The Rich And The Widow

The Rich And The Widow 

Jesus taught many lessons to His disciples by teaching them to watch people and learn from their actions and attitudes. Sitting in the Temple Jesus observed a contrast of people who lived at opposite ends of the economic scale. “Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood’”(Mark 12:41-44; see also Luke 21:1-4).

The rich had an abundance of wealth to put into the treasury. God had blessed them with the bounty of increase and they were showing their love for Him by returning their bounty to the Lord. In this story Jesus was not condemning the rich for giving so much but rather making a lesson of contrast. The widow had so little to give to the Lord and yet she was willing to give all she had. God notices the small people! He knows those who struggle daily and sees their hearts still trusting and serving Him. While men are judged by their philanthropy the character of all men are examined by God from the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).

Turn the camera back a few hours when the widow was leaving her home. It was not a grand palace of luxury where servants waited on the master and food was plentiful. She did not wear nice clothes nor enjoy the benefits of comfort as the rich. Her husband had died and may have led to much of her poverty. Bread was scarce in her home and the gnawing pains of hunger she knew all too well. As she prepared to go the Temple she gathered what she had (two mites) and began walking to the Temple. No one would give her notice. No one would give her help. Entering the Temple she would be overlooked in the crowd. Approaching the place of treasury her two mites would hardly make a sound on the heap of riches left by those before her. But God saw her.

She did not notice the man sitting off to the side watching her. As she left the Temple she would return to her home of poverty to scrape out another meal, some oil for the lamp and hope that hunger would not be as severe as before. Most likely in a future time when she could find two mites again she would journey to the Temple to give glory to God by her sacrificial offering. She loved God. She loved to show what small amount of gratitude she could muster for the God she served. Her two mites were all she had but the Lord was all she needed. A contrast of characters – the rich and their abundance and the widow in her poverty.

The widow knew dependence on God. Her small gift was all she could do but she did all she could do. Jesus picked her out of the crowd and preserved her story through the ages to remind us the measure of a man is not on the amount of his gift but the gift of the heart shown by a widow. Like Lazarus who lay at the gate of the rich man (Luke 16:19-31) her circumstance was dire but her love for the Lord was not. Even in her poverty she trusted in God and depended on God. Her greatest blessing and reward came when she was carried by angels to the bosom of Abraham. Our greatest blessing is to know the lesson of the widow and know that God cares for me.