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So thank you for that. Thank you to Mighty Muscadine for sponsoring this episode. Let's jump in. Sin is a debt that we owe to a holy God that we can never ever repay. But here is the good news: someone came to pay it for you, and now you are debt free.
Let's learn more about it on the Clearview Today Show. You're listening to Clear View today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis.
Welcome to the Clear View Today show. We're here in the studio with our host, Dr. Abbadan Shah. And if you're listening for the very first time today, we want to hear from you. You can text us two five two four two nine six zero six nine.
You can text us directly. That number is always open, and we want to hear your thoughts on today's episode, what God might be doing in your life and in your ministry, or just a chance to say hello. It's good to see you, Doctor Shot. They say that there's two things that are certain in this life: death and taxes. That's true.
But I think I could add a third to that list: death, taxes, and debt. Everybody, there's there's a ton of people being like, "Preach it, preach it!" I'm so far in debt I can't see. It seems like debt is the one thing that everybody wants to avoid. That just seems unavoidable. Yeah, it's part of life.
Unfortunately, it is part of life. And I know there are people who say you need to be completely debt free, and I and I'm for that. I mean, who does not want to be debt free? Yeah, we disagree with that, right? But if you think you're going to go through life just achieving and creating, just being debt free.
Maybe someone somewhere is able to still pull that off in this world in this economy, but most of us can't do that. And you're going to have the unpredictables of life. You may have a medical emergency.
Well, you need to save up money for that. Have you received some bills from the hospital for visiting the ER? ER sends you a bill. Uh huh. Anybody who's running any test on you will send you a bill.
Heaven forbid you took a ride in the ambulance. That's another bill. Send you a bill, and the doctor who comes in, pops in, and checks on you for a few minutes. He's sending you a bill. That's a bill.
Where where your meds are filled. That's a bill. They had to. That's a bill. They had to take some blood work.
That's another bill. You know the those who run some tests on you. They will send you a bill.
So there will be bills.
So if you think, well, I'm going to save up enough so that that will not be an issue.
Well, I hope you don't get sick for a long time, right? Just, just you know, Christian scientist style. Just think it, just think it, just think it away. It's not possible if you're going to get sick. Just don't, just don't, just like don't or whatever.
Just don't, you'll be fine. Actually, I thought we were talking parables. Why are we? Why were you over here talking about debt? Because sin is a debt that we owe to a holy and a righteous God that we can never, ever, ever, ever, ever repay.
Did I say ever enough? Maybe one more. Ever, ever, ever, ever, infinity, ever. You cannot repay. There you go.
Now thinking about sin as a debt is is different because most. Most of the time, we think about sin as a mistake. Like sin is something we did wrong, or sin is something like an infraction or a yeah, something that we did. But sin is a debt that we owe. That that's that challenges our thinking a little bit.
That's right. I mean, that's that's the biblical definition of sin. That we are debtors to God, we owe Him because He is holy. You say, "Well, I didn't, I didn't take out that loan on God." I mean, this is Adam and Eve's problem. You can say whatever you want to.
You coming into this world, you have been grafted into that family of debt. That's right, and that debt is to God, and there is only one person who can pay that debt. And that is God Himself, and the second person of the Godhead took that challenge, and He came, and He paid the debt with His own perfect, fully God, fully Man life, and He paid the debt in full. And all you can do is come in complete gratefulness. You cannot bring any ounce of works to it.
You cannot say, "Well, I'm going to be a good person for you, God." Not gonna work. I promise to really obey once I get saved. I hope you do. Yeah, and you should. But if you think I'm gonna make that promise and really mean that promise, and that's my contribution, works.
Take that away. Yeah, it's not gonna work. And and anytime people want to add that aspect to it. They're they're trying to pay a trillion dollar debt by dropping a penny. Yeah, it's a great great illustration.
You know, it's it's one of those things where we think about we hear that illustration all the time. Like, imagine you owe a million or a billion in debt. Like you're just completely hopeless. And someone comes along and they pays it for you.
Well, you're gonna want to spend the rest of your life paying that all back. And yeah, true, that might be my desire. But I'm not going to be able to. Otherwise, how in the world would I? I would have just paid the debt anyway.
Yeah. Otherwise, I would have paid my own debt in the first place. Yeah. Give me enough time, Lord. I'll pay it off.
