THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 20, Chapter 6 Continued
We'll continue in Matthew chapter 6 directing our focus upon the Lord's Prayer of
verses 9 - 13. Leading up to this prayer example that Christ presented to those
listening to His Sermon on the Mount, He gave His listeners a couple of do's and
don'ts concerning prayer in general. First: don't pray in a manner that is designed
and intended to draw attention to yourself. Self aggrandizement and making
oneself out to be especially pious is the issue. This mindset is a perversion of
what prayer is to be and it is what the pagans do. Second: instead pray privately.
That is, prayer is to be something personal and intimate between you and the
Lord. Prayer is a means and a privilege to honor God and to communicate with
Him. And third: don't babble on and on using fabricated mantras and ritualistic
phrases that you say and repeat almost unconsciously. One also doesn't have to
explain to God what you are asking of Him in extreme detail that results in
lengthy prayers in hopes that the longer the prayer goes the more God will hear
you. Prayer (and God) simply don't work like that. Yeshua concludes with why
eloquence and wordiness are not needed. Verse 8 says it's:"....because your
Father knows what you need before you ask Him".
Here is a statement of God's immutable and universal omniscience. As humans
we can observe things as they happen and draw conclusions. But only the Lord
knows our every thought, and also knows our every need usually before we do.
That is both a comfort and a warning.
Therefore, to start verse 9 Jesus says: instead "...pray like this". Please notice
that He didn't say to "Pray THIS". When He says to pray LIKE this, He means
similarly. He is not giving us a formula to be mechanically repeated but rather a
pattern or a template to follow. Some people when they pray, pray only the Lord's
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Prayer as though this is a divinely mandated Christian mantra. There is certainly
nothing wrong with praying it, and especially when one is with a group of
Believers nearly everyone knows this prayer by heart so it is wonderful for
everyone to pray it together out loud. So let's read the Lord's Prayer and then
we'll discuss its pattern and what we're being shown by it.
READ MATTHEW 6:9 - 13
I would like to briefly review and then supplement what I said last week about the
opening words of the Lord's Prayer. Those words are "Our Father". Not "Our
God". Not "Our Lord". "Our Father" has a specific meaning biblically and to the
Jewish people. First, the use of the term "Our Father" is to put forth the concept
of sonship. That is, only a true son has the right to call the one in authority over
him "Father". When a person is a son versus a servant or a follower, the
relationship changes. That person's status is elevated and his or her position
becomes greatly enhanced. For one thing inheritance that comes from what the
Father owns and rules over becomes a possibility. In the divine heavenly sphere
the term "Our Father" is used to denote the spiritual Father of all things that exist,
seen and unseen (the Creator, Yehoveh). In the physical earthly sphere "Our
Father" is used to denote the human ancestral/biological father of the Hebrew
people: Abraham. It is actually a term used rather rarely in the Old Testament;
ironically it is used much more in the New Testament. The Gospels record 65
instances in which Jesus uses the term "Father" to refer to God. John uses it
over 100 times. Clearly in the context of prayer, no Jew prayed to Abraham so
the "Our Father" is of course directed to God in Heaven. Just as logically and
rationally we can know that when Jesus refers to The Father, He cannot be
referring to Himself in any way, shape or form. Jesus is never referred to as the
Father of anything. Rather, Yeshua's spiritual and physical identity is The Son in
relation to the Father. Who is the Father? He is El Shaddai, Yud-Heh-Vav-Hey,
Yehoveh, more often called Yahweh, or in English Jehovah. Yehoveh is NOT
Yeshua.
The question is: are we also praying to Jesus when we pray to "Our Father"? And
clearly Christ instructs that it is The Father is to whom we should pray. Never
does He, nor any of His disciples, nor any writer of the New Testament suggest
that we should switch from praying to the Father to praying to Christ. Even so,
this matter is actually the basis of quite the ongoing theological debate. The side
of the debate that says "yes" we are also praying to Jesus when we pray to God
in Heaven, or that because Christians should pray directly to Jesus, admits that
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there is no direct scriptural quote to back-up such a notion. Rather it is a Church
doctrine that has been derived from yet another Church doctrine called the Trinity
Doctrine, which among many mainstream denominations says that Jesus, the
Father, and the Holy Spirit are co-equal and unified in such a way as to be
indistinguishable. I don't wish to explain the mysterious nature of the unity of God
much further other than to say this: despite what you might think you hear me
say, I firmly believe and advocate that while Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit
are all divine attributes of who God is in His totality, it is undeniable that they are
spoken of in the Bible as identifiable, separately named entities, possessing
different attributes and purposes; they not depicted as, or said to be, co-equal in
authority or knowledge. There is a definite hierarchy of authority of the Godhead
in the Bible, from Genesis through Revelation, and the Father is always at the top
of that hierarchy. He directs the Son and the Holy Spirit.
