About this sermon
Jesus warns against the scribes who love long robes, honored seats, and long public prayers while they devour widows’ houses. Religious hypocrisy earns greater condemnation, and Jesus teaches degrees of punishment in hell. A poor widow then drops two small coins into the temple treasury, all she has to live on, and Jesus says she has given more than all the rich. Christ became poor to make his people rich, and gratitude for his grace moves them to give sacrificially.
Sermon transcript
standing for the reading of God’s Word. We continue our consideration of the Gospel of Mark, and we are at the end of Mark chapter 12. My sermon text today, Mark 12, verses 38 through 44. Mark chapter 12, verses 38 through 44. Dear ones, let us hear God’s holy Word. Remember, this is Passion Week. This is the week leading up to our Lord’s crucifixion. In his teaching, he was saying, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like respectful greetings in the marketplaces and chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets, who devour widows’ houses and for appearances’ sake offer long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation. And he sat down opposite the treasury and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury, and many rich people were putting in large sums.
A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. Calling his disciples to him, he said to them, truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury, for they all put in out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty put in all she owned, all she had to live on. Dear ones, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Bow our heads in prayer and ask the Lord to bless the preaching of his word. Heavenly Father, what a privilege it is to have access to your holy word. Lord, this is a high privilege. We ask that you would give us the grace to hear the truths of your word proclaimed this day with reverence and awe.
We ask that by your spirit you would cause our hearts to be open and receptive to that which the Spirit is speaking in this portion of your God-breathed scriptures. Lord, we ask that you would grant unto me, your unworthy servant, the grace to speak forth and declare your word with clarity, with power, with the assistance of your Holy Spirit, and that your name might be glorified and that your people would be built up in grace and faith. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. Dear friends, the title of my sermon today is Pretentious Piety and a Poor Widow. And there’s quite a number of key words that the children of all ages can be listening for if you find that helpful. The words hypocrisy, piety, condemnation, salvation, giving, sacrifice, and generosity.
I’d encourage the children to pick a couple of those words and count the number of times that I say those words. Well, dear ones, as the flow of Mark’s gospel moves us closer to the event of our Lord’s crucifixion, Mark records many of the events and teachings of Christ that had taken place during Passion Week, that is to say, during the last week of our Lord’s life, the week leading up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Now in the previous context, our Lord Jesus Christ had criticized the experts in the law, namely the scribes, the Bible scholars of the day basically, for their erroneous understanding of the Messiah. And so on the last Lord’s Day we considered verses 35 through 37 where Jesus asks them the question, How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?
Doesn’t David himself call him Lord? And so he focuses on their erroneous false teachings about the person of the Messiah. But in our passage for today, our Lord Jesus issues a sharply worded warning against them because of their hypocritical living and their false piety. And then probably as a contrast to the hypocrisy of these scribes, our Lord directs the attention of his disciples to an example of humble piety and sacrificial giving as seen in the actions of an anonymous unnamed widow. And so Jesus had criticized the theology of the scribes, rightly so, but in our passage for today we also find him rebuking them for their hypocritical living and their pretentious piety. So let’s dive into this passage of scripture and I’ll have us focus first of all on verses 38 through 40. And the first thing I would have us consider is that Jesus warns us here against hypocritical religion.
Dear friends, let us be warned against hypocritical religion. Now notice how our Lord Jesus describes the scribes in verses 38 through 40. It says this, in His teaching, Jesus was still teaching the people. Even though His crucifixion was imminent, Jesus is still busy about the activity of teaching the people of God. And he says in his teaching, beware of the scribes. Beware of the scribes. He issues a warning against these Bible scholars, these experts, supposed experts in God’s law. Sometimes some of the Bible translations call these scribes lawyers. That’s kind of a misleading term because they’re not lawyers in the contemporary sense. They were lawyers in the sense that they were viewed as experts in the law of God. But Jesus says beware of them. And why? Well, he says, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like respectful greetings in the marketplaces and chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets who devour a widow’s houses and for appearances sake offer long prayers.
These will receive greater condemnation. Well, let’s notice how Jesus describes these scribes here. But before we do, I think Dr. C.E. Graham Swift offers a helpful caution. You know, we have to always understand the Lord’s words and his teachings in the context in which he’s making them. And Dr. Swift points out that not all the scribes were equally bad. but the general tendency of their class was in the direction of ostentation, avarice, and hypocrisy. Remember, Jesus had just commended a scribe back in verse 32 through 34, who had asked him an insightful and sincere question, and Jesus said, you’re not far from the kingdom of God. So Jesus is making a general statement here, but he’s not thereby saying that all of the scribes are equally bad. But nevertheless, as a class, he describes them.
