Get the number right!

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

Matthew 18:21-22

Here’s that forgiveness stuff again. And the accountant in me wants to be sure I have the right number. Evidently the New Revised Standard Version has had a markdown sale over other versions. It was always seventy times seven or 490 times we had to forgive in the past. Now it’s only 77 times we must forgive. That’s still pretty exhausting. Maybe if someone does the same sinful thing to another person 77 times, it really becomes part of the way they deal with other and it quits seeming like a sin. It reminds me of a set of rules:

Rule 1. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Rule 2. It’s all small stuff.

Generally I’d guess that our sins are small stuff compared to God’s love and willingness to forgive our sins.