One of the things that is so hard for all us to deal with is the choice of words and
human concepts to use when trying to assign them to the essence and
substance of God. God gave us language and the ability to speak in order to
better understand Him and to form relationships with one another that go way
beyond mere animalistic instinct. Thus we must always take human terms like
Father and Son only so far when using them to describe God's features and
attributes. However by using those terms, which by their very nature are
dependent upon the culture that they spring from, we can get a better idea of how
to discern who God is, how He operates, and His instructions to us. So as the
centuries pass and as new cultures rise, evolve, and then disappear we must
always remember to keep these terms and relationships we read of in the Bible
embedded in the cultural thought, and in the historical era, from which they came.
It's when we remove the cultural and historical elements from God's Word that
the mistakes and misunderstandings occur such that false doctrines are the
result.
The Scriptures were written by Hebrews and from a Hebrew cultural perspective.
Thus when they employ the use of the term "The Son" it is because it is
understood in Hebrew culture that a son (especially a firstborn or the only
begotten son) holds a special elite place in relation to that son's father. That son
has the right of inheritance not only of the father's possessions but also of his
authority. While that father is still living, he can and often does name his son as
his agent that speaks for him, and can be given a measure of authority as
defined and presented to him by his father. It was and remains a Middle Eastern
saying that when such "agent" status is given to a son, then when speaking to
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the son you are speaking to the father. It is in a similar way that we must think of
Yeshua in relation to His Father. It is lens through which we must interpret the
New Testament passage that says "Whoever has seen Me (Jesus) has seen the
Father". If we isolate and lift that well worn phrase from its Hebrew cultural
context of the 1st century and try to place it directly into the Western gentile
culture of the 21st century, then it sounds much like Yeshua is saying that He
and the Father are identical twins. Or that they are one in the same, such that
perhaps Yeshua is but a physical apparition of the invisible Father. Or that
Yeshua is the newer and younger God replacing the older God, Yehoveh. But
now let's hear it in its biblical context.
CJB
John 14:6-10
6
Yeshua said, "I AM the Way- and the Truth and the Life;
no one comes to the Father except through me.
7
Because you have known
me, you will also know my Father; from now on, you do know him- in fact,
you have seen him."
8
Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it
will be enough for us."
9
Yeshua replied to him, "Have I been with you so
long without your knowing me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the
Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
10
Don't you believe that
I am united with the Father, and the Father united with me? What I am
telling you, I am not saying on my own initiative; the Father living in me is
doing his own works
Embedded in this passage is the Jewish and Middle Eastern cultural concept of
the relationship between a father and son. This is reflected in Yeshua replying to
Phillip: "The Father living in me is doing His own works". Yeshua fits the mold to
a T as His Father's agent who carries out His Father's works. He is the Father's
right hand. He is the Father's only begotten son. The Son has completely
adopted His Father's will. The Father, even though He is still living, has
designated His Son, Yeshua, as His agent on earth and in doing so has given
Him a defined measure of authority (thus it can be said that the Father is living
and doing His works through His Son, Jesus Christ). But the Father is not the
Son, and while the Son is said to carry all the authority of His Father to rule the
Kingdom, this in no way is intended to say that the Son has replaced His Father,
or that the Son has usurped His Father, or that the Father is out of the picture, or
that the Father has given up ultimate authority over His Son. What I'm telling you
is not doctrine; this is Bible.
Importantly, the thoughts and concepts of the Lord's Prayer were not new to
Yeshua's listeners; they were already an ordinary part of Jewish religious society
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in Christ's day. Many Jewish prayers began: Avinu Sh'baShammayim (Our
Father in Heaven). This opening phrase further "outs" Matthew as
a Jewish Believer. But the lack of this phrase in Luke's version of it also "outs"
Luke as a Gentile Believer. Luke's much abbreviated version of something like
the Lord's Prayer in Luke 11:2 opens merely with "Father". So it should not
surprise us that the Jewish Jesus would use a rather standard opening for a
Jewish prayer, and that the Jewish Matthew would of course record it that way;
while that same standard opening would not have been so familiar or noticed by
the gentile Luke.