And what is the first thing he criticizes about them? Well, he criticizes them because they crave public acclimation. They are basically attention junkies. They long for attention. Look at what Jesus says in verses 38 and 39. He says, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes. They wore particular clothing to attract attention to themselves. They like to walk around in long robes. They like respectful greetings in the marketplaces. It’s not just, I mean, we all like being addressed respectfully. But it’s not just that they liked it, but that they sought this attention in public, in the marketplaces, and chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets. These scribes or teachers of the law, as they are described in the NIV, were guilty of what could be called show-off religion.
They were guilty of an ostentatious, pretentious piety. Dr. Walter Wessel explains that these teachers of the law wore long white linen robes that were fringed and reached almost to the ground. In the synagogue, they occupied the bench in front of the ark that contained the sacred scrolls of the law and the prophets, in other words, the Old Testament scriptures. There, the teachers could be seen by all the worshipers in the synagogue. They were often invited to banquets because of their prestige and were given special places of honor. And it’s important, Jesus is not saying that they are to be condemned simply because of the clothing they wore or simply because of where they sat in the synagogues or the respectful greetings that they received, but as Dr. Wessel points out, what Jesus condemns is their seeking such honor for themselves instead of for God, whom they professed to be. to serve.
And so, again, these are attention seekers. These are religious leaders who did their righteous deeds in the presence of others as a means of theatrics. Theirs was an ostentatious, pretentious piety. Jesus also criticizes them because they treat the weakest members of society, such as widows, with injustice and therefore show that they do not love their neighbors as themselves. As Jesus says in verse 40, he says of them, not only do they long for attention and seek attention and acclamation and honor from others, but They devour widows’ houses and, for appearance’s sake, offer long prayers. Dr. Wessel explains that since the teachers of the law were not allowed to be paid for their services, they were dependent on the gifts of patrons for their livelihood. Such a system was vulnerable to abuses. Wealthy widows especially were preyed on by the greedy and unscrupulous among these men.
Jesus particularly condemns the hypocrisy of their long prayers, which were used as a mask for their greed. And Dr. William Hendrickson clarifies further. He says the scribes here condemned are described as devouring, devouring, fattening themselves on the houses of these lonely women. But not only were they guilty of injustice against vulnerable members of society, they also covered their greed, they covered their greed and injustice with a show of pretentious piety. Again, as it says in verse 40, Now, again, Jesus is not condemning lengthy prayers. He’s not condemning public prayers, but rather he is condemning the motivation of such prayers in the case of these scribes who used their pretentious piety to cover over and smooth over what they were actually doing in terms of taking advantage of these vulnerable widows. Now, in the ancient world, few were more vulnerable and open to exploitation than widows.
In the ancient world, if you were a woman, you had very few career options outside of the home. If you were single, you could live with your parents and find support that way, living with and working for your parents, or you could get married and be supported by your husband, but what would happen if your husband died and you weren’t able to go back and live in your father’s household. Well, that would put you in a very, very difficult and vulnerable spot if you did not have resources to live with. So these scribes here that our Lord criticizes hid their injustice and lack of concern and compassion for the most vulnerable in society, they hid it behind a cloak of prayerful piety. By their prayerful piety, this theatrical show of piety, they sought to blunt any criticisms of their behavior towards those who were vulnerable and open to exploitation.
And by the way, it’s interesting, if you study the scriptures, especially the Old Testament, we see that God has a special place in his heart for the most vulnerable in society. We often read in the prophets, for example, of God God showing concern for foreigners, in other words, the sojourner and the orphan and the widow. Why such concern? Because those are the members of ancient society that were most open to exploitation, most open and vulnerable towards injustice. Well, scripture makes it very clear that God hates sin, injustice, and oppression. But God especially hates such evils when they hide behind a mask of religiosity and piety. But Jesus Christ, our omniscient Lord incarnate, he sees behind that cloak, he sees behind the mask, and he looks into the heart. And he sees in the hearts of many of these scribes, he sees a heart of wickedness and evil, a heart that does not keep the second table of the law, does not love one’s neighbor as oneself, but a heart that seeks to exploit a vulnerable, such as these widows, for its own ends.