Yeah. I heard somebody tell me that one time. Give me enough time and money, I can do anything in the world. I'm like, yeah, but you ain't got the time, right? I mean, so if it's trillion dollar debt, if you give me trillion days and I pay a you know dollar a day, then it can work.
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's not even trillion. It's is you know it's not countable. Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. You know, Jesus talking about this parable of the two debtors.
We talk about this, and how do you think it relates?
So, so before we we actually go into the parable itself, how do you think it shifts us? Meaning, what Jesus was was thinking about here? How do we shift our thinking from the sin is something that I do that I shouldn't do versus this is a deficit that I have in me? What does that do for us?
So, I mean, there are two aspects to sin. One is the original sin, is what we call it, that you are born dead in trespasses and sin.
So you're already entering this world, incurring a debt that you cannot repay, and then you sin on top of that daily, hourly. Minute by minute, you are sinning. Second by second, you are sinning. You say, "Well, no, I don't do bad stuff." I mean, look, I mean, I'm always trying to help people. I never want to think ill of anybody.
I'm the kind of person who'll give you the the shirt off my back. I understand, but if you have even a one ounce of a selfish, self centered, self protective, self preservative thought, you've already sinned.
So I mean, I don't think any of us can stand up to that. No, you can't. Yeah, which means you're in debt. Yeah. What what we're thinking is like, hey, I am, I I am doing things for people, and I and occasionally I do things for people, so I'm not a bad person.
Know who you are. On a daily basis, on an hourly, second by second basis, who you are is already that that meter is running on you. I think that's the thing that gets me so many times is people are like, you know, why Mary held responsible for something Adam and Eve did in the garden? But if if we're being honest and we look at ourselves, genuinely look at at who we are on the inside, you know that we're just as guilty. Oh yeah, you know that we mess up.
You know that we make mistakes. You know that had had we been in the garden, we would have eaten the fruit too. Oh, a hundred percent. Absolutely, I've done. I mean, I know eating the fruit in and of itself was not a sin.
Disobeying God was the sin. But I've done stuff way worse. Right, thoughts way worse. I'll give you an illustration.
Okay, I'll give you a couple of illustration for that matter. Let's say you're watching a soccer game, and you see those eleven people on the field fighting for your country, the United States soccer team. They're right there. They're they're playing against say Spain. The winners of the World Cup twenty twenty six, and you are like, "Come on, oh my goodness, how can you miss that ball?
What are you thinking? Why are you passing it to him? What are you doing? I cannot believe these guys. Oh my goodness, how in the world?
You know, you are frustrated at them. At the end of the game, they lose. Why? Spain is better, right? That they're they're phenomenal team.
They beat some of the best teams in the world, Argentina. Brazil, all these teams just collapsed before them. Germany, England, just could not hang it. It is what it is. They represent us.
When they lost, we we lost. Yeah. What we're saying is this: If I was on that field, I would have done better.
Now. I know the United States team. In you know, they're not as good as some of the South American teams, or European teams, or even African teams. I know we're not as as as good as them. But any of those guys on a bad day is better than most of us, right?
Yeah, we can we we can see the flaws at when we're watching like 4K Ultra HD on this 88 inch screen. But there's not a chance I'm getting out there on that field and showing and doing better. No, absolutely. These guys are still athletes on a world stage. I would get winded walking.
Professional athletes, like right, like I don't, I don't. Yeah, it's not happening. Yeah, I think I talked to Thomas about this when I was like, I was like, what was what would happen if I was out there? He's like. You don't score like you're not getting on the field at all.
Yeah, and now Thomas is a good soccer player. You know, he scored close to, I think, hundred sixty, one hundred seventy, some goals. Yeah, in his high school career, he's a high scorer. Yeah, I mean, it was unbelievable. And and I I kept telling us, "Son, you're doing an amazing job." He's like, "No, Dad, I'm not." The other players are just bad.
I say, "You're humble." Yeah, but he was not trying to be humble. He was just being honest. He's like, "No, I'm I'm good, but." I I played guys who are so much better than me, but then there are so many games I went and I watched him. I think Ryan's been to see him too. When he would start running, he would take off, and it was like.
Unstoppable. It was unbelievable. I mean, he was like a blur. Yeah, it was unreal. And then Nicholas used to play soccer, and he was play defense.
