Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. [Matthew 18:23-24 (ESV)]
Jesus told several parables about the Kingdom of Heaven and, in Matthew 18, He compared it to a king who wanted to bring his accounts up to date with the servants who owed him money. The parable is pretty straight-forward; the king symbolizes God, the servant each one of us, and the debt our sins. One servant owed the king ten thousand talents but was unable to pay. There were serious consequences for not paying debts so the king ordered that the servant’s home and possessions be sold off and that the man and his family be sold into slavery until the debt was paid.
Jesus often used hyperbole to make his point but, unfamiliar with the talent or tálanton, 21st century readers may miss it, even when the debt is translated as several or even ten million dollars. Weighing about 75 pounds, the talent had the value of 6,000 drachmas or denarii, the Greek and Roman coins used in 1st century Judah. Generally speaking, one denarius was a laborer’s wage for a day. According to Forbes and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hourly wage is about $28 and, figuring an eight-hour day, a denarius would be worth about $224 today. Since 6,000 denarii equaled one talent, a talent would be worth about $1,344,000 (6,000 days of work) in 2024. The servant, however, owed 10,000 talents and his debt would require 60 million days of work. In today’s dollars, that is more than $13.44 billion. To put his 10,000-talent debt into 1st century perspective, the yearly tax revenue collected by Herod the Great was only about 800 talents!
Moreover, because “ten-thousand” was the largest number used in Jesus’ day, it also meant “beyond measure.” The servant’s debt was so enormous that it was incalculable. Although he promised to make payment, Jesus’ listeners knew the promise was absurd—repayment of such an astronomical amount was impossible!
Jesus deliberately chose such an outrageous number because there is absolutely no way any of us could ever work hard enough or give the Lord enough to repay Him for his never-ending mercies. This illustration makes it clear that, “The wages of sin is death,” because the enormous debt of sin never can be re-paid! Fortunately, the parable doesn’t stop there.
Asking for patience, the man begged for mercy and the king, filled with compassion, released his servant and forgave the debt entirely. The servant did nothing to deserve forgiveness; in fact, he may have incurred that debt through his mismanagement or embezzlement of the king’s funds. Nevertheless, as undeserved as it was, the debt was forgiven because of the king’s grace and mercy. While the wages of sin is death, “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” [Romans 6:23]
When the king forgave the debt, however, the debt wasn’t paid; justice had not been served. The king remained 10,000 talents the poorer for it! When God canceled the payment due for our sins, however, justice was served because someone else paid our debt—Jesus! We are no more deserving of God’s forgiveness than was the king’s servant but, out of God’s merciful grace, our sin debt was paid in full by God’s only Son!
When the parable continues, it takes a dark turn but, for now, consider the first part of the story and the size of the servant’s debt—a debt so massive that it was incalculable—but was forgiven. Those, my friend, are our sins—countless sins forgiven by the grace of God! Thank you, Jesus!
The book of Leviticus outlined several things that could make someone ceremonially or ritually unclean. These things included bodily discharges, touching a corpse, and skin infections, as well as contact with any unclean person or thing. By Jesus’ day, even entering a Gentile’s home made someone unclean. Anything and anyone an unclean person touched became unclean and, anyone who touched them or what they touched also became unclean.
In Mark 5, we find three stories of miraculous healings: the demoniac living among the graves in the Gerasenes, the woman who bled for twelve years, and the daughter of Jairus who was brought back to life. These are beautiful stories, but what about all the other people in 2,000 years for whom there has been no healing? Like the woman with the blood disorder, my friend has suffered for more than twelve years, tried every remedy, and gotten no relief. This man of deep faith prays for healing as do all his family and friends. His faith is as strong as that of the nameless woman and yet he’s had no relief.
When the woman joined our group at the table in the school gym, she said, “I got a late start so I was speeding to get here. If a cop stopped me, I was going to tell him I was doing the Lord’s work and, since God will forgive me, he should too.” She insisted that speeding for a godly purpose was a justifiable offense and, since God offers forgiveness, so should the police. Granted, we were doing God’s work by packing meals for the needy but, as the Blues brothers learned when they saved the orphanage, a mission from God is not a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
One of the most disturbing stories in the Bible is found in Judges 11. Before leading the army into battle with the Ammonites, Jephthah made a rash vow to the Lord—if given victory, he’d make a burnt sacrifice of the first thing to come out of his house to meet him upon his return. God granted Israel victory but, when Jephthah returned home, it was his daughter who came out to greet him. When the anguished Jephthah told her of his vow, the girl willingly accepted her fate. She only asked for one thing—to go into the hills with her friends to mourn that she’d never marry or know the joy of motherhood. When she returned, “her father kept the vow he had made and she died a virgin.”
Devotions of the Heart 