Q: In Matthew 18:25, in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, Jesus pictures a king who threatened to enslave a man and his entire family to pay a debt. This unjust practice, which was common at the time, doesnt seem to have bothered Jesus very much.
A: First, as the objector noticed, this is part of a parable. A lot of parables have incidental details which serve as verbal scenery -- dogs lick Lazarus sores; thieves beat up a traveler, and so forth -- rather than as an endorsement. Second, the man is /already/ a servant (the Greek term used is "doulos") at the outset of the parable, and it seems fair to extrapolate that his family was understood to also be slaves already. Thus the charge that the king threatened to enslave a man and his entire family is not accurate, and since this is core of the objection, thats all that really needs to be said about this objection.
But I will add one more thing: in the parable, the king /threatened/ to have the servant and his family sold, but at the end of the parable, it is only the unforgiving servant himself, and not his family, who is punished. While the main message of the parable is about how God, like the king in the story, will forgive His debtors in the way that we forgive our debtors, theres a platform there for an extra message about responsibility and fairness.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: First, as the objector noticed, this is part of a parable. A lot of parables have incidental details which serve as verbal scenery -- dogs lick Lazarus sores; thieves beat up a traveler, and so forth -- rather than as an endorsement. Second, the man is /already/ a servant (the Greek term used is "doulos") at the outset of the parable, and it seems fair to extrapolate that his family was understood to also be slaves already. Thus the charge that the king threatened to enslave a man and his entire family is not accurate, and since this is core of the objection, thats all that really needs to be said about this objection.
But I will add one more thing: in the parable, the king /threatened/ to have the servant and his family sold, but at the end of the parable, it is only the unforgiving servant himself, and not his family, who is punished. While the main message of the parable is about how God, like the king in the story, will forgive His debtors in the way that we forgive our debtors, theres a platform there for an extra message about responsibility and fairness.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
