STEWARDSHIP OF THE BELL ROPE (5 OF 5)
by Jeff Strite
Scripture: Matthew 18:21-35
This content is part of a series.
Stewardship of the Bell Rope (5 of 5)
Series: Stewardship of His Gifts
Jeff Strite
Matthew 18:21-35
OPEN: I get a daily devotion from a website called ''heartlight.org''
Back in August, I read the following story by Patrick Odum. Apparently, in New Hampshire, a man named Josh Muszynski stopped at a gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes with his debit card. A few hours later he was online checking his bank account and found that this particular pack of cigarettes set him back:
$23,148,855,308,184,500.00.
That's 23 quadrillion, 148 trillion, 855 billion, 308 million, 184 thousand, 500 dollars.
To put that in perspective: if you took ALL the money from ALL the countries in the United Nations, you still wouldn't have enough money to buy that single pack of cigarettes.
Needless to say, Josh immediately called his bank and managed to clear things up. Not only did his bank correct the error, they also removed the $15 overdraft fee they charged him.
(Patrick D. Odum, Heartlight.org 8/11/09)
APPLY: The point is: if this man had actually owed that much money there was no way he (or anyone else on face of earth) could ever pay it back.
Now that brings us to the parable Jesus tells His disciples: There was a man who owed a king 10,000 talents… and he couldn't repay it. A single talent was equal to approximately one year's pay. Thus it would take a person 10,000 years to pay for that man's debt.
To put it in financial terms: if someone were to make $50,000 a year one talent would equal $50,000, and 10,000 talents would then be worth at least $5 billion.
That's more money than most people around here make. And in fact… that was the point of Jesus' parable.
He starts the parable by explaining that He's talking about the ''Kingdom of Heaven'' (vs. 23). That term (''Kingdom of heaven'') is used exclusively in the Gospel of Matthew and is a phrase used to describe the coming Church which began on Pentecost - fifty days after Jesus had been crucified on ...
Series: Stewardship of His Gifts
Jeff Strite
Matthew 18:21-35
OPEN: I get a daily devotion from a website called ''heartlight.org''
Back in August, I read the following story by Patrick Odum. Apparently, in New Hampshire, a man named Josh Muszynski stopped at a gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes with his debit card. A few hours later he was online checking his bank account and found that this particular pack of cigarettes set him back:
$23,148,855,308,184,500.00.
That's 23 quadrillion, 148 trillion, 855 billion, 308 million, 184 thousand, 500 dollars.
To put that in perspective: if you took ALL the money from ALL the countries in the United Nations, you still wouldn't have enough money to buy that single pack of cigarettes.
Needless to say, Josh immediately called his bank and managed to clear things up. Not only did his bank correct the error, they also removed the $15 overdraft fee they charged him.
(Patrick D. Odum, Heartlight.org 8/11/09)
APPLY: The point is: if this man had actually owed that much money there was no way he (or anyone else on face of earth) could ever pay it back.
Now that brings us to the parable Jesus tells His disciples: There was a man who owed a king 10,000 talents… and he couldn't repay it. A single talent was equal to approximately one year's pay. Thus it would take a person 10,000 years to pay for that man's debt.
To put it in financial terms: if someone were to make $50,000 a year one talent would equal $50,000, and 10,000 talents would then be worth at least $5 billion.
That's more money than most people around here make. And in fact… that was the point of Jesus' parable.
He starts the parable by explaining that He's talking about the ''Kingdom of Heaven'' (vs. 23). That term (''Kingdom of heaven'') is used exclusively in the Gospel of Matthew and is a phrase used to describe the coming Church which began on Pentecost - fifty days after Jesus had been crucified on ...
There are 16143 characters in the full content. This excerpt only shows a 2000 character sample of the full content.
Price: $5.99 or 1 credit
