Teaching on Tolerance and Forgiveness

52. Teaching on Tolerance
53. Teaching on Forgiveness

As we’ve seen, the disciples live in a time when peoples’ lives are guided by laws that are highly rigid and specific, and this may be one reason why the disciples repeatedly confuse symbolic language with literal, as we see again here. Jesus is teaching that we should have a constant attitude of forgiveness, but the disciples want a specific number: do I forgive someone seven times, and then on the eighth time I can really let the bastard have it? To make it more clear, Jesus says not seven, but until seventy times seven.

Why does Jesus recommend this attitude? The next passage, “Parable on Forgiveness,” gives us an idea.

[See also “Teaching on Tolerance” (Commentary 11-56), and “Parable on Forgiveness” (Commentary 10-54). ]