David Stern points out that the next two lines of the Lord's Prayer are very similar
to the opening words of the synagogue prayer called the Kaddish, which says:
"Magnified and sanctified be His great name throughout the world, which He has
created according to His will, and may He establish His Kingdom in your lifetime".
Compare this to the Lord's Prayer: "May your name be kept holy (sanctified), and
may your Kingdom come and your will be done on earth.... " So the Lord's Prayer
and the Kaddish express nearly identical thoughts.
Yet as we go further into the prayer, we find another Christian theological debate
develop from it. It concerns whether the nature of the prayer is expressing a
future hope pointing to the End Times and beyond (scholars call this the
eschatological view); or whether it is expressing a present hope with a view to the
here and now. As nearly always, these theological differences demand an
absolute and are discerned from the Western gentile mindset. That is, the Lord's
Prayer is either a 100% future view or a 100% present view. This is not at all
needed and not all what Yeshua had in mind. Rather we have here two
simultaneous meanings that are not different in substance, but only different in
timeframe. That is, both meanings are true at certain times in redemption history.
Hebrew thought allows for such an approach.
When Christ says "May Your Kingdom come", this refers to both the present and
the future because that is the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven. And yet also
notice whose Kingdom it is; it is "yours" meaning The Father's. Yeshua Our
Savior may well rule over it; but it belongs to The Father, and whatever authority
Yeshua has over it has been given to Him by The Father. The issue of the
Kingdom coming we've discussed before. The Kingdom is both present and it is
future. The Kingdom of Heaven (synonymous with the Kingdom of God) had a
definite beginning point.
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CJB
Matthew 11:11-13
11
Yes! I tell you that among those born of women
there has not arisen anyone greater than Yochanan the Immerser! Yet the
one who is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he!
12
From the
time of Yochanan the Immerser until now, the Kingdom of Heaven has been
suffering violence; yes, violent ones are trying to snatch it away.
13
For all
the prophets and the Torah prophesied until Yochanan.
So when John the Baptist began His mission to declare the coming of the Lord,
that was the inauguration of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. In the Gospel of
Luke we see the Kingdom of Heaven addressed slightly differently.
CJB
Luke 17:20-21
20
The P'rushim asked Yeshua when the Kingdom of God
would come. "The Kingdom of God," he answered, "does not come with
visible signs;
21
nor will people be able to say, 'Look! Here it is!' or, 'Over
there!' Because, you see, the Kingdom of God is among you."
While I'm not in total agreement with that translation, I am as far it regards the
tenses. That is, the Kingdom of God IS among you. It is present right now. So in
the Lord's Prayer, the coming of the Kingdom doesn't mean it hasn't come yet.
Rather, it is like the Lord's parable of the mustard seed.
CJB
Matthew 13:31-32
31
Yeshua put before them another parable. "The
Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man takes and sows in
his field.
32
It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it grows up it is larger
than any garden plant and becomes a tree, so that the birds flying about
come and nest in its branches."
In time I'll talk more concerning this parable and explain in depth the use and
meaning of Parables. However a fundamental principle of parables is that they
use every day cultural thoughts, objects and activities in a simplistic and general
way to teach the Torah. And when we look at the Mustard Seed parable it draws
a similarity between how the Kingdom of Heaven appears on earth versus how a
mustard seed grows. The idea is that a mustard seed is among the tiniest of
seeds and so its life as a plant starts as a miniscule, nearly imperceptible form.
One would think that such a tiny seed would only grow up into a tiny plant. But in
fact a mustard seed grows into a big plant over time, until it is so large that birds
can make nests in its branches.
