Some of you younger people probably don’t remember the last time you handled cash, much less coin because you pay exclusively with an app on your phone or with a debit or credit card. If that’s the case, you’re not likely to know the joy of unloading your change onto the table once you get home and occasionally finding something interesting in there like an actual silver quarter from many decades ago, which you find when you put your change down and you hear a particularly bright clinkingsound. Or you find pesos that have been passing for pennies as they’ve travelled through pockets and registers and tip jars. Or an Indian Head Penny from 1907 like the one I was amazed to find one day a while back.
There’s stuff to learn from those coins history lessons from their dates and images, the beauty and detail formed in the minting process, the types of metals that were used. You don’t need to be a professional numismatist to enjoy coins and to learn a few things!
There were a LOT of coins being dropped into 13 trumpet-shaped boxes that lined the walls of a courtyard in the Temple at Jerusalem on the day Jesus took a seat across from them so that he could watch people give their offerings to the LORD. As he carefully observed the people and the amount of money they deposited in the boxes, there were a couple things that stood out to him and a couple of coins in particular. They, and the woman who gave them, caught his attention and caused him to turn that courtyard into a classroom where he could teach a lesson about generosity.
A Couple of Coins in a Courtyard Classroom
1. Catch the Attention of Our Lord
2. Teach Us a Lesson about Generosity
I know you want to get to the lesson Jesus taught his disciples so that you can learn it and live it, but you have other questions I know it. What courtyard of the Temple was this? This widow was there, and women couldn’t go into all of the courts. This one was actually called the Women’s Court. Everyone could go there and give their offerings, but the women couldn’t go beyond that part of the Temple complex. What kind of offerings would a person make there? All kinds of them! Men over 20 would slip a half-shekel in there each year for the Temple Tax that kept up the buildings and supported sacrifices. Incidentally, the Shekel of Tyre that the Temple required for that tax was at least as much pure silver as our old quarters this is why they liked that one! These boxes were the ones Mary and Joseph dropped the money for a couple turtle doves or pigeons when they dedicated Jesus, their firstborn son, to God as all Jewish parents did. Other required offerings slid down the funnel and into those boxes. Voluntary, free-will offerings to the LORD did too.
You might also be wondering, why would Jesus sit down to scrutinize the people’s giving?! You might wonder about this too: why was he was doing this on Tuesday of Holy Week his last ever trip to the Temple because he would die not far from it just three days later?! With the clock ticking on his life, Jesus sat down in the temple court precisely at the place where people gave their offerings so that he could watch the people as they gave. And the Greek word for what he was doing is explicit: Jesus was studyingthe people as they gave their offerings, AND
he did this for sometime. For people who tend to be discrete when they put cash or envelopes into the offering plate, or like the privacy that online giving affords, and who don’t talk much about their giving to God, the thought of Jesus sitting there, watching, staring, studying, probably makes us a bit uncomfortable!
Can you imagine it? He could maybe see some of those coins. He could possibly tell what people were giving by the sound too. A heavy clink...clink,clinkas a few silver Shekels of Tyre fell into the pile of coins at the bottom. A very different sound than the metallic whisper made by the ones the widow dropped in tiny copper or bronze coins only a bit more in diameter than a button and thinner.
As people who had lots of money offered those bigger, heavier, more valuable coins, it’s those two little ones that caught Jesus’ attention. And not only the coins, but the giver. It was a widow who had nothing butthose two tiny coins. She dropped them both into the bell of the trumpet-topped chest as an offering to the LORD. 100% of what she had. It’s not hard to imagine a little prayer of thanks and trust as her fingers let go of the coins. And then the courtyard became a classroom.
“Comehere!Guys,comehere!”As his disciples gathered around him, the Teacher said, “Youseethatpoorwidowrightthere?ShejustgavemoretoGodthananyoneelseinthis courtyard.”Ok, so, Jesus obviously wasn’t teaching math.
It wasn’t so much the monetary value of the offerings that day that interested Jesus. Oh, he noticed that too, because the amount since it demonstrates a percentage of God’s blessings to a person is an indicator of the spiritual condition of the heart. Another indicator is the attitude with which a person gives to the Lord. It is of high value to God also.
As the Teacher analyzed the people in the courtyard like a jeweler investigating a diamond through a loop, he could see behind the facial expressions and their words and their clothing and their body language and he could determine the purity of their minds and hearts. What he saw wasn’t good. He saw attitude problems that were behind their amount problems.
It says that Jesus saw Many rich people put in large amounts, who all gave out of their surplus. In hisgospel, Luke tells us that Jesus also said that they put in some of their leftovers as gifts to God. These are not complimentary statements.
Wealthy Christian people often have problems with this. Jesus said so comments about camels and needles and rich people and heaven come to mind. Generous giving, to say nothing of startlingly generous giving from those who are in a more comfortable position to practice it is rare.
