溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
How Many Times Must I Forgive?
Is there a limit to forgiveness, or does forgiveness begin where counting stops?
Up to seven times? … Not seven times, but seventy times seven.
Peter asked, "If my brother wrongs me, how many times must I forgive? Up to seven?" The rabbis of the day held three enough, so seven was already generous. But Jesus answered, "seventy times seven" — meaning not to count to 490, but to set down the very wish to put a number on forgiveness. Forgiveness begins where counting stops. The question branched. The Stoics said another's fault springs from ignorance, so it is to be understood, not raged at; Buddhism taught release, for repaying hatred with hatred never ends. But modern theories of justice ask back — does boundless forgiveness become a blind eye to injustice? Where do forgiveness and justice meet?
In an age when the record of hurt piles up unerased, the call to stop counting is also for one's own sake.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
I forgive by counting. "This is the third time," "one more time and…" — I keep a ledger in my heart and mark the tallies. Jesus's answer is to close that ledger itself. Yet I know how hard this is. To forgive endlessly can sound, at times, like being told to keep getting hurt. Perhaps forgiveness is, before it is for the other, a release of myself — who holds the ledger of resentment — from its weight. Not yet able to stop counting, I quietly look at one ledger in my heart.
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