Luke 7:47: is her love the cause of the forgiveness, or the evidence of it?
47Because of this, I tell you: many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much. But he who is forgiven less, loves less.”
The conjunction linking forgiveness and love is the piece in dispute: it can mark cause or it can mark proof. The second half of the verse, about the one who loves less, is the clue — and it describes a consequence.
Short answer
Luke 7:47 says a woman’s many sins are forgiven because she loved much. The sentence allows two readings — love as cause or as evidence of forgiveness — and the parable Jesus tells immediately before pushes toward the second. The closing half, about the one who loves little, is the part usually dropped.
- Written by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 2 min read
It is a scene of social embarrassment, and the verse is the close of a conversation in which Jesus answers a thought nobody had said out loud.
Where this verse appears
Jesus is at dinner in the house of a Pharisee named Simon. A woman of the town, described as a sinner, comes in, weeps at his feet and wipes them with her hair — a socially scandalous gesture.
Simon thinks to himself that if Jesus were a prophet he would know what sort of woman that is. Jesus answers the thought with a short parable: two debtors, debts of different sizes, both forgiven. Which of them will love more?
What it says
The parable is the key. In it, forgiveness comes first and gratitude after — the debtor who owed more loves more because he received more. If the verse follows the same logic, the woman’s love is the consequence of a pardon already granted.
The grammar, though, leaves the door open. The conjunction used can mark cause, and part of the tradition has read it that way. Both readings have serious defenders, and this site does not choose between them.
The second half of the sentence appears least in quotations and is perhaps the most important: the one forgiven little loves little. That is not praise for the quantity of sin — it is an observation about someone who considers himself hardly in need, which was exactly the host’s position.
What to do with it today
The question the scene returns is not about the woman. It is about Simon, and about the reader: do you consider yourself a debtor for very little? The answer to that, according to the verse, sets the size of the affection.
And there is a detail about behaviour. The text compares point by point what the woman did and what the host failed to do — water, a kiss, oil. It is worth noticing that affection showed itself in concrete, uncomfortable gestures rather than in declared feeling.
What the passages say
44And turning to the woman, he said to Simon: “Do you see this woman? I entered into your house. You gave me no water for my feet. But she has washed my feet with tears, and has wiped them with her hair.
The comparison Jesus draws between the woman and the host, item by item. It is what turns the scene from a moral judgment into a failure of hospitality.
50Then he said to the woman: “Your faith has brought you salvation. Go in peace.”
The line Jesus speaks directly to her three verses later, attributing her salvation to faith. It is an important datum for anyone arguing about verse 47.
A prayer to carry with you
Lord, I think of myself as owing very little, and that is why I love very little. Show me the real size of my account, and let me love in proportion. Amen.