I've been rethinking the widow and her last offering of two cents that Jesus observes in the temple just before He goes to the cross.

I, like many a preacher have used this passage and talked about the generosity of the widow, not because of how much she gave but how sacrificial in comparison to what she had left, which was not much.

Mark 12, Luke 20-21, and Matt 23 all come at this scene from different angles. Reading them all together I've changed my viewpoint of what was going on here. Sacrificial giving is taught in scripture but I think what Jesus was focused on here was how NOT to give.

Jesus was in the public part of the temple known as the Woman's Court, he had been teaching there all day. Mostly scathing words to the religious leaders who were rejecting His message. Jesus was denouncing and raining down judgment on them. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites".

These same religious leaders had bastardized Jewish worship. "You invalidate the Word of God for the sake of your tradition, you hypocrites!" "You worship Me in vain, teaching as doctrines the traditions of men."

The "treasury" mentioned in the scene was an elaborate set up of thirteen trumpets or shofars in which people would put money in for various offerings. I think Jesus was tired, he was sitting and looking down and he looked up and saw people giving. A widow gave her last pennies to a system that Jesus was opposing. The scribes and the Pharisees loved money, they in fact preyed on widows to get their money. I think Jesus was angry.

A system that demands the last of everything a widow has is opposite to all New Testament teaching on how we are to care for widows. Think about it, if you saw a religion, business, or any other entity guilt a poor widow of her last pennies, hopefully, we would be appalled.

I've been thinking a lot lately about why God teaches us to be generous. In that pursuit, I relooked at this passage and saw how God does NOT want us to give. Giving out of fear or trying to buy our salvation is not how we are to give and "woe" to those that promote such a religious system.