Jesus Christ sees behind the mask, he looks into the heart, and we can be sure that he will bring ultimate justice to bear in the end. And speaking of ultimate justice, as Jesus denounces and warns against these scribes and their wicked practices, he says of them, at the end of verse 40, these will receive, what does it say? Greater condemnation. Those are sobering words. Think about it. Greater condemnation. There’s many takeaways, applications we could glean from this statement of our Lord here, but let me just mention a couple of implications of what our Lord Jesus is saying here about greater condemnation. One of the implications is that just as there is salvation for the penitent believer, so there is condemnation for the unrepentant wicked, such as these scribes that Jesus is here denouncing. And by condemnation, Christ clearly is referring to the punishment of hellfire.
Now what does this imply? Well, this implies that a very popular doctrine today is a false doctrine. One of the popular doctrines out there today is the doctrine of universalism or the idea that in the end everybody will be saved. But the Bible doesn’t teach that, and Jesus Christ himself doesn’t teach that. The doctrine of universalism or universal salvation is contrary to the clear teachings of God’s word, especially the clear teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore it is a false doctrine. Another implication is that there will be degrees of punishment in hell. Jesus speaks here of greater condemnation. What does that imply? That implies that some of the unrepentant wicked in hell will receive a lesser condemnation. Condemnation nonetheless, but a lesser condemnation. You see, friends, God’s word teaches in many places that God will judge people on the basis of what they have done, on the basis of their works.
But here we need to pause very quickly and clarify that. See, don’t misunderstand. This is not to deny the equally biblical truth that our justification and eternal salvation are received by God’s grace alone as a gift, received by God’s grace alone, through God-given faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, and apart from any works on our part. Scripture teaches that in terms of our salvation, we believers are judged on the basis of what Christ has done. His works, his merits are imputed to us, credited to us, and received as a gift by us through faith alone, a faith which itself is a gift of God. So God alone gets the glory for our salvation. Does that mean that good works are unimportant for us because Christ has done it all? No. Our works done in faith are important, but they are simply the fruits and evidences of the reality of our faith.
And we are told in Scripture that our works will be brought up on the judgment day, not as the basis of our entrance into heaven, not as our title to heaven, but rather in order to vindicate the reality of our faith in the presence of gathered humanity. As it says in our shorter catechism, on the Day of Judgment, believers will be what? Openly acknowledged and acquitted on the Judgment Day. The moment the Holy Spirit effectually called you to faith in Jesus Christ in the courtroom of heaven, the gavel of God went down and God in the secret courtroom of heaven declared you to be righteous in His sight. Not because you’re righteous in yourself, but because Christ’s perfect everlasting righteousness has been credited to you. His blood has cleansed you from your sin. His righteousness has been credited to you. and God has declared you righteous in his sight.
And that righteousness alone, that righteousness of Christ alone will serve as your title to glory. But other people cannot see that. God can see your heart. He can see the faith in your heart. But others can only see your faith by your deeds, by what you do. And that is why that secret declaration of righteousness that God has already declared in the courtroom of heaven will be openly declared on Judgment Day. and our works will be brought forth as evidences to gathered humanity of the reality of our faith. So in that sense, we will be judged by our works, and God delights to reward that which he himself gives us as a gift of grace. But likewise, getting back to our passage for today, in the case of the unrepentant wicked, their evil works are the fruits and evidences of their impenitent, unbelieving hearts.
And just as there will be degrees of reward in heaven, rewards of grace, not of merit, Likewise, there will be degrees of punishment in hell on the basis of the evil works of the unbelieving wicked. And that is why Jesus can speak here of greater condemnation, degrees of condemnation in hell. The implication we can draw here from our Lord’s words is that while hell will be hot for every unsaved person who is sent there, Jesus makes it clear that it will be even hotter, if you will, for those whom, like the scribes Jesus here describes, are guilty of hypocritical religion. Unrepentant sin merits condemnation, but unrepentant sin cloaked in religious hypocrisy merits greater condemnation. Dear listener, is yours a hypocritical faith? Is your faith mere theatrics like the faith of the scribes and the Pharisees?
Are you putting on a show when you come to church, when you confess your faith? Are you putting on a show? Or have you from the heart, by God’s grace, received and rested upon Christ alone in penitent faith? Dear listener, Turn from your hypocrisy. Turn from your pretentious piety. Turn from your hypocrisy. Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. Repent and believe upon Him and Him alone for your salvation, and you will be saved. You will be forgiven. Christ’s righteousness will be credited to you, and you will escape not only the greater condemnation, you will escape condemnation because the Bible says there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. I think another takeaway from our Lord’s sobering words here is that with greater knowledge comes greater responsibility and accountability, as one Bible scholar puts it.
