Picturing Forgiveness

This morning I was working through the lesson on forgiveness in The Gospel Centered Life. Jesus uses a word picture in Matthew 18:21-35 to help Peter understand forgiveness. It's the parable of the unforgiving servant.

Debtor #1 owed 10,000 talents and was released from it all by his master.
Debtor #2 owed 100 denarii but was not released by debtor #1.

Here's a picture for the word picture:

1 talent = 6,000 denarii (if we're talking about silver talents. Gold talents were 30x more).

Debtor 1 owed 10,000 talents or 60,000,000 denarii.
Debtor 2 owed just 100 denarii.

Or to put it another way:
1 denarii was about 1 day's wage for a laborer.
So 1 talent was about 20 years wages.
And 10,000 talents was about 200,000 years wages.

Debtor 1 was released from 200,000 years worth of wages, but wouldn't release Debtor 2 from 4 months worth of wages.

Put this way, our forgiveness of others must come from a deep knowledge and understanding of our being forgiven by God. The debt that anyone else could ever owe me pales in comparison to the debt that God released me from.

Forgiveness is costly

“Forgiveness is costly. It means canceling a debt when we feel we have every right to demand payment. It means absorbing the pain, hurt, shame, and grief of someone’s sin against us. It means longing for repentance and restoration. But this is exactly how God has acted toward us in Jesus Christ. And through the gospel, the Holy Spirit empowers us to do the same toward others.”    -   Gospel Centered Life

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World Cup Mania

Yes, soccer is becoming more and more a popular sport in America, but Indonesia, like the rest of the world, is soccer crazy. And we love it! So much so that we were up in the middle of the night several times to watch the games (they were on at 10:00pm and 1:30am most nights).

Just a few weeks ago, we drove across East Java in the middle of the night. It happened to be on a night when Spain was playing Germany in the semifinal. Along the way, as we passed through several villages at 2:00am, people were gathered on their front porches and in store fronts, watching the game. In several villages, they had huge screens set up with LCD projectors showing the game for the village, and us passers by, to see.

Aidan and Ethan are sporting shirts from one of their favorite players, Ricardo Izecson dos Santos of Brazil - otherwise known as Kaka - one of the best players in the world. Aside from being a great soccer player, he knows that "God is faithful" and that "He belongs to Jesus."

Delaney turns 6

Last month, on June 23, Delaney had her 6th birthday.

She had a few of her friends over to celebrate and hang out at the indoor playground at the mall.

And "Hello Kitty" cake to top it off.

Homeschool on the floor

Just about all the houses in Indonesia have tile floors. We've found them to be quite handy with kids . . . easy to sweep up floors and clean up spills (not so good for little ones learning to walk, though).

Just a couple weeks ago, I came out of the room to find that Kim and the kids found another use for the tile floors.

Aidan was working out how to find area and perimeter, so they were drawing huge rectangles, measuring them, then doing the math. 

Piano Recital

Last month the kids had their first ever piano recital. I remember those days. Uggh! Nerve racking, and it's just as nerve racking as a parent. But they did a fantastic job.

 There are several piano teachers in town, and they all got together and combined their classes for one big recital.

Brienzi played "Swans in the Sunset" by Melody Bober.

And Aidan played "The Trumpet Song" by someone, but I don't have the music in front of me.

Dengue's done . . . for now

Praise the Lord for his mercy on our family. We're all recovered from our bout with dengue fever last month. We feel like we're back to full strength. Kim's skin just finished peeling from the rash. (And if you want to read about dengue now encroaching upon US soil, just click over to this CNN article).

Kim was raced through the crowded streets of Surabaya to the airport, and then loaded into the medevac plane for her flight to Singapore.

Yup, it was a VERY small plane. I had about two feet of space at the back. But at least we had Kim in the hands of great medical personnel, with the doctor and nurse here from Singapore. The doc kept on commenting on how he couldn't believe we would choose to live in Indonesia.

Uno in any language

Last month, Farida and Ester lived with us for six weeks. They were doing their internship in our town, which consisted in part in teaching our kids Indonesian. They did a great job, and they may be coming back to do another internship at the language school. (Incidentally, the night I took this picture, I could barely hold up the camera as I was coming down with dengue, the start of a very long month, though didn't know it at the time. Can't look at these pictures without feeling a little feverish).

 

Ethan trying to make himself the center of attention again.