Every once in a great while I find something genuinely cool on FB. This is what following #Jesus is supposed to look like.
@jonyoder On "Forgive often", I think of Jesus' statement to forgive "70 times 7".
My minister was speaking on this the other week, and he said this is not meant to be some hyperbolic arbitrarily high number meaning "As many times as you need to," as some have been raised to assume, but rather, it has special significance.
Often in the Bible, the number 70 is used to refer to a lifetime (probably because that was the average life expectancy in those days). And as you know, the number 7 is the number of perfection and completeness.
Therefore, when Jesus says you need to forgive "70 times 7", what he's likely saying is that you need to forgive every single day of your life, and you need to forgive completely.