When I was pastoring in New Jersey, there was a retired Bible Presbyterian pastor and his wife who used to attend our church. They have since gone to glory. But I remember this, I would have conversations with this retired pastor and remember one time that he told me that he used to tell his people that, look folks, I need more grace than you. What is he talking about? Here’s a pastor who has devoted his life to preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. What does he mean, I need more grace than the members of my congregation? Well, because he understood this principle, that with greater knowledge, with greater light, comes greater responsibility and greater accountability. This is what James is getting at in James chapter three, verse one, for example. In James three, verse one. James the brother of Jesus writes, let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.
Phew, that scares me when I hear that. But nevertheless, that statement is meant to drive us back to Christ. Yes, we need great, those in my position, we need greater grace because we have greater accountability. But praise God, the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin and his merit and sacrifice prevail even for those of us who are preachers. And so friends, let us take to heart these sobering words that Jesus issues here. But next, as we move on in our passage and consider verses 41 through 44, let us take to heart an example of sacrificial giving. Let us take to heart an example of sacrificial giving. It says in verse 41, and he sat down opposite the treasury and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury And many rich people were putting in large sums.
A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins which amount to a cent. Now it is quite possible that Mark records this occurrence here in the flow of his text in order to contrast the hypocrisy of the scribes, on the one hand, who are described in verse 40 as devouring widows’ houses, to contrast their hypocrisy with the genuine piety of this impoverished widow. And while it is speculative, we can’t prove this with certainty, it would not surprise me if one of the reasons why this widow was impoverished is perhaps she had been taken advantage of by certain scribes who had led to, who had exploited her. leading to her impoverishment. We don’t know that for certain. It doesn’t say that in the text. That’s speculative. It may not be correct. But nevertheless, if that was the case, it certainly would fit in well with the flow of what Mark is recording here.
And it says in verse 43, calling his disciples to him, he said to them, truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury, for they all put in out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty put in all she owned, all she had to live on. Now, what is the setting there? Well, Jesus is still in the temple in Jerusalem, and the temple was divided into various courts and sections. The outer court was the court of the Gentiles, and then there was the court of the women, and then the inner courts included the temple proper and so forth, where only the priests could go, and so forth. Dr. William Barclay explains the setting. He says, between the court of the Gentiles and the court of the women, there was the gate beautiful.
It may well be that Jesus had gone to sit quietly there after the argument and the tension of the court of the Gentiles and the discussions in the cloisters. In the court of the women, there were 13 collecting boxes called the trumpets because they were so shaped. So these were collection boxes that had a trumpet-like structure on the top of them where you could throw your money in. It goes on to say, each of them was for a special purpose. For instance, to buy corn or wine or oil for the sacrifices. They were for contributions for the daily sacrifices and expenses of the temple. Now Jesus mentions two small copper coins in verse 42, which amount to a cent. Well, Dr. Barclay explains that the coin was, in the Greek, a lepton. Lepton literally means a thin one.
It was the smallest of all coins and worth 140th of one pence, or as the New American Standard Version translates it, it amounted to basically a cent, very small denominator of money. And it’s interesting, Jesus is sitting there probably catching his breath. He’s been engaged in controversy with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes and so forth. And he sits there where he can observe these trumpets, these collection boxes. And he sees this, he sees a bunch of wealthy people throwing in large amounts of money. He sees this poor widow. throwing in two small copper coins, two leptons, thin ones. And what does Jesus say? Well, he uses the word truly, amen, amen, truly. When Jesus says truly, it’s as if he’s saying, listen up, this is important. He says, truly, I say to you, I, the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking by my divine authority, what does he say to them?
I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury. Well, how can that be? There were many rich folk who put in a whole lot more than this poor widow did. How then can Jesus say that she has given more than all? Jesus, in verse 43, judges this widow to have given more than all. What does that clue us into? That clues us into the fact that God measures our generosity differently than the world does. The world looks almost exclusively at the amount given, but God looks at the motives of the heart as well as at the financial resources and circumstances of the one who gives. And so, in verse 43, the disciples must have been scratching their heads and saying, what are you talking about? This poor widow put in more than all the contributors.
