Matthew 18:21-35. Prompted by Peter's question, "Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus answers "Seventy times seven" (or "seventy-seven" — the point is the same: beyond counting) and tells the parable. A king forgives a servant owing 10,000 talents — an astronomical sum, roughly 60 million denarii, or 200,000 years of a laborer's wages; the debt is uncalculatable. The forgiven servant then goes out and finds a fellow servant owing him 100 denarii (about three months' wages — real money, but nothing against the backdrop of what he was just forgiven). He grabs the man by the throat demanding payment. The fellow servants report to the king, who has the unforgiving servant handed over to the jailers until he pay all his debt.
The Unforgiving Servant is the most severe parable in the Gospels on the question of interpersonal forgiveness. Three observations. (1) The disparity is cosmic. Jesus' contrast between 10,000 talents and 100 denarii is not a literary flourish — it is a theological diagram. The debt you owe God is infinitely greater than any debt owed to you by another human being. Every slight, every insult, every betrayal, every wrong done to you — the total is still trivial against the backdrop of what God in Christ has forgiven you. (2) Forgiveness received but not extended reveals it was never truly received. The parable's ending shocks many readers: the king revokes his forgiveness and has the servant tortured until the full debt is paid. Jesus' closing application: "So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart" (v. 35). This is not salvation by works; it is the claim that someone who hoards grace horizontally has not received grace vertically. As 1 John 4:20 puts it from the opposite angle: "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates His brother, He is a liar; for He who does not love His brother whom He has seen cannot love God whom He has not seen." (3) The Lord's Prayer builds this in: "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" (Matthew 6:12) — the only petition Jesus doubles back on for comment (6:14-15). Refusing to forgive another is sawing off the branch you are sitting on.