18.2 It appears that there were children around Jesus, which must have been rare for a Rabbi.
18.3 In what way “like a little child”? Humble (v4).
18.6 That’s strong!
18.10 It would seem that children have a special relationship with the Father. All children? See v14.
18.15 This is a grievance procedure: you, the hurt victim, are responsible for the first move. Your motive must be co-operation (“win your brother over”) not competition (“win, over your brother”).
18.17 Escalation of discipline, to the point of excommunication; but all with the aim of winning him over.
18.18 Binding and loosing here is in the context of church discipline and excommunication. See also 16.19.
18.21 Seven, of course, is the number of completion: so “Infinity? No, infinity infinities!” Hence the debt in the parable is millions.
18.28 It couldn’t even be because he needed the money to pay off his own debt: after all, it had just been cancelled.
18.34 “to be tortured.” Jesus is not afraid of depicting God in an unflattering light, in order to make his urgent point. (see v8-9, “eternal fire”, “fire of hell.”)
18.35 This is so carefully-taught! It is not that we forgive others first, as a condition of God forgiving us. Rather, God has already forgiven us, and we need to pass on the grace to others around us. Neither here nor in the Lord’s Prayer (6.14) does Jesus command us to forgive: he simply tells us the consequences, the way it works.
I love Tom’s examples: road rage, pews in church, singing tunelessly, the student who couldn’t feel God’s love – all spot on. And then the bigger picture, that the Kingdom is a Great Jubilee for the whole creation, when all debts will be forgiven.
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