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‘They did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had.’
Mar_12:44
II. The gift.—Two mites. Wealth, commerce, religious custom reckoned it small; but in the judgment of God the gift was exceedingly great.
III. The scene of the gift.—It was bestowed in the Temple of God; it was deposited in one of thirteen boxes in the women’s court. It is meet and right that we give where we receive.
IV. The object of the gift.—These two mites were given as a freewill offering to the support of the Temple, its institutions and its services, and the offering them with this intent constituted this poor widow a contributor to all that the Temple yielded, to all it offered to heaven, and to all it gave to the children of men.
V. The spirit of the offering.—The spirit of true piety and of real godliness. It may be that in her worship she had been saying, ‘I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength,’ and that love gave all.
VI. Divine recognition of the gift.—The Lord Jesus Christ saw the gift, estimated it, approved it, and commended the giver.
Illustrations
(1) ‘The stinginess of professing Christians in all matters which concern God and religion is one of the crying sins of the day, and one of the worst signs of the times. The givers to Christ’s cause are but a small section of the visible Church. Not one baptized person in twenty, probably, knows anything of being “rich towards God” (Luk_12:21). The vast majority spend pounds on themselves, and give not even pence to Christ.’
(2) ‘If the Church is going to overtake the world, certainly its scale of giving will have to be increased a hundredfold. On pleasure, on drink, on everything else, this nation spends its millions freely, while it grudges its “small sums” for the work of the Church.’