All Articles For Both Coins

Rev. Smit is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church in Doon, Iowa. Would you have given the second coin? By nature both we and the poor widow of Mark 12:41-44would have kept the second coin. By nature we do not love God so much that we would have given the second coin. “Me” always comes first. We will try to get away with robbing the Lord’s treasury as much as we can, before we will ever be forced to give to it. We will not give sufficiently unless we really have to or unless it comes to the point, for example,...

Rev. Smit is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Doon, Iowa. We consider now the second principle we must remember about true giving. The second principle that we must remember is that the God who gives us all things in life, even our offerings for His treasury, is our God for Christ’s sake alone. The earthly gifts that we have, God gives to us as a blessing in Jesus Christ. We deserve to have the Lord curse us through these earthly gifts because of our sin. In fact, with respect to our giving, we deserve to perish because of...

Rev. Smit is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Doon, Iowa. Both coins fell from a poor widow’s hand into the treasury of the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus observed this action because, according to Mark 12:41, “Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how people cast money into the treasury….” Jesus saw the offerings of all the rich who cast in much, but He also saw the offering of a poor widow, who had come to worship Jehovah in His temple in true thanksgiving. Jesus took special note of the widow and her two mites (Mark 12:42). He sovereignly...