The Joshua Victor Theory

  Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. In today’s parable, “The Unforgiving Servant”, Jesus teaches about forgiveness. Forgiveness was a major theme in May, from John 20, where Jesus commissioned His apostles to spread His word of forgiveness to those who repent, and to withhold forgiveness (or bind sins) for those who do not repent. Matthew 18 today, is one of the major passages in the Gospel where Jesus deals with forgiveness and unforgiveness. In the parable, a servant is forgiven an enormous debt. A debt that would have taken several lifetimes over to be able to repay. There is no way on earth that he could ever repay it, but he begs for mercy from his master and gets more than he bargained for…in an incredibly good way! While the servant was hoping for an extension or some leniency, instead his debt is cancelled in full. This unforgettable and undeserved act of generosity spoke volumes about his master. How could...

            In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Are you familiar with the old-fashioned pastime of whittling? Carving a small, rough design out of a piece of wood? In grade school art we once carved a little dog out of a bar of Ivory Soap. As you whittle away, you carve off the pieces and edges that you see as undesirable, working down to find the shape you envision, locked inside the block of wood, or soap, or whatever you’re carving.             We’re tempted, all too often, to take the same approach to the Holy Bible, to God, and even Jesus Christ. We approach them like a block of wood, looking for the “real image” we have in our own mind, and we’re the whittlers with the knife, cutting away and shaping what we deem undesirable, so that we’re left with the God that we want. Smooth out the rough parts, knock down the sharp edges, sculpt Jesus until He’s mi...