And once the ball would get to him, I mean, he would fight it tooth and nail, and and not let the people get past him. I mean, he would fight. And and and and I remember some of our other guys who were from this church, like Sam. You know, Sam Boyd, who was also on on one of the teams when. Thomas and Nicholas were there for a couple of years.
They were all playing together. Clearview guys were there, and some other people from Clearview, students from Clearview, and amazing, amazing players. They are far better than us, and yet they're not as good as those guys on that soccer team. Right? What is the point of all this?
If you think that you would have done better. Than Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. It's like me saying I can jump in there and I think I can outrun Messi and I think I can do better than you know just picking names, Neymar or or better than you know some of these famous names and and I I can I could have stopped them. No, you could. No, not no way.
You're watching the you're watching the highlights and thinking that you're now an athlete. But those guys are running back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and some of those really tough games. The the you know the coach will say, "No, you're staying in." Yep, you're staying in. You know, you don't get a breather. You don't get a break.
You're not coming out. Imagine that, Amen.
Well, I want to jump into this parable, but first, I want to take a quick word from our sponsor. Come back, and then we're going to jump into Jesus's words real quick. Today's episode is sponsored by Mighty Muscadine. You know, most grapes they're just content. Sitting in a bowl on your kitchen table, right?
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So, parable of the two debtors. This is something that we've been kind of talking about up till this point, Doctor Shaw. Why did Jesus give this parable? What is the what is the background behind it?
Well, he's going to again he is challenging the Pharisees, the scribes, the people. Around him, who did not believe him. Keep in mind, parables were not given as illustrations to make things clearer. Cause that's what we think. Parables, like a pastor said the other day.
I was, you know, I was standing in the grocery store line, and and then this man came around, and and then something, something, some illustration, some illustration to to explain a point. There was a, I'm not going to say who was, but there was a pastor in my life that, like clockwork, every sermon would begin with a story about his trip to Walmart. Oh man, every single. Week. I'm not exaggerating.
I'm not kidding. Every week, you may as well say the first illustration. He's he's passed away now.
Okay. Every every every single week, the first little five five ten minutes of the sermon was about his trip to Walmart, and maybe it would tie into the message.
Sometimes it didn't even tie to the message. He just wanted love to death, love dearly. It has nothing to do with the message at all. No, just telling about the green beans on aisle seven. Oh my word!
Yeah. Yeah, I think about the purpose of the illustration is to make some point, or to explain some concept, or to help apply the message to our daily lives. You know, that's the purpose of illustration. Parables are just the opposite; they were given to obscure the message, to make things more opaque, not clear. Yeah.
And for the Pharisees and the scribes, Jesus gave the parables so that what what they did understand, they would understand anymore. But if they were willing to submit themselves to To what the Messiah was talking to them about, then they will see themselves in the mirror. Remember, we talked about the parables being mirrors that they can see themselves in the mirror and go, "Oh, that's me." He's talking about me. I am the guilty party, like David was, you know, living in in abject sin. And Nathan says, "You are the man." At the end of the parable, "You are the man," and and he said, "Yes, I have sinned against God." And he began to repent.
That was the purpose of the parables. Yeah. So, let's read this parable. Luke chapter seven, verses forty-one through forty-three. Starting in verse forty-one, there was a certain creditor who had two debtors.
One owed five hundred denarii, the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him more? Simon answered and said, "I suppose the one whom he forgave more." And he said to him, "You have rightly judged." Let's take a quick break. Hey guys, John here with the Clearview Today show, and I want to just take a second and talk to you about today's sponsor, WatchSafe.
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Thanks for listening. Now let's get into the show.
So let's look at it in the context. This parable of the two debtors is a simple, short story with a deep, profound, life-changing truth. The context is the account of the woman who came to Jesus when he was having a meal. If you remember that story, and he was having a meal at someone's home. And she did something very odd.
She began to wash Jesus's feet with her tears, and then she would wipe them with her hair, and then proceeded to anoint his feet with fragrant oil.
Okay, just like the parable of the prodigal son, this one has been a favorite of painters throughout history. You see it everywhere. Yeah. At first encounter, we're sort of shocked by this bizarre incident. What in the world is happening?
Yeah, why would Jesus even allow something like this? This woman is not a woman of good character. And then she is weeping over your feet. You're letting her touch you. And it's funny because you you tend to think like because this is ancient times, that's just what people did.
