Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

According to Matthew 18:21–35 it is important to forgive others as we are forgiven by God, as illustrated by the negative example of the unforgiving servant.

But because he couldn't pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.

The setting is the court of some king in another country, where the "servants" could rank as highly as provincial governors.

However, there is a very relevant aspect of Roman law that may have been the cultural reference this parable is built around considering the Judeans of Jesus day were ruled by Rome.

A debtor who does not pay can be taken to court and put in chains and forced into a number of arrangements whereby they work off the debt through servitude.

Lapide notes that under Roman civil law, which the Jews of Christ's time were subject, debtors sometimes were delivered by their creditors to tormentors, who put them in prison, and scourged them.

The Emperor Constantine the Great, from Christian kindness, ended the punishment of scourging debtors.

[5][6] There have been numerous depictions of this parable in art, including: In Stephen King’s novel Misery, a former nurse and serial killer named Annie Wilkes kindnaps an author named Paul Sheldon and keeps him locked in a room to write novels for her.