Thus the Kingdom of Heaven has already come, although it is so very small that
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it is hardly noticeable in Christ's time. However the ultimate fullness of it into all
that God intends for it is indeed in the future. Thus in the P'shat interpretation
sense the Kingdom of Heaven on earth is a present reality. The fruits of it are
present for us to see, if we have the eyes to see it. And as the Kaddish prayer
expresses, hopefully everyone alive (every Jew alive was the meaning at the
time) will be part of it in the here and now. Yet in the Remez interpretation
sense, the Kingdom of Heaven speaks of a later time when all of God's
creatures, worldwide and without exception, will bow before Him and hallow His
Name. It is about a time when the Kingdom enters its perfection and
completeness and we with it. And that time was future to Matthew's Gospel and
is still future, but nearer, to us.
Let me take just a moment to remind you of something I taught long ago when I
taught on the Torah. The English word holy is in it's original biblical
Hebrew kaddosh. Kaddosh, holy and sanctified are equivalents. So to be
sanctified means to be holy-fied...... that is, to be made holy. The essence of this
word kaddosh is that something is set apart from all else. So since God is
inherently holy..... His very substance is holy.... He is also the standard for holy....
then when the Lord's Prayer says "May your name be kept holy" (as in the CJB)
or in the more familiar KJV "hallowed be Your Name", the idea is not that God's
Name isn't currently holy, it is that among the minds and souls of all humanity
God would finally be held holy to each and every one. The coming of the
Kingdom of Heaven with John the Baptist begins that process, which is
culminated with the 2nd coming of Christ, the destruction of evil and of wicked
humans, and then His 1000 year reign.
So up to now these verses mouthed by Yeshua address the adoration and
glorification of God, which should be the overriding thought behind all prayers. It
also expresses a hope for God's will to be done in our lives. This issue of God's
will being done is a tough one, especially as concerns prayer. Usually when we
go to God in prayer it is because we want something. Perhaps it expresses the
needs of others; perhaps it is for ourselves. But how can we know for certain that
what we are asking is in His will? I wish I could give you a pat explanation for
that, but I can't. However much like Yeshua using a parable to help illustrate His
meaning when defining something in the spiritual world and in the future can be
so very difficult to get a handle on, I think that the instance of Christ praying
before the day of His execution can help us to best understand what it means for
us to pray in God's will.
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CJB
Luke 22:39-44
39
On leaving, Yeshua went as usual to the Mount of
Olives; and the talmidim followed him.
40
When he arrived, he said to them,
"Pray that you won't be put to the test."
41
He went about a stone's throw
away from them, kneeled down and prayed,
42
"Father, if you are willing,
take this cup away from me; still, let not my will but yours be
done."
43
There appeared to him an angel from heaven giving him
strength,
44
and in great anguish he prayed more intensely, so that his
sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.
Notice that He starts His prayer with "Father" and then takes His petition to Him.
Yeshua's petition is: please take this cup from Me. "This cup" was simply an
expression that meant what was destined for Him that was about to happen. And
what was about to happen was His arrest, brutal torture, and then grim
crucifixion. Is suffering and dying something Jesus wanted to endure? Clearly
not. The Holy Spirit in Him knew that this was precisely what He was born to do,
and that all of God's plans for redemption depended upon it. And yet He was a
human being who knew pain, saw death up close and personal and wasn't
seeking it, and so He had great trepidation over what was coming. He prayed so
intensely about this..... His spirit in heated conflict with His flesh..... that we are
told that the blood capillaries (I suppose on His scalp and forehead) burst and He
began sweating blood. So His own will was twofold: Father I pray I don't have to
do this. But also He prayed not His own will but rather the will of His Father be
done. That is, if there is no other way for Jesus than the cross, then God's will
would overcome Jesus's own human instinct and will to save Himself.
What Believer, having been given a very serious diagnosis from a doctor,
perhaps a life threatening one, wouldn't go to the Father and plead for healing?
And yet; are we willing to accept NOT being healed as the Father's will? Here's a
tougher one yet: your 2 year old child is found to have a terminal and painful
illness and you go to the Father asking for his or her life to be spared. Are you
willing to accept it as the Father's will if that child suffers and dies? Over the
years I've seen several people in similar predicaments who aren't healed, or who
aren't relieved of some awful predicament, and who walk away from God
because of it. But Yeshua's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is what it
means to pray in God's will. You ask for the thing you want....your will... even
intensely.... but at the same time you place a higher priority on God's will being
done as a matter of faith and trust. And when God's will doesn't match yours, you
accept His and glorify Him no matter the outcome. Why? Because indeed God's
will WAS done on earth as it is in Heaven. And by the way: this doesn't mean that
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an outcome that leaves you in a bad way is somehow "best for you" but you just
don't realize it yet. Rather in the Lord's Prayer 2 things are emphasized: that
God's Kingdom would grow and thrive and that His will would be done. And
sometimes the very thing we dread most is an unknowable part of bringing about
His will and His Kingdom in ways we may never know.... at least we won't know
on this side of Heaven.
