What Jesus Did! 'Refused!' — Matthew 18:28-30

Isn't it amazing that God often gives us the opportunity to return to others what he has been so generous in giving to us! That's what this story is about: whether or not we treat others as God treats us. Unfortunately, the forgiven servant in the story shows himself to be unforgiving. The unforgiving servant had been forgiven a huge debt (Matthew 18:24) — a debt he could never repay. The original Greek and some older English translations say the amount was "ten thousand talents," where a talent was a unit of money related primarily to governmental budgets because it was such a huge amount. The unforgiving servant would never ever in even 10 lifetimes have been able to pay off the debt. But what his fellow servant asked him to forgive was not a small amount. It was equivalent to one-third of the annual pay of a Roman soldier, who was in the middle to upper-middle income bracket of the day. So forget the exact dollar amount and understand it this way: Could you easily forgive a debt owed you by someone if it amounted to one-third of your yearly paycheck? Ouch! That's a serious debt. However, when compared with ten thousand talents, it's nothing. The issue for us is whether or not we will return the same generosity of forgiveness as we have received from God. We may have been wronged significantly, but it is nothing compared to what we have been given!