The Greek daneistes means a creditor or money-lender — one who lends money and holds the legal right to demand repayment. It appears only once in the New Testament, in one of Jesus's most penetrating parables.
The daneistes (creditor) appears in Luke 7:41–43 in the parable Jesus told Simon the Pharisee to explain Mary Magdalene's extravagant act of worship. A creditor (daneistes) cancels debts for two debtors — one owing 500 denarii, the other 50 — and Jesus asks who will love him more. The parable dismantles the Pharisee's spiritual pride and reveals the logic of grace: awareness of the magnitude of one's forgiveness directly fuels depth of love and worship. The creditor who forgives is a figure for God; the debtors are every human being. The one who wrongly assumes their debt is small will love little; the one who understands the enormity of their forgiveness — like Mary, like Paul, like every true disciple — will overflow with gratitude. This is perhaps the clearest parable Jesus told about how the gospel produces transformed lives.