So when we pray the Lord's Prayer it shows us not just similar words and
thoughts to pray, but also the attitude to pray in. Recall that just before Christ
gave His instruction on what and how to pray, He spent some time discussing
motive and intent for our behavior. This is just an extension of that principle into
our prayer life.
As we move to verse 11, Yeshua says that we should ask God for our daily
bread. The Greek word used for bread is artos. It is used similarly to the way the
Jews use the Hebrew word lechem. It has the dual meaning of bread, as in the
baked product consisting of grain, water and yeast, but it also is an expression
simply meaning food in general. Bread was the main dish at almost every meal
for the common people, and so it doubled as meaning the entire meal. I think
some Preachers and Bible commentators work a bit too hard trying to insert very
deep meaning when at least in the P'shat sense the meaning was plain. It is just
as the CJB has it; it is a plea to God to provide food because having sufficient
food each day was by no means a given for the average Jew. If this extends to
anything deeper or broader I see the prayer for food as perhaps representative of
asking God to provide for the basics that all humans need to exist at least above
the level that the beasts of the field live. The need for food, adequate shelter, and
clothing that is suitable for the purpose and the season is a very good reason to
pray.
One of the reasons that I think Yeshua included this plea for food in His prayer
model is that He had deep concerns for the daily needs of people. He was a man
of the people. He truly did "feel their pain". He fed thousands using miraculous
means simply because they were hungry and needed food. He healed thousands
of their illnesses and lameness (also miraculously) because there was almost no
other means for their suffering to be alleviated. So much that He accomplished
on earth was for human physical needs in the here and now, even though much
of it was also for the future. He told His disciples to continue doing the same;
care for the people's physical and spiritual needs. Therefore this lesson from
what Yeshua showed to us should be apprehended simply: it is not wrong to pray
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for our material needs. God knows our needs. In our time it is not wrong to pray
that God might give you a means to have a reliable car; or a sufficient house; or
to get a good job in order to make enough money to have those things. I don't
want to start of list of material things that are proper and improper to pray to the
Lord for because the circumstances are too many and vary far too much; and me
being the judge of it all is far above my pay grade. What I want us all to take from
this is that God does care about our every day human needs on earth, in our
present lives, because these lives, even in these flawed and imperfect fleshly
tents, have value to Him. He made us, He loves us, and He has a purpose for us
today.... in the present; not only at the End of Days and on into eternity.
Starting in verse 12 is Yeshua's instruction to pray for our own forgiveness. This
principle was already well embedded in Jewish religious life. They even prayed
rather standardized synagogue prayers that asked God for forgiveness of their
wrongs. In one of the several so-called Apocryphal books, we find the Book of
Ecclesiasticus (this is NOT the same as the Book of Ecclesiastes) dealing with
forgiveness. This book was written between one and two centuries prior to the
time of Christ. In chapter 28 we read this: "Forgive your neighbor the wrong
he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray. Does a
man harbor anger against another, and yet seek healing from the Lord?
Does he have no mercy toward a man like himself, and yet pray for his own
sins? If he himself, being flesh, maintains wrath, who will make expiation
for his sins?" Therefore when we read what Yeshua is saying our prayers ought
to look like (and remember, He was speaking to Jews) He is not telling His
audience that they've been doing it wrong, nor is He bringing a novel new way to
think about prayer. He is teaching them old Torah based do's and don'ts. He is
reminding them mostly of things they've already been taught, but perhaps have
been relegated to unimportant or forgotten altogether. At times He is teaching
them about things the Pharisee led synagogues have taught them, but perhaps
their teachings have been a few degrees off the mark and consist far too much of
man-centered behaviors rather than God-centered inner intent and motive.
The CJB version of this verse tries to explain the meaning as the author sees it.
But more literally it reads:
KJV
Matthew 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Luke has it slightly differently.
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KJV
Luke 11:4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is
indebted to us.
