Jesus continued with His teaching about not despising the 'little ones'. He was not just talking about children but also the adults who trusted Him and submitted to His authority … the 'children of His kingdom'. So He reinforced the teaching with this parable.
Everybody sins. Even believers with many years of Bible knowledge and faithful service will sin. It is the condition of fallen humanity which does not leave us until we are translated to glory. However, sin always separates: person from person, and people from God. But it does not have to stay that way because the gospel of God's grace is designed to bring people to repentance so that they can be forgiven and restored to their Maker's service and to each other.
These verses come immediately after Jesus' teaching about the role of the church in leading errant believers to repentance – firstly by private conversation, then by the added testimony of others and, if there is no repentance, the problem should be exposed to the church and the sinner excluded from fellowship.
Peter's question probably came in response to Jesus' teaching about restoring repentant sinners to fellowship with God and others (Matthew 18:15-19). Jesus had advocated honest but loving confrontation of sinful behaviour, encouraging repentance and leading to reconciliation. Peter got the message but asked what should be done with persistent offenders.
Jesus used this parable (Matthew 18:23-35) to teach His disciples the importance of forgiveness in God's kingdom. His intriguing narrative was designed to embed the principle into the hearts of the trainee apostles. If they were to be competent to lead the church, they had to learn God's strategy of forgiveness. It was not natural to them.
In this parable, Jesus had just told the story of a servant who owed his master 10,000 bags of gold and could not repay the debt. The only solution to get the money back was to sell the servant and his family into lifelong slavery. But when the servant begged for mercy, his master forgave his debt (accepted a personal loss and discharged the servant from any further obligation to pay). It was a picture of God's compassion: He has mercy on anyone who asks for mercy, giving them the chance to start again without the debt of sin hanging over them.
The master in this parable represents Father God who, at His own expense (the death of Jesus Christ), is willing to forgive all who cry to Him for mercy. A servant, who owed much, was forgiven but he was not thankful; instead he was very unkind to another servant who owed him money (Matthew 18:28-31). The outcry among the other servants was very great and the master called the first servant to deal with him.
Jesus was on a mission - sent from heaven to the cross … and along the way to train a group of men to carry the gospel to the world. His time in Galilee had been important. Away from the religio-political pressure of Jerusalem in Judea, Jesus intrigued His disciples by the miracles and parables He taught to the crowd. Afterwards, in private, the trainee apostles asked Him to explain their meaning. It was a period of intense learning which would prepare them for their leadership task ahead.
Marriage is not a human invention, a social device for companionship and raising children. It is God's idea and founded on His creation design for humanity. However, it is obvious that some marriages work easily while others are a struggle. The Pharisees had firm views on divorce, or more correctly two opposing views. They were divided into two theological and ideological schools: those of Shammah said that divorce was only permissible after adultery, while those of Hillel taught that a man could divorce his wife for any reason however trivial.
When Jesus was asked about divorce, He told them about God's design for marriage in which He joins a man and a woman together. "What God had joined together, should not be separated", said Jesus. Some of the Pharisees believed that there was a provision for easy divorce in God's Law (Deuteronomy 24:1-4), and they pressed Jesus to explain the passage which apparently allowed a husband to write a certificate of divorce and send his wife away if she displeased him.
