November 15, 2013
Out of Poverty
A fellow believer lamented she would be lowering
her financial support to the church because of a recent, long-term medical
crisis. I sympathized, knowing that her reasoning was shared by many, but all
the while the voice in my head was saying, our
giving corresponds with our income, not with our expenditures. However,
after further thought, I decided that my friend may have been saying that her
current giving far exceeds that of a tithe and she regrets that she’ll no
longer be able to be as generous. My thoughts turned to the widow who put two
copper coins into the temple treasury. Jesus using the situation as an object
lesson for his disciples said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put
more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of
their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to
live on.” (Mark12:43-44 NIV) I’m not sure that I’ve ever known someone to ‘give
out of their poverty’.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I have always thought it interesting at least, and maybe a bit significant, that tithes are only spoken of in the New Testament by Jesus while He was ministering to His Jewish brethren yet under the Law, and in Hebrews, which makes a marked comparison between the ineffectiveness of the Law and the effectiveness of the new Priest and His priesthood and their life in Him. One system stipulates the behavior of a population that is not the system, the other instructs, inspires, and encourages a life within the system. Both the Law and the life came from God, who is the system. But the Law requires of those who are not alive in God, while the new life grows up in those who now take part in Him. The tithe was a requirement from those without. So no New Testament instruction speaks of giving a tenth of anything. All New Testament teaching speaks to exercising the part of the new life that is generosity.
-----Paul was very clear to the Corinthians. Give according to your means. It is out of each other’s abundance that each other’s shortfalls are met. (II Cor 8) And God is able to provide abundance. (II Cor 9) My thoughts also go to the widow and her mites. She did walk out of the temple with her clothes on, fortunately. She did not give the clothing she was wearing, nor any of the clothing she had at home. Nor did she give any of the oil or wheat she may have stored for her next meal, or any of the firewood she had ready for preparing that meal, or the rug upon which she would sit to eat it. Of course, about all these we can only presume. She may have lived with a relative, and had yet only the clothing she did not give.
-----The point is that she gave up everything the two mites could have bought, which would only have been an afternoon’s provisions more, anyway. If this were all she would ever have, besides the clothing she thankfully kept, then she was so grass-in-the-fire why not use them to God’s pleasure, and then go ahead and burn away? It wasn’t that Jesus was mistaking about her giving all she had. It is just that His expression was made in the sense of giving - all you have is that which is beyond your necessities; it is not your necessities, too. Otherwise, to everyone’s horror, she also would have put her clothing in the offering.
-----Eventually, in our new lives, we come to realize just how grass-in-the-fire are the pleasures and comforts money must buy. Don’t get me wrong, they are still pleasurable. And so are their memories. But the pleasure of them goes away with the events of them, and their memories fade away shortly thereafter. Then we stand as penniless and empty as we would had we given their cost to someone who actually needed something. At least that person would have some added dimension in his life to show for our mites. And that’s the difference between a tithe and generosity.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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