On Sunday November 13th, Anthony gave an excellent sermon on Philemon and how the gospel grants forgiveness and empowers forgiveness. We wanted to post the sermon below as well as update this post with some new resources:
Articles:
How to make a confession and Extend Forgiveness - Thabiti Anyabwile (helpful tools on confessing)
On Forgiveness - Short Reflection by Frederick Buechner
Four Promises of Biblical Forgiveness - Ken Sande (helpful tools on extending forgiveness)
Forgiveness and Reconciliation - Tim Keller (helpful tools on reconciliation and boundaries)
Books:
Forgiveness: Why Should I and How Can I? - Timothy Keller
Embodying Forgiveness, A Theological Analysis - L. Gregory Jones - A thick and really helpful volume, not for everyone, but you can get a used copy for cheap!
Choosing Forgiveness - Nancy Leigh Demoss
Below are some examples of Christian witness through forgiveness after tradgedy:
Quotes:
How to Forgive, by Tim Keller:
“The only way to avoid bitterness and angry resentment is to practice forgiveness. How can we do this? Three ways:
1. Realize what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is granted before it is felt (Luke 17 v 3-6). It is a promise to not bring up the wrong with the person, or with others, or in your own thoughts; not to dwell on the hurt or nurse ill-will.
2. Realize how forgiveness is possible. We will only forgive if and as we see and feel the reality of God’s massive and costly forgiveness of us through Christ. Only knowing how vast our debt to God was, and that it is now canceled, will enable us to have perspective on someone else’s debt to us (Matthew 18 v 21-35).
3. Forgive before we try to be reconciled (Mark 11 v 25). That way we won’t approach someone angrily, or try to “beat” them. We will be able truly to seek to restore the relationship.”
“The natural flow of the fallen human heart is toward reciprocity, tit-for-tat payback, equanimity, balancing of the scales. We are far more intractably law-ish than we realize. There is something healthy and glorious buried in that impulse, or course—made in God’s own image, we desire order and fairness rather than chaos. But that impulse, like every part of us, has been diseased by the ruinous fall into sin. Our capacity to apprehend the heart of God has gone into meltdown. We are left with an impoverished view of how he feels toward his people…So God tells us in plain terms how tiny our natural views of his heart are. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways.” - Dane Ortlund
“Forgiveness is not so much a word spoken, an action performed, or a feeling felt as it is an embodied way of life in an ever-deepening friendship with the Triune God and with others. As such, a Christian account of forgiveness ought not simply or even primarily be focused on the absolution of guilt; rather, it ought to be focused on the reconciliation of brokenness, the restoration of communion—with God, with one another, and with the whole creation.” - L. Gregory Jones
"Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning" Martin Luther King Jr.
Thus the New Testament doctrine of the forgiveness of sins, on which the promise of eternal life so decidedly depends, flows from the very nature of God. He does not reluctantly forgive sins against himself and others; he does so eagerly, as a manifestation of his character, by which he delights in doing so. - D.K. Stuart, Commentary on Exodus 34
"If one by one we counted people out
For the least sin, it wouldn’t take us long
To get so we had no one left to live with.
For to be social is to be forgiving.” -
Robert Frost
"The narrative of forgiveness is submitting and it means that you're weak, or people would think that. But I've realized that forgiving is so much tougher than holding a grudge. It takes a lot more courage to forgive than it does to say 'I'm going to be upset about whatever forever.' “ - Chris Singleton - Mother murdered by Dylan Roof in Charleston shooting