1 - Introduction - Living like a real Christian Work - Cultivating The Garden | Page 4

given to make us worthy. So also our mercy must not only be given to those who
reach some standard of worthiness.
Nowhere is this principle stated more starkly than in Luke 6 v 32–36. Jesus speaks
here of loving one’s enemies. He is very specific that this love should take the form
of action: we must lend to them when they are in need (verse 33–34) and we must
“do good” to them (verse 33, 35). “Then…you will be sons of the Most High,
because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is
merciful” (verse 35b–36). God gives mercy to the ungrateful and the wicked—that
is what we were. So shall we be like our Father in heaven if we show mercy even to
these.
A parable that makes this principle even more forceful is told by Jesus in Matthew
18 v 21 – 35. Jesus speaks of a king who forgave a servant a debt of 10,000 talents.
Since a talent represented more than a decade and a half of wages for the ordinary
worker, it is obvious that Jesus uses this figure to convey the idea of an infinite
sum, a debt impossible to pay. After the servant is forgiven, he comes upon a
second servant who owes him a small amount of money. The second servant pleads
for leniency as the first man had done with the king, but his pleas fall on deaf ears.
When the king finally hears of this, he turns to the servant he forgave and says in a
rage: “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?”
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