She just put in two small copper coins, two leptons. Jesus explains in verse 44, he says, for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on. The wealthy gave, if you will, they gave their leftovers, but this poor widow gave her all. I do wanna issue a caution here as we consider what our Lord is saying. We need to be careful here about drawing life prescriptions or moral demands from descriptive passages like this one. One very important principle of Bible interpretation is that not everything that is described in the Bible is prescribed by the Bible for our imitation. And so just because this poor widow gave all she had to live on to the temple treasury does not mean that God expects you and me to give all of our possessions away.
We lose the main lessons of our passage if we focus on such questions. Such questions are not in the purview. They’re not on the radar screen of what Jesus is addressing here. And by the way, let’s say that you did that. Let’s say that you read this passage and said, well, I think God wants me to sell everything that I have. You know, to sell my home, sell my cars, sell my, you know, clothes, and just liquidate it all and give it all away to charity and to the church and missions and so forth, leaving nothing for myself. Well, actually, in most cases, such actions would be very poor stewardship. of your resources, because it might be a short-term boost to the finances of the church, finances to support missionaries, charities, and so forth, but if you don’t have any resources to live on, you yourself are gonna be one who needs to live on charity.
And so, again, we need to not draw lessons from passages like this, descriptive passages like this, as if they are prescriptive for our behavior. But Jesus does want us to learn some takeaways, some lessons from this. A couple of applications that we can learn from what Jesus is teaching here. We learn here, first of all, that God is more concerned with the heart attitude of the giver than the actual amount that is given. God looks at our motives, and God’s word encourages us to be cheerful givers, to be generous with our resources, and to seek to serve our neighbor. In fact, Paul in Ephesians, I think it’s Ephesians chapter four, one of his imperatives to the thief, the former thief, he says, let the thief no longer steal, but instead let him work with his hands so that he may what?
So that he may have means to, to paraphrase, have means to help those in need. In other words, instead of taking from others what is not yours, work with your own hands, earn your own living if you are able, and give generously to others who are in need. Another lesson is that this obscure unnamed widow, unnoticed by the world, is noticed by the Lord Jesus Christ for her sacrificial giving. The world often ignores and doesn’t notice the generosity and the service and of God’s people. The world ignores us, but God notices. God notices the little acts of faithfulness and sacrificial service done in faith and out of gratitude for his gift of salvation. He notices that which goes unnoticed by the world. Another lesson I think we can glean from this is, as Dr. Barkley says, real generosity gives until it hurts.
It’s easy to give of your time, your talents, and your money if you give out of your abundance or if you give your leftovers. It would be easy for a wealthy person who, for example, has all of their needs provided for, they’ve got a roof over their heads, they’ve got clothing on their backs, food on their tables. They have all of their bills and all of their debts paid off. And they’ve paid for entertainments and pleasures and vacations and all of that. And they might say, oh, we have a little bit left over. Well, maybe we should give some of those leftovers to charity or to the church or to missions or what have you. It’s easy to do that if you have abundant resources, but to give and serve sacrificially out of your poverty, that is to serve and to give in the way of Christ.
It takes divine wisdom to know what that means in your particular set of circumstances, but friends, think about it. Jesus Christ, our Savior, became poor and sacrificed himself on the cross for us so that we might receive and enjoy and benefit from the riches of his grace and mercy and forgiveness and might receive the gift of everlasting life, the greatest gift of all. He gave until it hurt so that we might experience his grace, his forgiveness. Out of gratitude for his wonderful gift of salvation, let us too show our gratitude by imitating his sacrificial generosity. Again, dear listener, have you received the benefits of our Lord’s sacrificial generosity? Christ offers himself fully and freely to you in the gospel. Jesus says, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I’m gentle. and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Come to Jesus. Trust in him as your savior from sin. Call upon the name of the Lord Jesus, and the Bible says you shall be saved, and you will experience spiritual, eternal rest. And that will be the greatest motivator of all towards generous, sacrificial service to the Lord in his kingdom. Amen. Let us pray. Gracious Lord and Father in heaven, We thank you, O God. We thank you for Jesus, that through his poverty we have been enriched with the gift of salvation. Though he was rich, he became poor for us that we, through his poverty, might be enriched beyond all understanding. We ask, Lord, that Christ’s rich grace towards us would motivate us to live lives of sacrificial service in your kingdom.
Be with us now. Bless us, Lord, throughout the remainder of this Lord’s Day. Enable us to grow and to be refreshed in your presence, to grow in grace and knowledge. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said, amen. Let’s respond to what we’ve heard from God’s Word by rising and singing our hymn of commitment. I will sing of my Redeemer, 498. I will sing of my Redeemer.
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