Therefore in various denominations some will pray "forgive us our sins" while
others will pray "forgive us our debts". The reality is that in the Hebrew culture of
that era and earlier there was a common connection between sins and debts. It
was that sins brought on a debt owed to God, so sins expressed as debts was
usual and customary. In fact the Lord used the concept of debt in His inspired
words to help us understand His justice system.
CJB
Deuteronomy 15:2 Here is how the sh'mittah is to be done: every
creditor is to give up what he has loaned to his fellow member of the
community- he is not to force his neighbor or relative to repay it, because
ADONAI's time of remission has been proclaimed.
This passage is speaking about the every 50 year cycle of Jubilee. It was always
thought by the earliest Hebrew sages that this passage had a dual meaning:
a P'shat and a Remez sense to it. The P'shat is that indeed there is a God-
ordained appointed time for release of debts owed among the Hebrew people.
And God's people are to practice it just as ordained in the Torah. However in
the Remez it is speaking of the debt due to God because of our sins, and there is
a future time when God remits that debt and declares it paid in full. In verse 12
Christ then also presents us with a dual meaning. He is speaking in
the P'shat about the dealings between human beings in the here and now having
a direct effect upon how God deals with us in the here and now. He sets up a
direct quid-pro-quo. It is that since, in the Lord's Prayer, we are asking God to
forgive us for our offenses against Him in proportion to how we forgive our fellow
man for their offenses against us, then the bottom line is that we'll get as we give.
If we forgive our fellow man for offending us, then God will forgive us. If we don't,
He won't. But in the Remez, this is also speaking about the ultimate and once-
for-all forgiveness that comes through Christ's death on the cross. So as
Believers, then is praying for forgiveness a thing of the past? That is, since our
atonement is complete is it almost wrong to pray for forgiveness because it is
denying what Jesus did for us? No it is not.
Despite the claim of any theological doctrine, the biblical reality is that this is the
prayer form that Christ Himself gave to us and He says to pray for forgiveness. It
did not contain a sunset provision. There is no place in Holy Scripture that ever
says to cease praying for forgiveness. It is my opinion that for the Believer to
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continue to pray for forgiveness even though we have been forgiven is to keep
reminding ourselves, and confessing to God, that we do continue to offend Him
even after we have our salvation. And in the prayer form that Messiah showed
us, it also reminds us that we are to forgive those who have offended us. The
example that we'll encounter later in Matthew is a wonderful illustration of this
principle.
CJB
Matthew 18:21-35
21
Then Kefa came up and said to him, "Rabbi, how
often can my brother sin against me and I have to forgive him? As many as
seven times?"
22
"No, not seven times," answered Yeshua, "but seventy
times seven!
23
Because of this, the Kingdom of Heaven may be compared
with a king who decided to settle accounts with his deputies.
24
Right away
they brought forward a man who owed him many millions;
25
and since he
couldn't pay, his master ordered that he, his wife, his children and all his
possessions be sold to pay the debt.
26
But the servant fell down before
him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.'
27
So
out of pity for him, the master let him go and forgave the debt.
28
"But as
that servant was leaving, he came upon one of his fellow servants who
owed him some tiny sum. He grabbed him and began to choke him, crying,
'Pay back what you owe me!'
29
His fellow servant fell before him and
begged, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
30
But he refused;
instead, he had him thrown in jail until he should repay the debt. 31 When
the other servants saw what had happened, they were extremely
distressed; and they went and told their master everything that had taken
place.
32
Then the master summoned his servant and said, 'You wicked
servant! I forgave you all that debt just because you begged me to do
it.
33
Shouldn't you have had pity on your fellow servant, just as I had pity
on you?'
34
And in anger his master turned him over to the jailers for
punishment until he paid back everything he owed.
35
This is how my
heavenly Father will treat you, unless you each forgive your brother from
your hearts."
Folks, this parable applies to all of Christ's followers. I do not know exactly how
eternal society will be structured but Yeshua makes it clear in Chapter 5 that
there will be a structure and a hierarchy, because there will be the greater and
the lesser and each will experience eternity somewhat differently even though
they are all saved. There will be various criteria of intent and actual behavior that
will determine where we each fit in that structure, with how little or how much we
show mercy to our fellow man being chief among those criteria.
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We'll finish up the Lord's Prayer and move further into Matthew Chapter 6 next
time.
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