other over a small matter such as bad breath and stinky feet how could they expect the Lord God almighty to forgive them of their sins against Him.

The story dramatizes God’s perspective on the issue of human interaction. In God’s eyes forgiveness is the most important issue on the table. Period. Understand that is easy, the hard part is accomplishing it everyday.

Jesus' Family think He's Nuts.

Matthew 12:46-50, Mark 3:28-30, Luke 8:19-21 tells the story of Jesus’ difficulties with His family while He was trying to perform His ministry. Mark 3:21 reveals the true nature of those feelings. I will tell the troubling reaction of Jesus’ family to His ministry in my own words.

When Jesus and His disciple chums returned home the people of the village mobbed them. It was a madhouse, the dudes could hardly get to chow down on the Chinese take out they bought. The scribes who followed Jesus from Jerusalem were really jealous and started telling the crowd that Jesus was doin all these miracles by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons. The crowd wasn’t very bright (they were democrats) so they started belivin the scribes.

Then Jesus had to call the crowd over to Him and straighten them out. Jesus said, “How can Satan cast out Satan?” “A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.” Then Jesus looked at the scribes and said, “I am telling you the truth all sins are forgivable except one, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit is guilty of an eternal sin.” Jesus meant that the scribes had equated Him with Satan and that was something that would not stand in the eyes of God.

But when Jesus made this statement he really steamed the scribes because he had placed Himself in a very distinct category (claiming He had the Holy Spirit). Even Jesus’ mother and his brothers were thinking He was coo coo. So they went over to see Jesus when He was speaking to a bunch of people in a house. They asked if someone could tell Jesus to come out because they wanted to speak with Him. So the crowd told Jesus that His family was outside wishing to speak with Him. But Jesus was no fool and knew what was happening. He knew the scribes had put pressure on His family to shut Him up and that’s why they wanted to speak with Him. They were gonna take Him home so He could rest and return to His senses.

Then Jesus said to the crowd, “Who are my mother and my brothers? “Whoever does the will of God is my mother and my brothers and my sisters.”

At face value the story ends there. However, the mere fact the his mother and brothers have come to take him away to the funny farm serves as a reminder as to how much resistance there was to Jesus’ ministry. More than likely the scribes put pressure on Jesus’ family to the point of threatening them with expulsion from the synagogue if they did not quiet Jesus down. Since His brothers did not believe He was the messiah (John 7:5) they would have had grave concerns over these threats by the religious leaders. Jesus’ brothers probably had families of their own and did not want their own children mocked by other children for being expelled from synagogue worship.