The Widow With The Two Coins - Her Life And Times

The Widow with the Two Coins - Her Life And Times

MONEY

Two tiny coins. Mark identifies them as two Greek lepta, tiny copper coins worth less than a penny.

Roman coins (denarius), Greek coins (drachma, farthing), and Jewish coins (mite, pound, shekel, and talent) are all mentioned in the New Testament. The Israelites typically used the coinage of the nation that ruled over them, but they also developed their own local system of coinage.

Coins didn’t come into use in Israel until after the people returned from exile between 500 and 400 BC. Before that time people bartered, exchanging produce, animals, and precious metals for goods and services. A woman might barter a flask of oil for a new robe or the wool from a lamb for a new lamp.

The Israelites probably carried Persian and Babylonian coins back to Israel with them when they returned from exile there. These coins were rather crudely made. Each was individually punched from gold or silver or some other metal, then a design was hammered onto each side. Greek coins most often had images of nature or animals or gods stamped onto them. Later, Roman coins carried the image of the emperor of that time as well as his name. Coins have been found with the images of all twelve Roman emperors.

By Jesus’ day, a large variety of coins had come into use in Palestine. New Testament Jews used coins from Rome and Greece as well as their own Jewish form of coinage. The temple tax had to be paid in Jewish currency — in shekels. Money changers set up their businesses in order to change other coinage into shekels for temple worshipers, then, adding insult to injury, cheating their customers. Jesus was not opposed to the operation of such businesses, but to their dishonesty and to their operation within the temple itself. He furiously scattered them, declaring that his Father’s house was a house of prayer, not a business site (Matthew 21:12 – 13).

While money is necessary for life in most cultures, the Bible warns against placing more importance on it than it should rightfully have. The widow who gave all she had furnishes us with the best example of recognizing the need for money — she had money, although very little — but also the need to hold it lightly — she willingly and lovingly gave it away. Peter warns us not to be “greedy for money” (1 Peter 5:2), and the writer to the Hebrews admonishes us to keep our “lives free from the love of money and be content with what [we] have” (Hebrews 13:5). When writing to Timothy, Paul penned those famous, and often misquoted, words about money: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Timothy 6:10).

The pervasive lure of money and what it can provide — the need to have more and do more and get more — is probably more prevalent in our culture than in any other in history. Christians are just as susceptible to its enticements as anyone else. Money drives an effective and forceful wedge between our Savior and us. Jesus knew that and pointedly reminded us with these words: “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money” (Luke 16:13).