But then you see people reacting around her, and they're like, "What? Why are you letting her do that?" Yeah, no, this was bizarre. Yeah, yeah.
So here's me to understand. The parable of the two debtors is only found here in Luke's gospel. Let's first things first, but all four gospels mention an incident of a woman anointing Jesus. All four gospels, but it's only Luke who talks about this woman anointing the feet with her tears and wiping and all that stuff. Are they all referring to the same incident?
That's a big question. You know, this is part of what's known as the synoptic problem. I don't believe there are problems, but that's that's the technical name that scholars have given to this whole idea that there there are things in the gospels that seem like exactly the same, and yet they have some variations.
So there are similarities, and then there are differences in these four accounts. And I don't have time to get into all of that. This is what I believe. I believe that there were two different anointings of Jesus, but one and the same woman. Same woman did this two different times.
Right. She did them both, because when you compare these four accounts, there are some some variations that cannot be reconciled, and this woman is none other than Mary of Bethany. Remember Mary and Martha, sisters of Lazarus. I believe that this is Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus two different times. The first is the anointing of gratefulness for her salvation, and the second is the anointing for Jesus's burial.
That's what I believe. Yeah, it's it's funny that you mentioned that she did this two different times because I think we look at these kind of things and then we tend to think like, oh, well, there must be some error. Like something like this can only happen once, but there's no there's no evidence for that. There's no reason to think that, right?
So to understand this, let's read from Luke chapter seven and verse thirty six.
Okay. Because you you read from verse forty one through forty three, right? But let's go back to verse thirty six. Then one of the Pharisees, ah, that that is explains all we are Pharisee.
Now what we hear about the Pharisees in the previous shows that they believed in what's known as table fellowship. Table fellowship means we're going to treat our dining table as if we are treating the altar at the temple. We're going to Keep everything pure and holy, and to the Lord, even to the point of tithing mint and anise and cumin, like even the small spices. We're going to do that. Why?
Because they believe that what goes inside makes you holy, and and then also who you eat with is very significant because that's influencing what's going inside of you. That's what the Pharisees believed, and not just the Pharisees, but the people of that time. They believed that. Jesus challenged that idea that you need to purify your food and eat your food the right way, and that's going to make you holy. Jesus challenged that because he, and then he said it: "It's not what goes inside the man that defiles him, but what comes out from the heart.
Proceed all kinds of evil things." And he said that. Yeah. So now listen to verse thirty-seven. As they're judging him for not washing his hands and associating with tax collectors and sinners, behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, sinner. More than likely, this implies that she was a prostitute or a woman who lived from one affair to another, like the Samaritan woman.
Right? She may also have been a powerful woman because we don't know, but. The servants didn't stop her. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, street urchin or something probably.
But like, hey, get out of here! Go on. I mean, I grew up in a in an Eastern culture, and and you have people just drive you away. You know, people of beg beggars or low class people that say, "Hey, go on." Not not right now. They will do that.
Really? Oh yeah, I've seen that. It's like, I mean, I was used to that. Yeah, yeah.
But now, having lived in America for coming up. Thirty-five some years. Not really.
Now it seems like, ooh, that was so mean. Yeah, I couldn't think of doing that to anybody. Like, get out of here. Do they still do it in the East? Oh, all the time.
Yeah, that's a great. That's a great point about this passage, though. I mean, people would have stopped her had she been a nobody. Yeah, she likely had some some reputation, some some authority. That's right.
And then it says, when she saw that Jesus was as at the table in the Pharisees' house, she brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil and stood at his feet behind him, weeping. Maybe it's like a triclinium that they had set up, all right. And so they were sitting down with a, and they would recline, if you remember the the Greco-Roman practice. Both the Greeks first, and then the Romans copied the Greeks. They had this practice of of of kind of putting these three couches, you know, almost perpendicular.
The two would be perpendicular at the edges of the one long couch, and people would recline from the back to the front, like they would they would lean towards the middle, and and the feet would be behind them. And she's standing by his feet, okay. And then we see that she began to wash his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head.
Now, for a woman to let down her hair in that culture was seen as a seductive and shameful act. I remember when we went to Israel, that a lot of the guide would say that is that a lot of these women who are like explicitly Jewish, you will not see their hair. Yeah, you won't see it because that's her beauty. Yeah, and and some of that was still there even back then. The big difference is her tears.
