Forgiveness

Forgiveness

The heart of the Lord’s Prayer is, “Forgive us our debts....”  Forgive us our trespasses blunts the point.  Debt refers to major breaches of the Ten Commandments: murder, adultery, theft, false witness, covetousness and the like.  Debt brings into focus the oppression of others through money.  The word trespasses focuses on minor sins: I stepped on your toes, I hurt your feelings, I insulted you.

 

In Jesus’ explanation[1] of the Lord’s Prayer, He draws a contrast between debt and trespass by using a different word.  In principle this teaches that the command to forgive debt, will be judged at the lowest, most intimate level.  Failure to forgive will certainly result in the withdrawal of God’s forgiveness from us.  This is not accidental.  This is a major theme, perhaps the major theme in Matthew: for he returns to this subject repeatedly, especially in Matthew 18[2] and 25[3], where a great deal of force is applied to how we handle money.

 

We might almost interpret “forgive us our debts…,” as “Neither borrower nor lender be!”

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[1] Matthew 6:14-15

[2] In Matthew 18, the Unjust Steward oppresses another for half the price of a modern car, while his own debts are on the magnitude of our current national debt.  Such is our debt to God.  Our sins amount to a king’s ransom, while we dare to hold each other hostage over trivia.  Especially grievous is the oppression of the poor by wealth.  If failure to forgive the least of all sins separates us from God out loving Father, how much more the greatest of all sins (debt and usury) will surely cast us into Hell.  If we are aware that our principal enemies are the world, the flesh, and the devil; we must surely know that the world’s chiefest weapon is debt, usury, and the lust that these feed.

[3] In Matthew 25, the fiscal focus is on how we invest the wealth with which we’ve been entrusted, especially in out treatment of the poor.

[4] If you have been blessed or helped by any of these meditations, please repost, share, or use any of them as you wish.  No rights are reserved.  They are designed and intended for your free participation.  They were freely received, and are freely given.  No other permission is required for their use.