Forgiveness in the Bible: How Do We Forgive Those Who Hurt Us  

Curated insights from Love Like You’ve Never Been Hurt by Jentezen Franklin 

Forgiveness in the Bible is not a single act but a way of life. When Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive someone who wronged him, Jesus answered seventy times seven, a number meant to push us past counting altogether. Scripture treats forgiveness as something we release again and again, not a debt we keep tallying. 

Jesus was not capping forgiveness at 490. He was teaching us to stop keeping a record of wrongs at all. 

The passage behind the teaching 

This teaching comes from Matthew 18, where Peter asks how often he must forgive a brother who sins against him and offers seven times as a generous guess. Jesus raises the number to seventy times seven and then tells a parable to explain it: A king forgives a servant who owes him ten thousand talents, a debt impossible to repay. That forgiven servant then grabs a fellow servant over a far smaller sum and has him thrown in prison. In Love Like You’ve Never Been Hurt, pastor Jentezen Franklin reads the unpayable debt as a picture of our own sin debt before God. We have been forgiven far more than we will ever be asked to forgive, and the parable ends with a sober warning that the Father expects forgiven people to forgive. 

What does the Bible say about forgiveness? 

What the Bible says about forgiveness starts with a change in posture, from keeping score to losing count. Franklin draws three truths drawn straight from Jesus’s answer to Peter: 

1. Forgiveness is not about keeping score. It is about losing count. Most of us track offenses like a mental spreadsheet, tallying every wrong, and Jesus calls us out of accounting entirely. 

2. It is unforgivable not to forgive. As Franklin puts it, “If you do not release forgiveness, you will not receive forgiveness.” Jesus links the two directly in Matthew 6:14 (NKJV): the Father forgives those who forgive. 

3. The best in us is often drawn out by the worst done to us. The pain is real, yet God uses it to lift rather than to destroy, the way a headwind gives an airplane the resistance it needs to climb. 

As Franklin captures it: “Forgiveness is not about keeping score. It’s about losing count.”  

Keeping score	Losing count
Records every offense	Releases offenses as they come
Treats wrongs as permanent	Treats forgiveness as a lifestyle
Feeds bitterness	Opens the door to healing

Forgiving others who hurt you 

Forgiving others who hurt you is, in Scripture, inseparable from being forgiven yourself. The servant in the parable had just been released from a ten-million-dollar debt when he seized a man who owed him a fraction of that. The horror of the story is the contrast, and the other servants who watch it unfold are described as grieved. Franklin’s point is that we are always the first servant: forgiven an unpayable amount, then asked to extend a far smaller mercy. This is why Jesus could tie the Father’s forgiveness of us to our forgiveness of others. Refusing to forgive is not a small thing in the Bible; it shuts the door we ourselves need open. 

What forgiveness does not mean 

Much of the struggle to forgive comes from misunderstanding what forgiveness actually requires. Franklin names three things forgiveness does not mean, and each one answers a question people quietly carry: 

1. Forgiveness does not mean you forget what happened. “Forgive and forget” is not in the Bible. Forgiveness does not erase the memory or minimize the offense; over time, by grace, you simply begin to remember differently. 

2. Forgiveness does not release the offender from consequences. You can forgive someone and still let justice run its course. Vengeance belongs to God, not to us, but forgiveness and accountability are not opposites. 

3. Forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. You can forgive a person without rebuilding a relationship that would be unsafe. Where there is ongoing abuse or no repentance, boundaries can remain in place. Forgiveness is required; reconciliation is not always wise. 

How to begin forgiving today 

Beginning to forgive starts with a decision rather than a feeling. 

“Forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling,” Franklin writes, and waiting until the hurt fades before forgiving usually means it never happens. He compares releasing forgiveness to getting ketchup from an old glass bottle: it rarely pours all at once, so you keep tapping and keep choosing it. From there he offers three practical steps: 

1. Open your heart. You cannot heal or move forward until you do. 

2. Extend compassion. Try to separate the person from the action, without excusing what was done. 

3. Release the person from the prison you have put them in inside your heart. 

Forgiveness, in this sense, releases more than the offender. The first healing recorded in the Bible was not of a body but of bitter water: at Marah, whose name means “bitter,” God made undrinkable water sweet (Exodus 15). Before he healed a disease, God healed bitterness. The same pattern runs to the cross, which happened in an atmosphere of forgiveness, where Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34 NLT), and through which “he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities” (Colossians 2:15 NLT). When we forgive, Franklin argues, we step into that same freedom and healing. 

Frequently asked questions 

What does the Bible say about forgiveness? 

The Bible teaches that forgiveness is required of everyone God has forgiven. Jesus ties the Father’s forgiveness of us to our willingness to forgive others (Matthew 6:14), framing forgiveness as a continual lifestyle rather than a one-time act. 

Does the Bible say to forgive and forget? 

No. “Forgive and forget” does not appear anywhere in Scripture. Forgiveness does not wipe out the memory of what happened, but it does free you to remember the offense differently over time. 

Does forgiving someone mean you have to reconcile with them? 

Not always. Forgiveness is always required, but reconciliation may be unwise when a relationship is abusive or the other person refuses to take responsibility. You can forgive fully and still keep healthy boundaries. 

How many times does the Bible say to forgive? 

Jesus told Peter to forgive seventy times seven. The number is not a quota of 490 but a way of saying forgiveness should be continual, a lifestyle rather than a count. 

This article was drafted with an AI research tool and reviewed and verified against the source manuscript by Joyce Perez, Marketing Manager.