The Book of Mark
Religion and Its Victims
Mark 12:41-44
If you were here last week, you will remember that we studied from Mark 12, verses 38-40 where Jesus gave to His listeners a warning concerning the scribes who loved to parade around and put on a show and have people think they were godly men, when , in fact, they were the biggest hypocrites in town. In fact, Jesus said they would receive a greater condemnation than anyone else.
We didn’t take the time to look at Matthew’s account of the story from the 23rd chapter, but let me give you just a taste of it this evening by just seeing the repetition of one primary phrase.
Matthew 23:13, 15, 16, 17, 23, 25, 29, 33
The word “woe” means to damn or to condemn. It’s one of those words that linguists call onomatopoetic which means it sounds like its meaning. Buzz and murmur are other examples of that type of word. Here the word is “woe”. In the Greek it is “oo-ah'-ee” and it carries the idea of a groan in light of judgment.
Can you imagine the whispers that must have swept through the crowd as Jesus stands there in the temple and announces woe after woe after woe upon those who were considered to be the most holy among them and says it will be them who receive the greatest judgment of God?
Now remember, they want Him dead and already the plans are being made to make sure His death becomes a reality. And yet, with compassion and truthfulness in His heart, He delivers this message as a warning to them about the error of their ways and to the people that they aren’t misguided by them.
Then all of a sudden there’s what appears to us to be this strange twist in the story line as the focus shifts to a poor little widow who comes to the temple to worship and give her offering.
Verse 41-44
Now here we have Jesus sitting opposite the temple treasury where people gave their money, He is observing what is going on and in particular, He is watching people put their money in. And along comes this poor widow who drops in two coins. And Jesus comments that she gave more than everybody else because she put in everything she had.
And immediately the question comes to mind, “So what? What does this have to do with anything?”
After all, the very life of Jesus is in jeopardy. He has just ratcheted up the tension. Everyone is on edge as the scribes and Pharisees process this confrontation, and Jesus draws attention to this seemingly inconsequential gift.
Is He just trying to divert attention away from what is going on? Is He choosing this time to give a lesson about stewardship? What does this have to do with anything? Well, let’s think about that because this passage is routinely and universally misused in Christian churches.
Almost without exception, this woman is always presented as a model of dutiful, faithful New Testament Christian giving. She stands, we are told, in stark contrast against the ugly backdrop of the corrupt thieves and robbers among the religious leaders of Israel. She’s seen as something of a breath of fresh air, as a window in a dark room, this noble, godly woman who gives sacrificially.
Now to get to that picture is really a stretch of Scripture because these verses don’t say anything at all that would lead us to believe that.
The only things we know for sure is that this widow is poor and she dropped in a couple of coins and Jesus said she gave more than anybody else because she gave all she had. That’s all it says. We don’t know anything about her. We certainly don’t know what her motive was.
And yet, no matter who you read on this, or what sermons you might hear on this, typically people will say this is how we ought to give. This is the essence of New Testament giving. We ought to give until it hurts. We ought to give sacrificially. We ought to give so that we completely demonstrate trust in God. We ought to give like that because that how this woman gave.
But the problem with that message is there’s not one word of support in this text for any of those perspectives. It doesn’t say anything about her attitude at all. In fact, we aren’t even told she was a believer. It doesn’t say that she knew the true God or that she believed in Christ. She is not the spiritual hero in the story. In fact, far from it, she is a victim.
A victim of what? She is a victim of the system. She is the living, breathing object lesson of the statement Jesus just made. She is the epitome of what Jesus was taling about when He said the scribes devoured the widows.
That’s the connection. She is His illustration. And when we realize that, we have to realize as well that she has nothing to do with Christian giving unless you believe Christian giving means you are to give everything you have and take a vow of poverty, then go home and die.
And I’ve seen the church’s financial statement and I’ll guarantee you, nobody believes that. If they do, they sure aren’t acting on it!
Where else in the Bible is it a Christian principle of giving to give everything you have and go home and die? That is not in the Bible. It makes no sense.
And by the way, if Jesus intended her to be an example of the way to give, then why didn’t he offer a condemnation or judgment on the the people who gave less than what she did? After all, He seems to be in the mood to offer judgment. So why didn’t He address their unfaithfulness in light of her faithfulness?
He doesn’t say that the rich gave too little. He doesn’t say the widow gave exactly the right amount. He doesn’t say the rich had too much left and the widow had the right amount left. He doesn’t say the rich had a bad attitude when they gave a lot, and the woman had a good attitude when she gave everything. He doesn’t say anything about any motivations or any attitudes at all.
He makes no character assessments at all. It is simple her outward action that He offers as evidence of what the messed up system of the day did to widows like her. People like here were convinced by the crooked scribes and Pharisees if you want blessing of God, then you better give your money.
So here she comes. She’s destitute. She’s got two cents left, and she says to herself, “Either I take my two cents and buy my last meal, or I do what they tell me, send them the money and God will bless me.”
That’s the system. Send me your money. If you’re down to your last penny, send me your money, open the floodgates, God will bless you if you send me your money. And it’s amazing how similar that sounds to the TV preachers of today!
The temple had become a den of thieves and they were stealing and taking advantage of the most desperate around them. And what we have here from the Lord is not a lesson about attitudes and actions in giving. This is intended to teach us about corrupt religion.
Beware of the false shepherds, the false teachers who take the last coins out of the widows’ purse to fill their coffers on the pretense that that kind of giving is the path to blessing. That’s the prosperity gospel.
