{"id":272,"date":"2020-10-29T20:22:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-30T00:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=272"},"modified":"2020-12-07T20:33:52","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T01:33:52","slug":"forgive-us-our-debts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2020\/10\/29\/forgive-us-our-debts\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgive Us Our Debts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I\u2019ll never forget the day a man who had been attending our church for 20 years finally decided to become a member.

What struck me most was his reason for waiting so long. 

\u201cAll these years I hesitated to become a Christian because of the Lord\u2019s Prayer.  Jesus tells us to forgive our debtors.  I figured that if I applied that to my business, tearing up the debt sheets of all the people who owe us money, we\u2019d be out of business by the end of the month.  I finally understand he was talking about debts of a different kind!\u201d 

Indeed, he was. 

It’s interesting that when people of different church traditions worship together, things can get kind of crazy midway through the Lord\u2019s Prayer.  Catholics, Anglicans, and Methodists, among others, recite these words from memory:  And forgive us our trespasses<\/strong>.  Presbyterians, Baptists, and other groups will say:  And forgive us our debts<\/strong>.   Still other groups are likely to pray: And forgive us our sins. <\/strong>

Is one option better than the others?  Does it really matter? 

It\u2019s worth considering the five different Greek words that were available to the New Testament writers.  For those of you who are seriously exhausted from our recent forays into the Bible\u2019s original languages, I promise that after today there will be no more Greek for a week!   

The first New Testament word for sin is anomia<\/em>.  It literally means \u201clawlessness.\u201d  Anomia<\/em> is an exceedingly strong word, and connotes behavior that has seriously gone off the rails.  This is not the term Jesus uses in the Lord\u2019s Prayer.

The next option is parabasis<\/em>, which means to cross a line.  I commit a parabasis<\/em> when I\u2019ve been warned by people who love me very much not to bring up politics at the next family gathering.  But I plunge ahead anyways, and within a matter of minutes people are revising their wills.  This also is not the word Jesus uses.

Paraptoma<\/em> is a bit different.  It doesn\u2019t mean charging across a clear boundary, but slipping across \u2013 essentially fooling myself into thinking that I\u2019m still a good person.  Perhaps I\u2019ve been told in no uncertain terms that the cookies on that platter are reserved for the bridge club.  But maybe if I take just one, it will be all right.  I can rearrange the others so no one will notice.  Or maybe I should go ahead and sneak a second one.  Paraptoma<\/em> is likewise not the word Jesus uses in the Lord\u2019s Prayer.   

The fourth word for sin, hamartia<\/em>, comes from the world of archery.  It means missing the mark. 

Perhaps I have resolved never to cheat on an exam.  But I really need an \u201cA\u201d on that final.  Therefore I miss the mark \u2013 not accidentally, but on purpose.  I decide to do what I know is wrong.  This is the word that earlier generations translated into English as \u201ctrespass.\u201d  What is trespassing?  It is walking in a place where I know I\u2019ve been forbidden to walk.  Most modern translations render hamartia<\/em> as \u201csin.\u201d 

Which brings us to opheilema<\/em>, the word Jesus actually uses in Matthew’s version of the Lord\u2019s Prayer.  It comes from the world of commerce and connotes an unpaid debt.

I owe something.  I fail to pay it off.  That\u2019s an opheilema<\/em>. 

What the gentleman in our congregation discovered is that Jesus is not talking about unpaid business invoices, but our vast spiritual indebtedness to God.  Day in and day out, we have all wounded the heart of God at the level of our thoughts, motives, words, and actions.  We owe God the equivalent of the national debt.  And none of us has a checking account with that kind of balance.

But Jesus, on the cross, miraculously paid off the world\u2019s cumulative debt of sin.

If that\u2019s already accomplished \u2013 and the Bible clearly speaks of forgiveness as a past action<\/em> that God has provided through his Son \u2013 why are we still asking him to forgive our debts?  Are they paid off or not? 

Here we need to embrace one of the most important principles of Bible study:  A single text doesn\u2019t tell us everything there is know about a particular subject.<\/em>

Good study takes us to dozens of other chapters and verses on the pages of Scripture.  What we ultimately learn about God\u2019s forgiveness is that Jesus\u2019 sacrificial death on Good Friday erased all our debt sheets \u2013 even of the sins that have brought us the deepest shame, and about which we have never breathed a word to another human being.  But as we abandon ourselves to Jesus, we enter a relationship that can never be broken.  He will never let us go.  It\u2019s as if our worst soul-staining moments never happened.  This is why the Good News is such good news.

So what\u2019s happening when we confess our sins to God, and when we pray this part of the Lord\u2019s Prayer?   

We\u2019re not establishing the fact <\/em>of our relationship with Christ.  That\u2019s already been settled.  Instead, we\u2019re repairing and restoring our personal experience<\/em> of God\u2019s gracious presence.   

When I see a childlike drawing in bright red Magic Marker on my wall, and notice the red smudges on my little one\u2019s fingers, I will ask, \u201cDid you draw on the wall with those markers?\u201d  \u201cNo, it wasn\u2019t me!\u201d says the child, looking away.  At this moment there is perfect clarity about reality.  I know what has happened.  The child also knows what has happened.  But there remains a barrier between us.

The barrier isn\u2019t crossed by sharing new information, as if that were even necessary.  What brings us back together is a humble, maybe fearful, perhaps even tearful admission: \u201cYes, I did it!\u201d 

And my heart melts.  Magic Marker drawings are annoying.  But such problems are easily addressed.  The far greater potential problem is a relationship that falls short of being fueled by the dynamics of heartfelt trust and heartfelt forgiveness \u2013 the very miracles of love that God wants us to experience with him every day. 

When you offer the Lord\u2019s Prayer, it\u2019s OK to use whatever vocabulary suits you best \u2013 the T-word, the D-word, or the S-word.

They all, in the end, take us to the same place:  \u201cLord, I\u2019ve let you down.  You know it and I know it.  Please restore to me the deepest experience of your love and grace.\u201d

Before those words are off your lips, he will already have you in his arms.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll never forget the day a man who had been attending our church for 20 years finally decided to become a member. What struck me most was his reason for waiting so long.  \u201cAll these years I hesitated to become a Christian because of the Lord\u2019s Prayer.  Jesus tells us to forgive our debtors.  I figured that if I applied… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[90,76],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-debts-vs-trespasses","tag-forgiveness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions\/274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}