GOSPEL MEDITATION #10
Unforgiving Servant & Persistent Widow
Matthew 18:21-35 & Luke 18:1-8
- Find a quiet place without distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer.
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
- From memory, determine the central points.
- Preceding the parable of the “Unforgiving Servant” is an account of Jesus speaking of forgiving a “brother” who sins against us. Peter then asks Jesus how many times must a brother be forgiven. He asks, seven times, but Jesus replies, seventy times seven. 490 times then, now, the meaning is an unlimited number of times.
- Jesus tells a parable of a servant who was forgiven an extremely great amount of debt, but who then refuses to forgive a much smaller debt owed to him by a fellow servant.
- The servants master hears of this hardness of heart, and the unforgiving servant loses all he has and is sent to jail.
- The point may be that those who are forgiven will be forgiving of others; thus the believer, forgiven a huge debt, will be forgiving of others. This is how it should for Jesus’ disciples.
- The second parable, that of the Persistent Widow, has to do with praying.
- A widow, having no other advocate, continues to plead with a judge for justice. At first she is disregarded, but she does not give up. Finally, the “unrighteous judge” decides for the widow, and why? Because, because the widow continues to bring her case before the judge.
- Jesus then asks, “Will not Got give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night?”
- Christians, continue to pray, thus displaying their faith in a righteous God who hears their prayers.