<p>18:24&nbsp;<i>And when he had begun to reckon</i>- See on :23&nbsp;<i>take account</i>. These words were spoken to Peter, and he seems to have later grasped their meaning when he wrote of how judgment is now beginning at the household of God, the church, &ldquo;us&rdquo; (1 Pet. 4:17- the same Greek word for &lsquo;beginning&rsquo; is used). Every time we engage with those who sin against us, each moment we remember them and the associated situations, we stand at the day of judgment making our own answer according to how we think and feel towards them. It is a very personal question. We simply cannot exclude them just because the circle of disciples around us [with which this section began] are hard set against those persons. We are to be as the Lord, and break the circle, putting the child in the midst. In a sense the judgment process has already begun; Mt. 18:24 says that the Lord has &quot;begun to reckon&quot; now, and so now&nbsp;we must urgently forgive one another. He is watching our attitude to each other here and now. Mt. 18:33,35 teach that the attitude we have towards our brother deep in our heart will be revealed and discussed with us at the judgment.</p>
<p><i>One was brought to Him</i>- The same word used about the little ones being brought unto Jesus and being rejected by the disciples (19:13). The word is so often used of how people were brought unto Jesus.</p>
<p><i>Who owed him</i>- The Greek is also translated &lsquo;a sinner&rsquo;, so clear is the connection between debt and sin. The Lord is clearly alluding to His own model prayer, where He taught that we are to ask for forgiveness &ldquo;as we forgive our debtors&rdquo; (s.w. &lsquo;one which owed&rsquo;, Mt. 6:12). It seems that although the disciples presumably obediently prayed that prayer, the reality of the implications wasn&rsquo;t felt by them.</p>
<p><i>Ten thousand talents</i>&nbsp;- One hundred million denarii (Mt. 18:23). This was a monstrous, unimaginable sum- in 4BC, the whole of Galilee and Peraea paid only 200 talents per year in taxes, one fiftieth of the amount. The annual income of Herod the Great is estimated at only 900 talents (New Jerome Bible Commentary). The Lord was using shock tactics to show how great is man's debt to God... and to throw into strong relief the sharp contrast with the way the fellow servant has such a trivial debt. The story is plain. The sins we perceive others have committed against us should be as nothing compared to the huge debt we feel personally before God. This explains why the acceptable man in another parable prays with his hands on his breast- when every Palestinian Jew would have expected a story about a man praying to feature him with uplifted hands, as was the custom. The unusual element to the story brought out the extent of the man's contrition. Indeed, the total acquittal of the indebted man, with no further penalty at all, would have caught the early hearers by surprise. The man, they imagined, would have walked off surprised by joy, ecstatic, thankful, relieved. And yet he goes and does something totally unexpected and illogical- he grabs another man and demands he pay up his debts. The unexpected twist of the story of course brings out the madness of any unforgiveness on our part, and the awful nature of human ingratitude for forgiveness- just as in the two carpenters parable.</p>
<p>The hopelessly indebted slave had the whole debt reckoned up with him and&nbsp;<i>then</i>&nbsp;the Lord wrote it off (Mt. 18:24,25). This was surely for the benefit of the servant. The servant hopelessly, desperately in debt to his Lord is a picture of the believer's debt to God (Mt. 18:25). The Lord didn't say 'Well, don't worry about it, I've got plenty, just forget it'. He reckoned up the exact debt, calculated it with the servant progressively panic stricken as the full figure registered: and &quot;his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made&quot;.&nbsp; Only&nbsp;<i>then</i>- and this is a crucial feature of the story- &quot;the servant therefore fell down, and besought him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all&quot;. This was of course a nonsense; he had no way of paying it. But in his desperation, at the very and utter limits of human feeling, he fain would pay it all. And only then, &quot;the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him&quot;. This is not to say that the Lord is a hard man. But His frank forgiveness is not lightly given. Remember that God is elsewhere described as the magistrate who is to be feared, &quot;lest he hale thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison. I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence, till thou hast paid the very last mite&quot; (Lk. 12:58). And yet again, the Lord is not a hard man. In the context of our spiritual bankruptcy, &quot;He constantly lendeth to thee&quot; (Job 11:6 Heb.); and yet He demands our deep recognition that He deserves and in a sense should be given it all back. This will be our attitude, if we appreciate that indeed sin is serious.</p>
<p>There are degrees of sin- in God&rsquo;s sight. But this parable teaches that for us, our perception is to be that the colossal extent of our sin is such that we should be eager to forgive anyone anything, because whatever they have done is so small compared to&nbsp;<i>what we perceive</i>&nbsp;that&nbsp;<i>we</i>&nbsp;have done. The difficulty is that it may actually be that in God&rsquo;s judgment, some have sinned less than us- and we get a strong hint at the nature of that judgment in the Bible. But&nbsp;<i>from our perspective</i>&nbsp;we are to feel that our sin is so much hugely greater than anything anyone else has done. Paul was a great example of this, progressing over time as he wrote his letters from considering himself &ldquo;least of the apostles&rdquo; to being &ldquo;less than the least of all saints&rdquo; to finally being &ldquo;chief of sinners&rdquo;.</p>