Mark 12
v.12
Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away.
v.17
Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” And they were amazed at him.
Give to God what is God’s could be call to give our lives to Him. He that made us in His own image shows that we belong to Him and ought to give our lives to Him.
v.24
Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?
They professed to believe in Moses, yet they denied the existence of spirits and the fact of the resurrection, but Jesus Christ proved to a demonstration that God cannot be the God of the dead.
v.27
He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!”
v.30
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.‘
v.31
The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
v.34
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
v.36
David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: “‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your feet.”’
v.40
They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.”
We often hear foolish people say “You must always preach in love, and not say anything against anybody, Jesus did not denounce anybody.” Oh, dear! then what about this denunciation of the scribes? Were Jesus here today, He would not be the molluscous creature that some people want us to be. He had a backbone, and a conscience, and a very heavy right hand, and He brought that hand down, like a sledgehammer, upon cant and hypocrisy and error, and if we would be like Christ, we must be manly, and bold, and outspoken.
They tell us this in order that we may easily glide through the world, and that all men may speak well of us. But so did their fathers to the false prophets, and do you suppose that we, who preach God’s Word, are going to keep back any part of our testimony because it will bring us into ill repute with the ungodly? God forbid! We live for something higher and nobler than being fed upon the breath of evil men.
If there be error in high places, if there be vice anywhere, it is the duty of the minister of Christ, in His Master’s name, to attack it with all his might. Here we find our Lord and Master plainly declaring that the scribes, the great masters of the law, were a set of pretentious hypocrites, who robbed even the widow and the fatherless, and who would, in due time, “receive greater damnation.” Even so must the truth still be spoken, whoever may be offended by it.
Jesus does not praise but rather laments this woman’s behavior. She has been taught “sacrificial giving” by her religious leaders, and that is the pity. These authorities promised to redistribute Temple collections to the needy. In actuality, they spent the funds on conspicuous consumption instead: long robes and banquets. This is how they “devoured the estates of widows.”
This gives the appropriate context for understanding the poor widow who gave out of her poverty. Learned this on 10/22/22! Praise God for His Holy Spirit who illuminates divine truths to His children!
v.44
They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything - all she had to live on.”
The context of the Biblical account of the widow who gave her last two mites is not meant to teach sacrificial giving. In fact, the Lord’s real point is virtually the antithesis of how the passage is usually treated. The Lord here teaches the crime—one of which any false religious system is guilty—of having no particular interest in the welfare of the individual, but a great deal of interest in exploiting the giver for the system’s own gain.
The widow gave all she had under the misguided impression that she was serving God. This is why the Lord said (v. 40) that the scribes were guilty of devouring widows’ houses. The scribes, with no apparent pangs of conscience, actively promoted the kind of extreme sacrifice exhibited by this poor widow. And Jesus clearly is teaching that the coercions and intimidations practiced by the scribes were evil. A further irony—the most tragic of all—is that the scribes of Jesus’ day promoted such a heretical doctrine while this unfortunate person, as well as the rest of the nation of Israel, headed for destruction.
Do not give if it hurts; God does not want—or need—that kind of giving.
That the highest evidence of love to the cause of religion is not the “amount” given, but the amount compared with our means. That God does not despise the humblest offering, if made in sincerity. He loves a cheerful giver. We may remark that few practice self-denial for the purpose of charity. Most give of their abundance - that is, what they can spare without feeling it, and many feel that this is the same as throwing it away. Among all the thousands who give to these objects, how few deny themselves of one comfort, even the least, that they may advance the kingdom of Christ!