Matthew 18:21 - 35
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"

Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.

"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

I heard a great little Bible study on this, which I wanted to share with you.  It's quite a familiar one, but I heard a new take on it the other day.

As we read, we find out the first servant owes pretty much the debt of a small third world nation.  Ten thousand talents.  This is a large amount of money and he's never going to be able to pay.  The king knows there's no way the debt can be paid, but instead of sending him to jail, he has mercy upon the servant and completely forgives the debt, cancelling it out.

Then we read, the first servant then goes to a second servant who owes him 100 denarii.  Now most commentaries or sermons would say that a hundred denarii is an insignificant amount of money.  In fact, a denarii was about a day's wage back then, so this is around 100 days of payment - roughly 1/3 of a year's wages.  This is not a small amount of cash.  Ok, compared to the national debt, this is nothing.  But for a man who has nothing, this is a significant amount of money.

So he confronts servant #2 and demands the money, but servant #2 cannot pay.  Servant #1 we learn isn't so merciful and has servant #2 thrown in jail.

Now it's interesting to note here the King's reaction here.  Some of us would probably have set servant #2 free at this point, but this isn't what the king did.  Poor old servant #2 remains in jail from here on in, as far as we know.

Instead, he had servant #1 thrown into jail and turned over to the torturers until he "should pay everything he owed".

Now here's the interesting bit.  Being tortured, what kind of financial benefit was the king trying to gain?  Servant #1 wasn't really in a position to raise any additional funds, being beaten and tortured.  If he was, he'd have probably done it voluntarily before now.  So why did the king have him thrown in jail?

Here's the hidden lesson: servant #1 was most likely trying to pay his way back to the king by pulling in other debts to raise the cash to pay back the king.  Rather than accepting the forgiveness, servant #1 continued to try and pay that debt off.

And actually, how much at this point did the servant owe?

The answer is nothing - the king had already canceled his debt!

All the servant needed to do was accept the forgiveness from the king and turn to his torturers and say "I don't owe the king anything" and he would be free.  But as long as his pride kept him from receiving the forgiveness, he would continue to be tortured.  He was free at any time to humble himself, accept the king's forgiveness and then in turn cancel the debt to his fellow servant, because he had no further need for the money to pay back the debt.

Nice eh?