I love Matthew 18:22-35. This passage teaches us so much about forgiveness. In this parable, we understand the depth of forgiveness that comes from God. We also appreciate the depth of forgiveness we should offer others. To best understand this concept, we must look at the values that are forgiven in the parable.
A servant is brought in front of a king who was settling accounts. This servant owed the king 10,000 talents. He could not pay it back. The king then prepared to sell the man and his family into slavery, and to sell all his home with its goods to recoup his money (Matthew 18:25). This would only give the king a fraction of his money back. In Ancient Rome, slaves went for 500 denarii for a male and a female upward to 6,000 denarii. In 79 AD, a recorded price in Pompeii indicated “that a slave sold for 2,500 sestertii or 625 denarii.” We can make some simple estimations about how much he, his wife, and kids would bring. A male slave would bring 500 denarii. A female would bring upwards of 6,000 denarii; let us use 6,000 denarii. He would have had around 5 -6 children, which is the average number of kids. They would not have brought much because only a few would live to adulthood. So, let us say each child brings 100 denarii a piece, making them bring, as a whole, 600 denarii. We are at 7,100 denarii for the people. Maybe a meager 25,000 denarii would be gained for an average villa home. That would mean the king would only recoup 5.35 talents back by selling everything. This math lets us know how big of a debt this is.
The servant said he would pay it back (Matthew 18:26). Let’s look at how long it would take to pay this debt back. The servant owed 60,000,000 denarii. If you take the standard day's wage of 1 denarius, it will take 164,383.5 years to pay it back.
That’s if he paid back a full day’s wages every day. That’s not reasonable for this man has a family and life to live. Let’s take that into account. If you take into account 50% Roman tax, 30% Jewish giving, 50% of what's left for living expense, you have 0.175 denarii to pay on your debt per day. The average life expectancy was 35 years of age. However, that took into account the child mortality rate. If you made it to adulthood, you could live to 60 or 70 years of age. This man is grown, married, and has kids. It is safe to say he could live until he was 70 years old. That would take him 342,857,142.857 days, or 939,334.637 years, or 13,419.066 life spans to pay back his debt. For perspective, in the U.S. Dollar comparison of a day's wage in 2024 instead of a denarii times 6,000 to equal a talent, the debt comes to $13,334,400,000 and the pay back would be $38.89 per day. It would take the same amount of time to pay it back with the same living expense figures. It Is impossible to pay this debt back.
The king forgives this debt that could never be repaid because the man begged him to (Matthew 18:26). That is forgiveness. The king knows he would never see his money. It would be just as futile for us to try to repay God our sin debt. He still forgave us. God knows we can never even come close to repaying Him, by our life of service, the cost of our sins. This also lets us know how much debt and the wages of sin are that Christ poured His blood out to pay for on the cross (Revelation 1:5). Hence, why it is a reasonable service to offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1) In all of this we see the beginning of the depth of the Love of Christ.
-Steve Johnson
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