Su Voz: "Seventy Times Seven"

SU VOZ     WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when sins against me?  Up to seven times?”
Matthew 18: 21

We don’t know if Peter’s question was due to honest ignorance or if it was the brazen question of one who wants to define the limits of his responsibilities.  The disciple had already traveled quite a ways with the Lord and had been able to hear his teachings. Nevertheless, Jesus is categorical in his reply:  I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven. Forgiving, absolving, and forgetting are the means through which God demands that we live.   For that to happen requires an urgency of thought, repentance, discernment, and the kind of prayer which makes us walk the extra mile, and to make room for the betterment of our interpersonal relationships.
To forgive up to seventy times seven means to do unto others as we want others to do unto us.  It is to place, above all else, the right of each human being to feel fragile, weak, welcomed and restored, in short, to feel like a HUMAN BEING; because if God is One and if in His Grace He forgives us, how much more are we obligated to forgive one another and to live in peace.

Prayer:  Lord, help us to be forgiving enough that we can become bridges of reconciliation.  Amen.

Translation by:
Elisa Menocal, M.A.
Visiting Professor of English
Evangelical Theological Seminary
Matanzas, Cuba

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Elisa Menocal is a member of the Ardmore Presbyterian Church, sent to the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cuba.  She is spending the year there teaching English and translating for the school.