Fighting for Real Estate: Part #10 – The Act of Worship That God Really Desires!

“Why did Luke Recall the Widow’s Offering Before the Olivet Discourse?”

 By Richard Allen – September 2, 2024

On July 22, 2024 – in my last Blog from this series, Fighting for Real Estate: Part #9 – “An Honest Look at the Olivet Discourse,” I began a serious discussion of this passage of Scripture by asking and answering: “Did Jesus answer the Apostles’ question about the Destruction of the Temple, stone by stone.” I affirmed that Jesus did, in fact answer their question, and He gave clear warnings for His Church to escape Jerusalem’s siege in 70 A. D. Now, before we move on and take a deeper dive into the “Olivet Discourse” in Luke Chapter 21, we need to start with the guidepost Jesus provided in Verse 1. Knowing the Holy Spirit “inspired” the Apostles and Prophets to write the New Testament Scriptures, you may wonder: “Why does Luke begin the Olivet Discourse with the poor widow’s offering at the Temple?” And why would Jesus mention the “widow’s offering of worship” right before giving prophetic utterance about the Destruction of Jerusalem’s Temple? What connection does the Destruction of the Temple or His coming at the “end of the age” have to do with a poor widow’s impoverished worship?

Like many of you, I’ve learned to ask questions about the context, and how inspired men – like Luke the Physician and Prophet – ordered and placed events in their Gospel Narratives. I will admit, it’s easy to miss this key to Jesus’ prophetic narrative. But the story of the widow’s offering is connected in two of the Synoptic Gospels (Mark and Luke), with the Olivet Discourse. I should also add, Jesus’ denunciation of the Scribes before He gives the Olivet Discourse, was included in all three of the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. This should tell us all that there is a contextual message here that our Lord wanted us to grasp – before He delivered the Olivet Discourse. Here’s how the Holy Spirit inspired both Mark and Luke to preface the Olivet Discourse:

“And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums.  And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box.  For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on’ ” (Mark 12:41-44).

“Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, ‘Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on’ ” (Luke 21:1-4).

Both of these passages actually pose the question: “What’s the act of worship that God really desires and loves?” To the wealthy, influential Israelites – who were well connected, the answer would clearly be: “God wants our large gifts put in the Treasury!  These gifts are what keeps this Temple operating.”  Their answer displays a haughty attitude – one that the Church still struggles with today.  I can confidently say that these “wealthy worshipers” were completely wrong. Their haughty attitudes and wrong-headed beliefs reveal a complete misunderstanding of the God of Scripture. Matthew’s Gospel also provides a unique “set-up” in Chapter 23 to the Olivet Discourse, making it much easier to connect what follows. The whole 23rd Chapter of Matthew’s Gospel records Jesus’ condemnation of the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus tells us, that even though they sat in Moses’ seat, they were hollow pretenders, only concerned with an “outward show” and not the condition of their hearts. Matthew ends Chapter 23 with Jesus’ mournful lament:  

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’ ” (Matthew 23:37-39).

Condemning the hypocrisy of the ruling class (who controlled Temple worship), and Jesus’ foretelling a coming judgment to topple that very Temple “one stone from another,” makes it easy to see the connection in Matthew’s Gospel. Luke’s Gospel likewise reveals another aspect of First Century Jewish worship – in a “temple made with hands” – that God detested:  It was a worship that catered to those who were wealthy, and did not screen out those “whose hearts were far from God” (Matthew 15:18). Looking back now to my early days as a young and zealous student of “end-times-prophecy,” I realize that reading these passages of Scripture, I was far too interested in the apocalyptic events foretold, and never asked the obvious question: “Why would God want to get rid of the physical Temple in Jerusalem?” I think many of you might struggle with that question, having been taught contrary ideas. It’s not easy to grasp that God was replacing worship in an external, physical temple, with Worship in Spirit and Truth (John 4:24)! As hard as this is to grasp, the physical Temple “had to come down,” because God isn’t worshiped in Temples made with hands (Acts 17:24). Jesus foretold this age of worship in Spirit and Truth to the Samaritan woman:

“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24).

True worshipers must worship – not with outward actions, but by the Holy Spirit, and from the heart!  This was the kind of worship that God the Father sought, not a worship prone to the “pomp and show” of the wealthy or insincere. The poor widow’s offering certainly prefigured a New Covenant worshiper, giving all that she had with reckless abandon to the God she loved!  A more complete answer to: “Why would a Holy God desire to get rid of the physical Temple, with imperfect sacrifices that didn’t fully atone for sin or restore men and women to fellowship is:  God has always sought men and women who would worship in Spirit and Truth, that is, men and women Born Again (i.e. regenerated) by God’s very Spirit dwelling in them!  A Temple of “lifeless stones” had to give way to a Temple of “Living Stones, a Habitation for God through the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22)!

Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, recalled Jesus observing both the “rich, and the poor widow” putting their gifts into the Treasury, and recorded Jesus’ condemnation of the phony outward worship of the rich and powerful. What’s ironic is that the Apostles, slow to understand, marveled at the “noble stones and offerings” immediately afterward (Luke 21:5). You’d think they would understand that Jesus wasn’t impressed with an outward show of religion. That outward show was at best a temporary means for God to maintain a temporary means for God to maintain a relationship with His people.

Temple worship, like so much of First Century Judaism was running on empty! Yes, the Jews had very ornate and magnificent buildings – which took Herod the Great 46 years to build, with Roman money! But let me also say: God’s presence between the outstretched wings of the Cherubim – fixed to the Mercy Seat that covered the Ark of the Covenant – wasn’t present in the Temple!  I’m not saying God doesn’t fill the earth with His Omnipresence, but He was Not in the Temple as He promised – because the Ark of the Covenant wasn’t there!  For some of you, this may be the first time you’ve ever heard this. You may be thinking: “Then how was God worshiped in the Holy of Holies without the Ark?” (Please verify what I’m saying.) So, after the Babylonians burned Jerusalem, they removed all Temple furnishings in 587 B.C., including the Ark of the Covenant. Eventually the Jews returned and rebuilt the Temple, but “The Ark Never Returned to Jerusalem!”

“Inside Herod’s temple things were set up similarly to the tabernacle of Moses. Beyond the first veil was a hall containing the golden altar of incense, the golden table of showbread, and the golden lampstand. It was this lampstand, the seven-armed menorah, which was said to have miraculously stayed lit during the eight-day rededication of the temple after the Maccabean victory in the second century BC. Only the high priest could go beyond the final veil to the Holy of Holies, and that only once a year, on the Day of Atonement. The floor, walls, and ceiling of this room were plated with gold. Because the Ark of the Covenant had been lost years before, Herod’s temple had no furnishings in the Holy of Holies, although it is possible a stone held the place of the ark. It was this veil, leading into the Holy of Holies, that tore from the top down when Jesus was crucified” (Matthew 27:51). https://www.gotquestions.org/Herod-third-temple.html

In truth, the only time God’s special presence was on the Temple grounds of Herod’s structure –  was when the God-Man, Jesus, visited the “Court of Women,” during His earthly ministry (Malachi 3:1). The Lord, whom they sought in the person of Jesus the Messiah, did come suddenly to His temple. But sadly, they never allowed Jesus any closer than the outer courts. It was here in the Court of Women that Jesus saw the poor widow – along with the rich giving their gifts. As a place of worship – no matter how ornate – Herod’s Temple was just a “whitewashed sepulcher full of dead men’s bones” from years of Israel’s repeated rebellion and sin. It wasn’t just missing God’s presence in the Holy of Holies on the “Mercy Seat” that covered the Ark, the whole covenant with its inadequate sacrifices was ready to vanish (Hebrews 8:13). It’s clear from the passage in Malachi that Jesus, the messenger of a New Covenant, would come to judge and change Temple worship. He did this, not by driving out corruption and giving Animal Sacrifices “one more try” as some misguided souls teach today, no!  Jesus’ words to His Apostles make clear that God would tear down the “weak and beggarly elements” of physical worship to Build His Church – Worshipers in Spirit and Truth! Bloody sacrifices would never again, even partially satisfy a Holy God. The sacrifice of “Jesus, the Lamb of God” would put away sin as far as the east is from the west!  That’s why Jesus cried from the cross: “It is Finished, Paid In Full” (John 19:30). 

The whole story of the widow and her meager offering sets the stage, showing that God would move on from stones to Spirit!  Outward worship – even using ornate buildings and lavish offerings given by carnal men was a thing of the past.  Jesus’ words about the widow and her impoverished – but sincere offering from the heart – set the stage for Jesus’ prophetic words in the Olivet Discourse, that in hindsight we know were perfectly fulfilled. The Temple was destroyed, and not one stone was left upon another – and now the God of Heaven is worshiped in Spirit and Truth by a New People, neither Jew nor Gentile, but the Church of Jesus Christ!

Soli Deo Gloria!