3 Day Bible Reading Plan - “Forgiveness in Friendship”
Forgiveness comes when we squeeze a soul soaked in mercy. If Peter were soaking in God's mercy, seeing his eternal debt forgiven, he wouldn’t have been wondering how many times he needed to forgive his brother, but rather how much he had been forgiven. This is the essence of forgiveness. Yes, we have been hurt, wounded, and sinned against. These things are evil, and God will bring justice against them. Yet our debt to God surpasses the debt others owe us, and therefore God’s mercy eclipses any forgiveness ever offered to an offender. His mercy is the source from which our forgiveness flows and points to it. - Pastor Paul Crandell, 10/26/25
Day 1
Featured Verse: Matthew 18:23-27 - “...one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.”
How does the king's astonishing forgiveness of an unpayable debt reflect the nature of God's grace, and what might this suggest about the limits (or lack thereof) of divine mercy toward human sinfulness?
In what ways does the servant's desperate plea ("Be patient with me, and I will pay back everything") reveal misunderstandings about relating to God, and how might this challenge our own assumptions in prayer or repentance?
What does the king's emotional response, being "moved with compassion," teach us about the interplay between justice and mercy in God's character, especially when the debt is realistically impossible to repay?
Pause and Reflect: When you consider the king’s unthinkable cancellation of a debt you could never repay, what specific debt in your life, whether a wrong you’ve committed, a shame you carry, or a pattern you can’t break, feels most impossible to settle, and how might you bring that very debt to God in prayer this week?
“Behold the sovereign, moved with compassion, not only releases the suppliant from his bonds, but forgives him the debt. What an astonishing instance of mercy was this! Ten thousand talents forgiven at the request of a bankrupt slave!” - Charles Simeon
Day 2
Featured Verse: Matthew 18:28-31 - “Pay what you owe.”
In what ways does the unforgiving servant’s refusal to extend even a fraction of the patience he begged for expose the difference between being emotionally moved by forgiveness and being transformed by it?
The fellow servants are “greatly distressed” and report the matter to the master. What might their grief and outrage teach us about the corporate responsibility of God’s people to confront hypocrisy and injustice within the community of the forgiven?
How does the tiny scale of the second debt (a hundred denarii, roughly a few months’ wages) magnify the absurdity of the first servant’s cruelty, and what everyday debts—gossip, slights, broken promises—do we treat as “unpayable” in others while ignoring the mountain of mercy we’ve received?
Pause and Reflect: What small-but-stubborn offense are you still gripping tightly despite the immeasurable mercy you’ve already received, and how might the Holy Spirit be inviting you to loosen your hold this very day?
“The servant owes the king a billion dollars; it is just off the charts what he owes. And he gets forgiven freely. But then he goes out and he feels it so little; it means so little to him that he strangles his fellow servant for ten dollars. And when the king hears about it, he sends him to jail.” - John Piper
Day 3
Featured Verse: Matthew 18:32-35 - “...should not you have mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?”
When the master says, “You wicked servant…I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to,” how does this confrontation expose the danger of treating God’s forgiveness as a transaction rather than a transformation?
Jesus concludes, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” How does the phrase from your heart elevate forgiveness beyond mere words or actions?
Jesus ends the parable with a direct equation: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you…” If the master’s final judgment is not a threat but a diagnosis of the spiritual cancer that grows when we refuse to forgive, where in your own soul is that cancer quietly metastasizing right now?
Pause and Reflect: What single step of obedience could you take so that the mercy you’ve received from Jesus becomes the mercy you give through Jesus?
“‘So likewise’—as the king did to the unforgiving servant, ‘shall my heavenly Father do also unto you.’ The same justice, the same severity, the same tormentors, the same prison, the same unpayable debt, shall be your portion, if you do not forgive from your hearts. And mark, it is not said, ‘if ye forgive not with your lips,’ or ‘if ye forgive not in outward act,’ but ‘if ye from your hearts forgive not.’ The heart must be engaged; the inward man must be renewed; the root of bitterness must be plucked up, or the axe is laid to the root of the tree, and you are cut down and cast into the fire. O think of this, ye that cherish malice, ye that nurse revenge, ye that keep the wound open, and will not let it heal. Think how the Lord Jesus, who spake this parable, hung upon the cross, and prayed for His murderers, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ And shall you, who have been forgiven ten thousand talents, refuse to forgive a hundred pence? God forbid!” - George Whitefield