The Unforgiving Servant
Those who receive God's immense forgiveness must extend forgiveness to others.
A servant is forgiven an unpayable debt by his king but then refuses to forgive a fellow servant a tiny debt. The king, enraged, revokes his forgiveness. The message is stark: receiving divine forgiveness while withholding human forgiveness is impossible. God's forgiveness creates capacity and obligation to forgive others. The disparity between what we've been forgiven and what we're asked to forgive makes unforgiveness inexcusable. The sums are the sermon: 10,000 talents is roughly 60 million days' wages; the fellow servant owed about three months'.
Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?
C.S. Lewis observed that 'to be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.'
Gospel of Matthew
Written about in
- What Christianity says about forgiveness
The two debts are the sermon: ten thousand talents against roughly three months' wages. The king's closing question is not rhetorical. C. S. Lewis drew the only available conclusion — that being a Christian means forgiving the inexcusable, because the inexcusable in you was forgiven first.