<p>17:3 <i>Pay attention to yourselves If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him- </i>The context of :2 is that we must not make little ones stumble; and we make them stumble by not forgiving them, not welcoming them at our table, like the elder son of chapter 15 and the &quot;rich man&quot; of chapter 16, which forms the context for these words<i>. </i>This is alluded to in Acts 20:28, where Paul says we should <i>take heed to ourselves</i> of the likelihood of false teachers. Surely what he's saying is 'Yes, take heed to forgive your brother personal offences, take heed because you'll be tempted <i>not </i>to forgive him; but have the same level of watchfulness for false teaching'. But the Lord is not necessarily teaching that we are to only grant forgiveness upon repentance; for the implication of much Bible teaching is otherwise. He may be setting us up to think that this is what He means, and then in :4 He challenges us by saying we should forgive even if repentance is so evidently insincere that effectively it is not repentance.</p><p>The Greek and Hebrew words translated &lsquo;repentance&rsquo; strictly mean a change of mind, and not necessarily any works / actions. God in this sense can &lsquo;repent&rsquo;. It seems to me that we have to recognize a changed state of heart in our repentant brother, without demanding &lsquo;works&rsquo;. In Mt. 18:15, the Lord says of a sinful brother: &ldquo;If your brother sins&hellip; go and point out the fault&hellip; if he listens to you, you have regained your brother&rdquo;. But in Lk. 17:3, He says: &ldquo;If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him&rdquo;. This would parallel the brother&rsquo;s &lsquo;repentance&rsquo; with him &lsquo;listening&rsquo; to you. Seeing repentance is a state of the heart, and we simply can&rsquo;t know the hearts of others, it seems to me very hard indeed to judge the level of another&rsquo;s repentance.</p><p>&ldquo;See that you despise not one of these little ones&rdquo; is how the parallel account puts it (Mt. 18:10). We offend people by &lsquo;despising&rsquo; them, as the &quot;rich man&quot; did to Lazarus and the older brother did to the prodigal. To&nbsp;<i>not</i>&nbsp;seek others&rsquo; salvation by forgiving them is to despise them. We may not think we are despiteful people. But effectively, in His eyes, we are&hellip;if we neglect to actively seek for their salvation until we find it. To not offend others is thus made parallel to seeking their salvation.</p>