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{"id":7118,"date":"2023-09-13T07:31:50","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T11:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/socialjesus\/?p=7118"},"modified":"2023-09-14T08:45:31","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T12:45:31","slug":"debt-forgiveness-seventy-times-seven-part2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/socialjesus\/2023\/09\/debt-forgiveness-seventy-times-seven-part2\/","title":{"rendered":"Debt Forgiveness, Part 2 of Seventy Times Seven"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the story, the forgiven one runs into someone who owes him only 100 silver coins, a far lower amount. Rather than his own experience of forgiveness awakening more in him toward the person who owed him money, he seeks to exact every last coin from his own debtor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Welcome Readers! <\/i><\/b>Please subscribe to Social Jesus Here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

(Read this series from its beginning <\/b>here<\/b><\/a>.)<\/b><\/p>\n

Again, this parable originated not as allegory but as an example of real life indebtedness Jesus\u2019 audience would have been familiar with. From the beginning of Luke\u2019s gospel, Jesus shares a call to wealthy creditors to perform the ritual of \u201cthe year of the lord\u2019s favor\u201d or the year of Jubilee, where all debts would be forgiven. This was part of Jesus\u2019 gospel: the call for economic liberation of those in debt. Debts were to be cancelled. This is how Luke\u2019s gospel sums it up:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Spirit of the Lord is on me,<\/p>\n

because he has anointed me\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

to proclaim good news to the poor.<\/p>\n

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

and recovery of sight for the blind,<\/p>\n

to set the oppressed free,<\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/span>to proclaim the year of the Lord\u2019s favor.\u201d (Luke 4:18-19)<\/p>\n

Matthew\u2019s version of the lords prayer also uses economic language:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd forgive us our debts,<\/p>\n

as we also have forgiven our debtors.\u201d (Matthew 6:12)<\/p>\n

Later in the Jesus community, this idea of forgiving debts expanded to include all offenses and trespasses, not just economic indebtedness. This is why in Luke\u2019s later version of the same prayer no longer names the economic element but reads:<\/p>\n

\u201cForgive us our sins,<\/p>\n

for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.\u201d (Luke 11:4)<\/p>\n

What once called creditors (oppressors) to forgive the debts of their debtors (the oppressed) became a universal call for everyone to forgive anyone of anything based on how much they themselves had personally been forgiven by God. What once involved the wealthy cancelling the debts of their poorer fellow Jesus followers became universalized. Social location was no longer the focus. Money owed became allegorical for general offenses. And forgiveness stopped meaning the cancelling of real, concrete debts; it became letting off the hook anyone who had done anything up to 490 times if they simply came back repeatedly and said they were sorry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This evolution in the Jesus stories is vulnerable to much interpretive abuse. We\u2019ll consider those abuses in our final installment, next.<\/p>\n

(Read Part 3<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"