God has always expected that his people would look at the entire amount he has given them and then give a percentage back to him in thanks for his many blessings. He tells us in his Word that this pleases him. One of the ways God’s people show how much they value him is in what they return to him and the attitude with which they give.
This was true when he required that 10% be returned to him (a tithe), along with the other offerings and sacrifices he prescribed. All told, it’s been estimated that he was expecting somewhere between 20-25%. How much New Testament Christians value the grace and salvation they have because of Jesus is also seen in their giving back to him. We, of course, are not under that Old Testament Law; we have freedom in Christ to give whatever we want. We’ll come back to that in a minute.
Besides the pride and selfishness and empty worship and giving that was not sacrificial or proportionate or appreciative of God’s lavish blessings, Jesus saw at least one faith-filled heart and a gift given that revealed great trust in God. What Jesus saw in that widow was worth pointing out to teach his followers.
He did not see the sin that sometimes afflicts those whose earnings are light, whose wealth is meager. They’re sometimes resentful of those who have more. They sometimes clutch their coins tightly in fear for their future and a lack of trust in the Lord to provide for them. We might give in to those sins; that poor widow didn’t.
Since she gave all she had, you might say that she didn’t know where her next meal would come from. But I think she did. She hadn’t heard Jesus teach, “Give us today our daily bread,” but that is certainly where her hope was: in the Lord…just for that day. The next day that trust would kick in again. And then new again the day after that. And the Lord would provide just what she needed…because that’s who God is…and that’s what he does. She could practice startling generosity toward God because she had great faith and love for God. That’s a lesson we all need to learn, just as his first disciples did.
We have our giving sins, don’t we? Only leftovers to the Lord of lavish love, only scraps for our Savior, worry about how we’ll get by if we give generously, trust in our wealth instead of trust in God, pride when we give what we think is a lot, complaining or resentment even while we are giving, comparing what we are able to give with what someone else can and feeling guilty about it, abusing the freedom God allows for us to give whatever we want by giving very little or nothing at all. Oh, the “giving” sin list is long! We need Jesus to teach us. When we realize that he’s sitting across from us too and sees exactly whatwe give and howwe give it, his wish is that we will reconsider what we’re doing and why we’re doing it that way.
He sacrificed all he had his very life. Maybe these words from 1 Peter ought to come to our minds: You were redeemed…not with things that pass away, such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ… Through him you are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God (v.18,19,21). That’s exactly the thing that brings a Christian to give generously to God. It is a response of thanks and love.
We know this. We trust this. But we sometimes forget that the Savior who loved us enough to give everything for us is also the one we can trust for everything we need every day. We sometimes get tied to the things of this world and treasure them more than we treasure our God and his forgiveness and heaven. We know this shouldn’t be. The Teacher in the courtyard calls us to come to him and consider this woman with the two coins and learn a lesson about giving generously to God. It gives us a chance to repent to apologize to God, to trust that he forgives us, and to change whatever has been wrong in our hearts and in our gifts to him.
I am fortunate to have a few coins that were in circulation at the time Jesus sat in the Court of Women just days before he died. One was minted when Caesar Augustus issued a decree that all the world should be taxed and a very special baby was born an extremely generous gift from God.
A couple others are among the kinds of coins that could have been put in the offering box by the widow at the Temple. You never know, this Jewish coin from 100 BC or this one designed by Pontius Pilate and struck in Jerusalem the year Jesus died, could have been dropped in that box as Jesus sat there watching. This woman admired by Jesus may have held one of these very coins in her hand. I’d like to think so anyway!
We can look at these coins—and I’d be happy to show them to you if you’re interested in taking a look and we can remember the lesson Jesus taught to his disciples. Coins or not, you now know the true story of a poor woman’s generous gift to God, and Jesus has taught you a lesson in generosity. Now you can leave the courtyard with gratitude in your heart to God and practice startling generosity just as she did. Amen.
Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
38 He also said to them in his teaching, “Beware of the experts in the law who like to walk around in long robes and receive greetings in the marketplaces. 39 They love the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. 40 They devour widows’ houses and offer long prayers to look good. These men will receive greater condemnation.” 41 Jesus sat down opposite the offering box and was watching how the crowd put money into it. Many rich people put in large amounts. 42 One poor widow came and put in two small bronze coins, worth less than a penny. 43 He called his disciples together and said to them, “Amen I tell you: This poor widow put more into the offering box than all the others. 44 For they all gave out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything all that she had to live on.”
The silver shekel of Tyre (the size of a quarter, but twice as heavy), was the only coin accepted at the Temple for the Temple Tax. These are likely the coins Judas received for his betrayal of Christ.
Pontius Pilate designed this coin in 30 AD (LIZ = Roman date for the 17th year of the reign of Tiberius). A wreath surrounds the date. On the other side the words are “Of Tiberius Caesar” and has a lituus a wooden staff or wand used by Roman augurs to signify authority.
