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.