And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. – Luke 19:8
Fourfold is different from four times.
Before Zacchaeus met with Jesus, his story was that of a chief tax collector who amassed great wealth by exploiting his own people on behalf of his Roman superiors.
After meeting with Jesus, Zacchaeus had a change in his story.
He had a vertical change as far as God was concerned: he was lost, but now he was found.
And then he translated that vertical change in story to a horizontal change in story by offering to restore four fold to anyone he had stolen from.
Four fold, not four times.
Four times means multiplying by 4.
Fourfold means multiplying by 2⁴…which is 16.
So he was offering to pay each person 16 times more than was taken from them.
He shouldn’t have taken the money in the first place.
But restoring 16 times more than he took was about more than simply restoring the balance.
It was about changing the story that was being told about him.
But the horizontal change came after the vertical change.
Once he was in right relationship with God, the natural consequence was restoring relationship with other people.
Changing the story in your horizontal relationships is a result of you embracing the story that Jesus came to make a reality:
You are a child of God, God loves you and He created you to live an abundant life.