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Confronting those who sin against us

On at least two occasions, in the context of speaking about forgiveness, Jesus instructs us to confront every brother or sister who sins against us and fails to repent or apologize. In Matthew 18:15, He says that we are to “go and tell” the one who has hurt us “his…

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Forgiveness sometimes requires getting the church involved

What do we do if we confront fellow believers who sin against us and, yet, they still don’t apologize and seek our forgiveness? What do we do if we confront them and things actually get worse? Is it ever appropriate for us to just give up and to go about…

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Do we still need to forgive even if they never apologize?

In my last post, I argued that Jesus’s whole point in telling the “Parable of the Unforgiving Servant” was to say to Peter (and to you and me by extension) that we shouldn’t have to ask how many times we should forgive someone when they sin against us. Knowing that…

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Experiencing Forgiveness

The reason many of us struggle so profoundly with forgiving other people is either that we have never experienced God’s forgiveness for ourselves or that we have lost sight of it in our everyday lives and it no longer influences the ways that we think, speak, and act. In either case,…

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Why is Forgiveness so Hard? Part 2

In my last article, I explored two potential factors that make forgiving someone who has hurt us so incredibly difficult. I argued, first, that forgiveness is a relational category in the Bible, which means that it is always unto the restoration of a relationship; and I said, second, that forgiveness…

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Why is Forgiveness so Hard? Part 1

There is an old and familiar adage that we have been using in the English language for at least 500 years. Its Latin roots may go back even further than that. The adage seems to have been initially used in regard to the formulation of military strategy but quickly began…