She was a victim. And the lesson is not about giving. It is about taking and it’s all in context of the judgment He is pronouncing on the false religious leaders fo the day.
And for all those in the crowd who might have questioned why Jesus was pronouncing all these “woes” on the scribes, He says, “Do you need any more evidence than this? If you want to see the truth of my words, then just consider what their teaching has done to the poorest among you.”
All those woes pronounced on the leaders are justified and validated by this one woman. She is a poor woman who is captive to a false religious system, giving everything she had with the promise from a liar that this is the path to blessing of God.
Now in the time we have left, I want to look at these verses a little more closely.
verse 41
The treasury was in the Court of the Women and it was one of Jesus’ favorite places to teach. I think that was because it was open to everyone, men, women, Jews, Gentiles and children. They could all pass through the Court of the Women.
It was also for that reason that the offering plates were located there. They put the money receptacle where everybody could get to them. And you’ll notice in our text it is called “the treasury”. That’s because there were thirteen trumpet-shaped receptacles located around the courtyard where the people gave their money.
Each of those receptacles had a specific designation. Some were for new shekel dues. Some were for old shekel dues. There were all kinds of requirements in giving.
There were various offerings for wood and incense and gold for the temple and all kinds of things.
And on a typical day like Jesus is observing, everyone would have been going around, paying their dues and putting in their offerings. Now understand, this is the very essence of their religion. They have been taught and told and convinced that the key to the blessing of God and the avoidance of judgment was found in giving offerings to appease God. The Pharisees and scribes, Jesus said in Luke 16:14, were lovers of money.
So on this day, Jesus takes a seat and watches what is going on. Now in and of itself, that must have been a heartbreaking experience for the Lord. As He watched this corrupt system take advantage of God’s people believing they were pleasing God and earning His blessing must have been heart wrenching.
And notice, verse 41 tells us there were lots of rich folks who were putting in big bucks. They weren’t being stingy. They had a lot and they gave a lot. That was the system.
And then over against that, in comes the widow and Jesus watched her as she put in two small copper coins. And notice, we are told she was “poor”. To put it the words of today, she was destitute. And the indication from the text is she is one of those who has been abused, devoured by the system.
And she puts in two mites. Now just to put that into perspective, a day’s wage was a denarius and the amount she puts in would have been one-sixty-fourth of that amount. And Jesus says that’s all she had.
So if you make $15 an hour and you work an 8 hour day, she had and gave $1.86. That’s all she had left. She had two of the smallest coin used by the Jews and she put both of them in the offering plate.
And Jesus watched that happen, turned to His disciples and said,
Verse 43
Relatively speaking, comparatively speaking, her gift was greater because it was a hundred percent. It’s as if Jesus is saying, “Do you need any more proof than this of what I’m telling you?”
The system couldn’t have been anymore corrupt than this. Scripture is full of commands, by the way, to care for the widows. But false religion has no interest in that at all. They abuse widows and they do it in the name of God. They do it in the name of Christ.
Do you think the Robert Tiltons and Ernest Angleys and Oral Roberts of the world care about the widows? They are just some of the more recent in a long list of thieves who’ve milked money from widows and taken advantage of the poor for centuries.
We’ll get into the details of what we find in the opening verses of chapter 13 sometime later, but I want you to notice what happens immediately following this lesson in the temple.
Verse 1
Now obviously this guy’s not real deep. He seems to have missed a lot. He’s looking at the beautiful architecture of the temple and how elaborate things are. And it was something wonderful. The whole Eastern side was covered in gold. It was so brilliant they say, that when the sun came up in the morning over the Mount of Olives and bounced off that wall, you couldn’t look at it. It was like looking into the sun itself.
Even in the evening when the sun was going down, and it was evening when the Lord and His disciples are talking, the glory of that temple would be only slightly diminished. And it was covered all over everywhere with pieces of art given as offerings by the rich of the day.
These votive offerings were given as a part of a prayer, a dedication to God and they were absolutely beautiful. It was a sight to see, one of the wonders of the ancient world. Some say it was the most magnificent building in the ancient world. And while this guy was impressed with the building, Jesus was not at all impressed with the system that those buildings represented. Notice how Jesus responds.
Verse 2
This thing is coming down. Any system of religion that misrepresents God and abuses widows is coming down. All the robbers, all the thieves, all the fakes, all the phony teachers and preachers, all the prosperity preachers who get rich on the gifts of desperate people looking for wealth and health, you will be judged. Sometimes judgment tarries in its coming.
In this case, it took 40 more years to arrive. But in 70 A.D., the place was destroyed and not one stone was left on another. I wonder if the prosperity preachers of our day ever read this passage and see themselves. It is a warning to any system that would prey on single older women, who are, by the way, the main constituency of people who send money to these TV evangelists.
“Woe to you who sell your miracle water from the Jordan River with its promise to heal the desperate if they send you their money. Woe to you wealthy, TV preachers who become rich on the backs of the lonely, poor, disillusioned, diseased and desperate.
Woe to you who indulge in your ten thousand dollar a night hotel rooms and claim revelations from God and spend a hundred thousand a month on your private jet, taking money for all of that from the most desperate people and doing it in the name of Christ. You will not escape judgment.”
And so, the judgment fell on them and so it always falls because God is always the same. They thought they were going to judge Jesus. The truth was, He went to the cross and out the tomb the third day and 40 years later, their nation, their temple, their religious system was completely destroyed and it has never recovered.
Aren’t you thankful that you’re a part of the true church, that you know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, believe the gospel, are in the place of blessing and not the place of judgment? God is gracious.
