“The one forgiven much loves much”

Read Luke 7:36-50

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Only Luke has this story which follows on from 7:34-35. Jesus was glad to eat not just with sinners but with Pharisees too (36; 14:1). Such meals quickly highlighted the difference between them, as with this outrageous display of love and adoration shown to Jesus by a sinful woman (37-38).

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Simon’s rude reply is also outrageous (39) but Jesus addresses it with a simple parable which forces him to concede that gratitude is a proper response to a written-off debt and the larger the debt then the greater the gratitude (40-43). Simon’s welcome had been cold and miserly compared with the warm and open-hearted affection shown by the woman.

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“Therefore” it’s clear that this woman has been forgiven much, otherwise she wouldn’t have shown such great love (47). She wasn’t forgiven because of her love but her love was in response to the forgiveness she’d received and which Jesus now affirmed for all to hear (48). Such a claim was even more outrageous than the woman’s action (49-50) yet that’s what Jesus is able to do. Those who know “the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God’s grace lavished on us” (Eph.1:7) will love him wholeheartedly in return (Rom.12:1).