This week we will be discussing Jesus’ parable number 5. It is found in Luke and is only 3 verses long, but we will need the verses around this parable to put this into proper context. This is a problem when some people will only teach on a verse, give their own thoughts and ignore the verses around the verse that is being taught and not teach what the Bible is teaching, but put their own slant on the verse. This is how you end up with false teachings and false gospels and many sheep (Christians) are lead astray, and do not even realize it. This is a scary thought to me.
This is why I take this so seriously and I am teaching on anything in the Bible. I had a teach once put this in context to me. He gave me an illustration. He said, what if I am waiting to get into heaven and the person in front on me is denied entrance to heaven, and is asked why he believed as he did? This person then turned around and said, because that is what he taught me, pointing a finger directly at me.
That really hit me. This is one of the reasons I sometimes get so detailed and lengthy in my writings and when I get to speak. My conscience will not let me just cut out difficult parts, condense the teachings just so I can be lazy and not type so much, thus having less of a change of publishing a miss typed word or something. The Lord has giving me a specific ability and task, and I just cannot look for the short cuts so I can just give a minimum effort and try to convince myself that this was good enough.
My BC (Before Christ) life was a life of unadulterated sin, but I did not even realize this. I felt that the good stuff I did would cancel out the bad stuff I was doing. I would think to myself, “I am not as bad as that person, they think they are going to heaven, so since I think I am better than them, I must be going to heaven too”. How foolish of me, but I did not even realize how foolish this was in my thinking.
I guess, because I had so much forgiven, I just want to do what I am being asked to do with all of the effort I can give; no short cuts. Which this is a nice lead-in to this week’s parable, believe it or not, which is called “The Moneylender”.
How can a parable called “The Moneylender” be a lead-in from what I was describing as my life of sin? If this parable if only looked at for the 3 verses it is, a person may think this is a parable about money. This is why the surrounding verses are needed for a proper context of this teaching from Jesus and the message is not distorted. Jesus is speaking to a Pharisee and the parable is found in Luke 7:41 – 43.
41“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
43Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
A denarii is worth about a day’s labor of work, so this is a lot of money that is owed. This would make the moral of the story to not get into debt to someone and you will not feel bad about going bankrupt and have to be forgiven for want you cannot pay back, do not let you finances get out-of-control. Right? Absolutely not, even though it is good to not have debt and this is taught in the Bible, but this parable is not about that at all. If you want to teach the Biblical way of money management, use the correct verses about money, and this is not one of them! So now we should read the verses before this parable. Beginning in verse 36 is where this begins.
36When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. 38As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
39When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
40Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
Let begin our discussion with this first question: Why do you think the woman came to the Pharisee’s house? (a) to upset the Pharisee, (b) to ruin the party, (c) to seek forgiveness, (d) to minister to Jesus, (e) to confront her oppressors, (f) something else.
This question could be difficult to answer, except the short parable in the middle of the story makes it much easier. We can obviously rule out answers a, b, and e but then we have to decide whether she was (c) seeking forgiveness, (d) ministering to Jesus, perhaps in thanks for the forgiveness that she perceives she has already received, or (f) something else. Another hint: forgiveness from God and Jesus is free—you can’t buy it. So now, what’s the answer?
Jesus now begins his parable:
41“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
43Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
Back in these times the moneylender could demand payment, possibly in a form other than money such as livestock or valuable objects. He could have the debtor put in prison until the debt was paid by his family or friends. Or he could actually make the debtor his slave. Or, of course, he could forgive the debt. Depending upon the amount owed, a moneylender might have quite different responses, which is, of course, true today also. The loan of 500 denarii was a huge amount, equivalent to about two years wages for a day laborer. In first century Galilee, poor people were often heavily indebted to the wealthy.
Jesus’ parable about the moneylender seems an odd response to the Pharisee who was thinking that it was strange that Jesus allowed a sinful woman to touch him. What was Jesus actually saying to Simon? (a) you can’t know grace because you don’t think of yourself as a sinner, (b) you are a bigger sinner than the woman but you don’t know it, (c) you may have sinned less than the woman, but you still need forgiveness, (d) the more you’ve sinned, the more your love for God, (e) the more you’ve been forgiven, the more your love for God.
Stuck into the middle of a story about a dinner and sinful woman, the parable itself is almost trivial: forgiving a large debt means more than forgiving a small one. That’s true today too: if someone forgives you a debt of $1,000, you’re going to feel more loving toward him than a person who forgives you a debt of $100. But let’s go beyond that and see how Jesus extends it. Look at what Jesus says in Verses 44 to 48
44Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
48Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
He points out that Simon did not provide water (or a servant) to wash Jesus’ feet. He probably didn’t provide it to the other guests either. It was a common courtesy in those days or dusty roads, but perhaps not actually that big a deal. You’d then normally greet a guest with a kiss on both cheeks, something still common in much of the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, and even ethnic neighborhoods in the U.S. It was definitely rude for Simon to ignore that custom. Anointing a person’s head with olive oil was a way to honor a respected guest. Although Simon invited Jesus to dinner (vs 36), he may not have regarded him as the guest of honor. All in all, Simon was definitely rude but not guilty of any major sin. More to the point, in Verse 39 it seems clear that Simon was judging the woman as being a sinner and, in a sense, putting himself above it.
Concluding his remarks in Verse 47, Jesus put the message of the parable in perspective when he says to Simon, “Her sins, which are many, have been forgiven; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” For his rudeness, Simon was in the position of having been forgiven little, but the message that he also loved little must have been sobering to him.
To Luke’s original readers, the parable and the narrative clearly interpreted each other. It would have been very easy for them to identify the sinful woman of the story as the debtor forgiven much in the parable. They would also compare Simon the Pharisee with the debtor forgiven little.
The next step for the original reader would be to see the incredible graciousness, mercy, and forgiveness of God, like the creditor who forgave both debtors. Thus, the theme of the parable is one of God’s forgiveness and grace.
To apply this parable to our lives, we also must see the incredible forgiveness of God. For some, seeing God’s mercy is easy because their past is like that of the sinful woman or the debtor with the large debt. They know their past made them unworthy to be in relationship with God; and yet out of His great love, they have been welcomed into His presence. Out of incredible gratitude and love, they respond lavishly, honoring Jesus in every imaginable way.
However, some of us have “grown up in the church.” We paid attention in class. We weren’t the bullies in school. We are much more like Simon the Pharisee, who was compared to the debtor with the smaller debt. Like Simon, we too have difficulty seeing that we need forgiveness. Also, like Simon, we perhaps fail to honor Jesus. He is simply not the number 1 “guest of honor” in our lives.
We sometimes struggle to realize that our “little debt” is still beyond our ability to pay, which puts us on equal ground with those that have “big debts.” We stand in need of a Savior, who is willing to forgive, if only we will accept His grace. Then, we can respond to Jesus in love, out of gratitude for what He has done in our lives.
