Unlimited Forgiveness

The parable uses the analogy of a reverse comparison. On the one hand a huge, almost inconceivable debt is forgiven. The amount of the debt of the first character in the parable is staggering. To the person hearing the parable it would be scarcely possible to imagine a debt so monumental, perhaps as hard as to try to imagine today the size of the national debt in the United States.

The second character has a relatively trivial debt. It is more the size one might run up on a credit card. Such a debt today would hardly bring a person to the court to declare bankruptcy. Most institutions would be ready to try to work out some process for repaying the debt a little at a time rather than have the person go bankrupt.

Such is the scenario which Jesus used to contrast two …