The parable of the unforgiving servant
Forgiven a fortune, he would not forgive a trifle.
It is also called the parable of the unmerciful servant. Peter had just asked how many times he should forgive, and Jesus had answered "seventy times seven". This story follows, as the explanation.
It treats forgiveness as something received before it is given — and shows what happens when someone keeps what he was given.
The story, step by step
- Matthew 18:21–22Peter asks how many times to forgive
- Matthew 18:23–25A servant owes the king ten thousand talents and cannot pay
- Matthew 18:26–27He begs, and the king forgives the whole debt
- Matthew 18:28–30On his way out he demands a hundred denarii from a fellow servant and has him jailed
- Matthew 18:31–34The king hears of it and revokes the forgiveness
- Matthew 18:35The point: forgiving from the heart
The line the story turns on
Shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?
The disproportion drives the story. Ten thousand talents was an absurd sum — a single talent was many years of a labourer's wages. A hundred denarii was about a hundred days' work: real money, but payable. The servant walks out of an impossible forgiveness and cannot pass on a small one.
What it means
The king does not punish him for being hard on debtors in general. He punishes him for having received mercy and not passing it on. It is the same link that runs through the Lord's Prayer — "forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors" — told as a story.
Which is why it answers Peter's question better than the number does. Anyone still counting how many times they have forgiven has forgotten the size of the bill that was forgiven them. "Seventy times seven" is not a higher target; it is what happens once you stop looking at the other person's debt.
One parable a day, with the question around it
Walking with Jesus has a collection called The Parables of Jesus that takes them one a day — each with the question he was answering, a short reflection, a prayer, and one thing to carry into the day.
It is a one-time purchase, about five minutes a morning, and it never asks you to catch up on days you missed.
Questions people ask
- Where is the parable of the unforgiving servant in the Bible?
- Matthew 18:23–35, straight after Peter's question about how often to forgive (Matthew 18:21–22). Only Matthew records it.
- How much were ten thousand talents worth?
- An unpayable fortune. A talent was worth about six thousand denarii, and a denarius was a day's wage for a labourer. Ten thousand talents is therefore tens of millions of days' work, against the hundred denarii the other servant owed.
- What is the lesson of the unforgiving servant?
- That whoever has been forgiven must forgive. The parable ties the two together: the forgiveness received from God is immense, and refusing forgiveness to someone else treats that gift as if it were yours alone.