Beatitudes - Sermon on the MountSample

Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:7 (CEV), “God blesses those people who are merciful. They will be treated with mercy!” To have mercy or be merciful is to have compassion for people in need or show forgiveness when otherwise someone might deserve punishment.

Later in the book of Matthew, we read that Jesus teaches about mercy again; he shares a parable about a servant who owed the king 10,000 bags of gold. The servant couldn’t pay the money back and begged the king to forgive his debt. Instead of locking the servant up and selling all his possessions to cover the debt, the king had mercy for the servant and forgave him what he owed and let him go. Later the servant went out to find another servant who owed him 100 silver coins; he grabbed him by the neck, yelling, “Pay back what you owe!”

“Please give me time; I’ll pay it back!” cried the other servant. But instead of forgiving his debt, the first servant threw him in prison until he could pay the money he owed. When the king found out, he said to the servant, “I forgave all you owed me. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on the other servant, just as I showed mercy for you?”

Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount and in this parable that in God’s Kingdom, we can show mercy and kindness to others because God has shown mercy and kindness to us.