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Forgiveness is an important topic with Christians. 
This word bounces around Christianity like a pinball in a pinball machine. 
Scripture is used a lot - to urge people to forgive others.

So many call for unconditional forgiveness, 
yet there are people who abandon the faith 
because they find themselves unable to forgive unconditionally...
unable to forgive those 
who are not sorry for what they did.

Here is a phrase spoken by Jesus on two occasions in his Gospels.

"...if he repents..."

I want to dissect the phrase 'if he repents' 
in relation to the act of forgiveness, 
and in relation to all the other scripture on forgiveness.

Matthew 4:4 says,
4 "Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."  (underline, mine)

 We need to be careful not to build any doctrine on one or two verses
 when there are a multitude of scripture on a topic. 
I think this is the case with forgiveness.

more below...

(photo: thebancruptyservice.co.uk)

Imagine that identical twin brothers were attending veterinary school.  
One day the Pathology professor gives the class an assignment.
A pair of male toucans from the local zoo - died within hours of each other.
The toucans were from the same clutch of eggs.
They were the only toucans in the aviary that died at that time.
The zoo wants to know what killed them. 
The class was assigned to autopsy the birds to determine cause of death.
The class was divided into half, and each half class would work on one bird.
The twin brothers were on different teams.
continued below...
(photo: sandiegozoo)

But the professor gave this assignment a twist. 
Study Group A was assigned to dissect their bird from the beak-down.
Study Group B was assigned to dissect their bird from the cloaca-up.
(the cloaca is the bird's you-know-what)

The professor wanted to see if it was possible to draw different conclusions 
because of different starting points.

The teams were told not to communicate with the other team 
before each team presented its report.

Do you think the twin brothers would reach identical conclusions?
continued below...

(photo: Bespoke Taxidermy UK)

And this is what I aim to do here:
Study forgiveness from the New Testament...but backwards.
Backwards, from the end of the Book of Revelation 
to the beginning of the Book of Matthew.

In June 2024, I finished a 6-month project to copy the New Testament Bible by hand, 
and it gave me the opportunity
to glean the Scriptures for verses related to forgiveness.

Part A will contain (in three sections) all scriptures that seem relevant to the topic,
without any personal comments. 

Part B will contain these same scriptures, 
but with my comments on these scriptures that may vary from standard perspective.
My comments will begin with an asterisk *.

Part C will contain my auxiliary articles on aspects of forgiveness 
that I believe are relevant.

Will your views on forgiveness remain the same after this exercise?

PS: Did you know the reason for the toucan's large beak seems to be for cooling purposes? Like elephants have large ears for cooling, 
scientists believe that toucans have large beaks for this purpose.
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