In the very last talk Al Stewart gave to the City Bible Forum a few weeks ago, we look at Luke 17:1-10, the passage on forgiveness. He started with an interview between Andrew Denton and Mark Latham on how Latham felt he has been wronged by Gough Whitlam. When Denton asked about his future relationship with Whitlam, Latham responded with two possible options:
- Pretend it has never happened, or
- Break up the relationship
And he has personally expressed that he could not take the first option. However, Al argued that it is possible to have a third option — to forgive the offender, especially it should be something that Christians should take. To summarise from the passage,
- We need to forgive our brothers if they repent.
- We have been forgiven as the ultimate motivation for us to forgive.
- To forgive is our duty and it should not be something that we should be proud of.
Personally I found forgiveness is something that is extremely difficult for even the Christians to do. You have been wronged (or sometimes, you felt that you have been wronged), it is just hard to take that mental penalty upon ourselves by accepting apology from the offending party. Something that many of us, myself especially, need to work on.
Al normally leaves a few minutes for questions, and the question time was excellent on that day, as many people have asked the questions that I was likely to ask as well. Two interesting questions on forgiveness were raised — (1) how can we sure that the other party has really repented? (2) should we forgive, if the other party does not repent and apologise?
These are pretty much the same questions which someone has previously asked me as well during the Colossians Bible study at MBF a few weeks ago. We looked at chapter 3, where Christians were called to put on godly living and put off the old self. I shared that I myself needed to learn to give up rights and forgive. Then the discussion broke out as someone else in my group shared that how difficult it is for her to forgive — especially over the things she has gone through, and the other party has shown little sign of apology. Should she continue to forgive and continue to do what is right?
I guess in our hearts we do not really want to forgive. The reason that we want to see hard evidence of another party repenting shows that we do not really want to leave room for them so that the relationship can be restored again. But Al argued that since Christ has already done the reconciliation, shouldn’t we then do our best to lower the bar to make their apology easy? Instead of making it is difficult for them to say sorry?
Even if the other party never asks for forgiveness, we’ll leave the judgement to God. Also from Colossians 3:17, where the reason we submit to each other is for the sake of Jesus’ name. That along should be our motivation to forgive.
But then that is going to cost — the cost on the person who is willing to forgive and actively seek restoration of the relationship. That is probably the part that most of us find difficult to swallow. It isn’t my fault, then why is it my responsibility to sew the relationship back together? Again, like Matthew 18 has suggested, Christ is our example. It wasn’t his fault either, that we rejected God and try to run lives our own way. But then it costs Jesus his life to get us right with God…
Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. Something that I need to be reminded for 2006.
There needs to be lots of forgiveness at church as well. Especially this year — there are just smells of bad blood. Sometimes I wondered, why oh why, that people do these things to each other. I will probably be furious and unwilling to compromise, and ended up have the same foul taste in my mouth.
Yup. Need to “forgive” and “pray”.
Just want to share my thoughts.
Let’s say that you have been hurt by other Christian friend. After that you struggle to forgive the person. Then you pray to God asked for strength and wisdom to forgive. While praying you also were reminded that you have wronged God many times and ask for forgiveness.
Come to think of it, wouldn’t your Christian friend will be praying the same prayer?
And, if God your Lord and Saviour forgive you and forgive the person, what room is left that you shouldn’t forgive the person?
We should keep our head intact while we are having dispute, that the world is bigger than our problem coz God rules the world.
At the same time we need to realize that many times the word ‘sorry’ is a previlege that we can’t expect from other people all the time. Some people just can’t say sorry but they change in their attitude. Although for us, we should lower our level to the point that we won’t say sorry if we make mistakes. Need to manage the expectation of us to other people.
OOPS.. I mistyped the last sentence! Sorry :P
Here is the correction:
” Although for us, we should NOT lower our level to the point that WE won’t say sorry if WE make mistakes. Need to manage the expectation of us to other people. “
Sometimes, it’s the “LOUD” people who are percieved as victims and are expected to “forgive” the others. Maybe they shouldn’t be overwhelmed by self-righteousness and forget about seeking forgiveness from others themselves!
Agree!
As a loud person myself, sometimes the solution is not demanding other people to ask for forgiveness, but to shut up and reflect on what happen and see that you play big part in the dispute/misundestanding (which is the self-righteous big) :)
I’ve been really helped in the trying to understand forgiveness part by differentiating forgiveness from reconcilaition. That forgiveness or the “f’ word as I call it – is between me and God about how I feel hurt by another. Whereas reconcilation requires both parties to want it (and I cannot force it) and that forgiveness is a prerequesite for reconciliation – where both ask for forgiveness of each other. Hope that helps. My other thoughts are that forgiveness is not excusing (C.S.Lewis said if it could be excused it never needed to be forgiven), its not trusting again- that has to be earnt again, its not instant, its not easy…
I am so thankful I fell on your website today. I am in a relationship with a man who is obsessive compulsive and feel like he has hurt me, when in fact he is constantly hurting himself because he can not bring himself to forgive his father for abuse and his mother for neglect and all the other people around him he obsesses about that did him wrong. He keeps score. I love the Lord with all my heart, I have no problem with forgiveness, my problem is fear of what I know nothing about. My friends disorder. I can forgive, but will he forgive, he has turned everything around to be my fault. I will take responsiblity whether it is or not and ask for forgiveness. Pray for me.
MJ