Even though her hair is loosened, the tears are very important. And she kissed his feet. Kissing the feet was the ultimate way to show someone honor and gratitude and submission. And she was anointing them with the fragrant fragrant oil.
So, anointing with oil was something unusual. In Exodus thirty verse thirty, it says, "And and you Moses shall anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them that they may minister to me as priests." Something very special with the oil and the anointing. First Samuel sixteen thirteen, then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him, meaning David, in the midst of his brothers. Psalm twenty three five. You anoint my head with with oil.
With oil, yeah, okay. That's what she's doing here. But anointing the feet would be very unusual. Yeah, because you always hear about them anointing the head. Yeah, but because.
If she was a prostitute or loose woman, then this was coming from her work.
So there's a there's a there's a demonstration of gratefulness here in this woman, right? That that the parable of the two debtors is given to illustrate that this is the proper response to having your sin and your debt forgiven, right? But the Pharisees, who had invited Jesus, when he saw this, he spoke to himself, means in his in his. Inward man, he was thinking. This man, talking about Jesus.
This man, if he were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching him. For she is a sinner. That kind of response really leans heavily to the assumption that she she was a prostitute, right? And if you and if you pull a stunt like that with a pastor, I mean, you probably go and get away with it. If you pull it with a priest, you' gonna get away with it.
You you think something like that around Jesus? Yep. Oh man, Jesus picked up on this. He said to him to the Pharisee Simon, "I have something to say to you." He says, "Teacher, say it." And that's when he talks about the the two debtors. The first one owed the creditor five hundred denari, more than a year and a half's wages, and the second one only fifty denari, which is barely two months' wages.
And when they had nothing but which to repay, he freely forgave both of them. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him more? And James, I'm sorry, Simon answered and said, "I suppose the one whom he forgave more." He said to him, "You have rightly judged." And then Jesus turned to that woman in verse 44 and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss." But this woman has not ceased to kiss my feet since the time I came in.
I mean, that was a way of embracing and welcoming people. You know, they would kiss and come on in. He didn't do that. The Pharisees just said, "Oh, oh, good to see you. Come on in.
Everything is ready. We're looking forward to having you. Come on in." But in that "come on in," there was that lack of warmth and welcome and hospitality. It's just I am playing the host right now. I am playing the host.
We'll see how far this goes. Don't really trust you. We'll see what happens. Yeah, but therefore it says, "I say to you, her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much, but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little." Yeah, means you Pharisees, Simon, you're not willing to love me because. You you haven't received the forgiveness that I have to offer.
Yeah. What do we take from all of this? I mean, you know, I'm I'm saved. I feel like I live gratefully. I feel like I'm grateful to God, but I don't know.
Maybe sometimes I lack gratefulness, or maybe there's someone listening out there, and they're like, you know what? I'm listening to this right now, and I'm pretty convinced that I don't know Jesus. I'm not saved. And if I had to answer for my debt right now, it'd be a bad day. Right.
I mean. Just, just realize that all of us are sinners against a holy and righteous God, and Jesus came to pay the the penalty of all our sins. And without that forgiveness through the death, the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross, we're lost, we're doomed, we're hell bound. But He did that for us so that we could go free. When He gave that illustration.
I'm sure there were many Pharisees who said, "Man, I don't understand. Why would he let her touch him? Does he not know who, what kind of a woman she is? She's a sinner. She's a prostitute, and you're doing that.
What's wrong with you? Maybe, maybe you like that kind of stuff." Instead of that, their response should have been, "Man, this woman is so grateful because she is free. And even though I know so much scripture and knowledge and and things of God, but I'm not free. I haven't been forgiven, but she is." They missed it. Amen.
So beautiful and such a great parable to kind of loop us back to Jesus using these stories to obscure the truth from those who wouldn't receive it, but reveal the truth to those who had ears to hear. And you don't have to miss it. You don't have to miss the point. You know, I know we're bound by this radio show. We're bound by the thirty-minute window.
But listen, there's so much more to come. Not only from this parable, but all the parables of Jesus. We're going to walk through them one by one. But our prayer is that you wouldn't miss it. Just like us looking into the mirrors of these stories, that you would.
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