Thank you Bernie, I appreciated your “two cents worth”! I don’t live in the United States where a day’s wage is $15. Where I live, the majority live on $2 a day or less. How can these poor people be expected to give $2 when they go to church? A person shouldn’t feel like they are not welcomed in GOD’s temple because they have no money. There is a coin used in the country where I reside of such little value it is thrown in the street. Its value is 1/30 of a USA penny. Merchants and taxi drivers will not accept it. Banks won’t exchange it unless you bring in 150 of this coin, the equivalent of 50 cents, USA.
Yet the merchants and the utility departments keep them on hand to give out when your total contains a portion of a cent. When I first came to this country, six years ago, I could pick up a dozen of these coins in a week from the street. Not even the beggars wanted it. Now that hard times have come, it’s much harder to find this coin on the street.
The point Jesus was making was if you have no money, but you have faith, faith that GOD requires nothing from his servants except for our obedience, our love, and the best worship we can give, then prove it. Pick up two small coins from the street, the coins of “very little value” and proudly present them as your offering. Don’t worry about what people will say. Have faith that GOD appreciates your effort. That is the definition of “poor”, as in the “poor” widow woman.
I’ve never been hungry a day in my life. I don’t know what poor is yet, but I expect that before this system ends, I will know what it feels like to give from my needs. I just hope I will still have the faith to do it when it happens. For practice, I sometimes drop in the coins from the street. I don’t know what they do with them maybe they throw them back in the street, maybe they keep them in a jar until they collect 150 so the bank will accept them. I don’t know, I don’t care. What I know for sure is that it feels great! What I know for sure is my contribution counts, no matter how small it is.
Her contribution was worth more than all the contributions that came from the change found in the purses and pockets of her fellow believers, who probably didn’t have much to give either. You cannot put a price on Jesus’s illustration. To say it’s worth $1.80 is an insult to my faith and to my intelligence and to my GOD. May your collection boxes be filled to the max with small coins of very little value!

The Temple worship of that day can be compared to our modern Mafia. What does a Mafia do? They cheat people, skim money off the top and kill people just like the Pharisees did in the first century. So why is it an example of exemplary giving when a poor widow gives her last two cents to the Mafia? Jesus certainly would not approve of that and that is why he made no comment as to his approval or disapproval of the contribution. He merely acknowledged that she gave her all that was more than all the rest. In fact Jesus rebels against Corban just 5 chapters earlier against those that would not take care of their parents because they gave it all to God. Why would he now say this is a good thing to give all the money to a corrupt organization?

Immediately following the passage of the widow’s mite Jesus predicted the total destruction of the Temple. So are we to believe that the widow’s contribution to a corrupt organization that was to be destroyed is honorable or exemplary? . Hardly not.

One has to be extremely biased to try to use the widow’s mite as an example of exemplary giving and try to use the passage as a fundraiser. There are much better ways to talk about unselfish giving than the use the widow’s mite. God Bless.