{"id":1583,"date":"2020-09-09T12:48:19","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T11:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/?p=1583"},"modified":"2020-09-09T12:48:22","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T11:48:22","slug":"message-from-the-minister-letter-15-sunday-13-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/?p=1583","title":{"rendered":"Message from the Minister Letter 15 &#8211; Sunday 13 September"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Dear\nall,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\nhope and pray that this letter finds you well.&nbsp;\nLast week we looked at the issue of sin and this week we look at\nforgiveness.&nbsp; Peter enquires of Jesus how\nmany times we should forgive someone else in the church if they sin against\nus.&nbsp; The issue is not just about the\noffence to oneself but also concern for a fellow Christian\u2019s own\ndiscipleship.&nbsp; Peter then offers the\nanswer of seven times.&nbsp; This was based, I\nam reliably informed, on the fact that Rabbis had debated this question and\ncome to the conclusion not more than three times, so really Peters answer is\nquite generous.&nbsp;&nbsp; Jesus\u2019 reply in light\nof this is even more surprising with seventy seven times.&nbsp;&nbsp; In other words your forgiveness should be\nunlimited.&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus\nthen goes to give a parable to the disciples to illustrate the point.&nbsp; The text for both these accounts can be found\nin Matthew 18: 21-35.&nbsp; The parable\nconcerns a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.&nbsp; When the records were checked the one who\nowed him ten thousand talents was brought before him.&nbsp; A talent was the highest unit of currency and\nten thousand the highest Greek numeral.&nbsp;\nSo the amount is absolutely massive, one commentator states it could be\nin region of a billion pounds, another nearly half of the annual revenue of the\nnation of Egypt at the time.&nbsp; Either way\nthe amount is huge.&nbsp; The servant cannot\npay and so he is sold along with his wife and all their possessions.&nbsp; The servant begs for mercy and the king has\ncompassion on him and out of pity releases him from all his debt.&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However,\nthat same servant then goes and demands payment for a debt that is owed to him\nby another servant.&nbsp; This amount is a\nhundred denarii which equates to one six-hundred-thousandth of the first debt which\nshows just how harsh the servant was after he had been forgiven so generously\nand comprehensively.&nbsp; The second servant\nbegs for forgiveness but the first refuses and has him thrown into prison until\nhis debt is paid.&nbsp; The fellow slaves are\nrightly horrified by what has happened and the king is alerted to the turn of\nevents.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The first servant is summoned\nback and the king in his anger has him tortured until the debt is paid.&nbsp; The Greek word means torturers whose role it\nwas to put pressure on the person defaulting and their family.&nbsp; This does not mean Jesus is advocating the\nuse of physical violence to settle a debt.&nbsp;\nThe graphic and vivid parable shows us very powerfully the message Jesus\nwants to convey.&nbsp; We have been forgiven so\ngraciously by God through what Jesus has accomplished on the cross and so\nwhilst acknowledging this we in turn should forgive others however, hard this\nmay be.&nbsp; &nbsp;If we don\u2019t forgive others, God won\u2019t forgive\nus.&nbsp; We are forgiven children of God, let\nus claim that forgiveness and be forgiving to others in turn.&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May\nour merciful God, the One who forgives, bless us now and always, <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear all, I hope and pray that this letter finds you well.&nbsp; Last week we looked at the issue of sin and this week we look at forgiveness.&nbsp; Peter enquires of Jesus how many times we should forgive someone else&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1584,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583\/revisions\/1584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}