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The King's High
Praise for his Daughters' Service
Dennis E. Johnson As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich
putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor
widow put in two very small copper coins. “I tell you the
truth,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the
others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth;
but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” (Luke
21:1-4, NIV) One of the most difficult challenges facing the
church is the challenge of communicating the gospel of Christ in
a way that is relevant to our culture without accommodating the
message to the ungodly assumptions and values of that culture.
Since God is gathering a multitude “from every nation, tribe,
people and language" to worship before his throne (Revelation
7:9), we can expect that the culture-transcending truths of
God's Word will evoke in believers a response of faith and
obedience appropriate to each of our cultures. On the other
hand, since every human culture is stained by our sin, God's
truth brings his counter-cultural critique to the values and
practices to which we are accustomed. It is precisely where
God's Word critiques our culture that we are most in danger of
accommodation, of conforming our message to our cultural comfort
zone. This temptation to accommodation comes in a variety of
forms, and I would invite you to think with me about one of the
more subtle and most dangerous ways in which we are tempted to
be conformed to this present age, as it is expressed in our own
culture. Several weeks ago my wife and I attended the Ligonier
Conference in San Diego and heard newspaper columnist Cal Thomas
speak. The title of his talk was a pun reminiscent of the
biology class Petri dish: “Culture Is Also a Virus.” He began
his remarks contrasting our culture's view of personal
significance with the view of personal significance in the
Kingdom of God. What makes your life count? In our culture,
significance is conveyed to us by the nature of our work,
achievements, reputation, and influence. If we fulfill functions
that other people consider valuable, important, necessary, then
we are significant. If we wield power, we are significant. If we
are in positions of visibility and wide influence so that others
notice and admire us, then we are significant. By contrast, in
the Kingdom of God personal significance is not conveyed by
others as a perk of our usefulness or achievement; significance
is imparted to us as a gift, lavished on us by the God who
created us in his image, the God who redeemed us from the
devaluation we won in our quest for self-sufficient
significance, the God who is recreating us as reflections of his
own glory. Cal Thomas was not
talking about roles of women and men in the church; but his
observation crystallized for me something that I had been
thinking over for several weeks. Our daughter, a sophomore on a
university campus, believes (as we do) that God calls women to
many roles in the church, but not to the offices of pastor and
elder. She is not surprised when her classmates and professors
consider her odd, repressed, and brainwashed because she holds
these convictions. What bothers her more is the assumption of
many of her Christian friends that a denomination that does not
ordain women as pastors and elders is denying women the personal
significance that is rightfully theirs. As I have reflected on
the expressions of those who advocate egalitarianism in the
church,(1) I have become convinced
that there is an underlying issue that we need to think about,
maybe even before we consider the biblical texts that speak
explicitly to the qualifications for pastoral office or the role
of women in the church. The issue is this: What makes a child of
God “significant” to him? And related to it: What makes the
service of a child of God “significant” to our heavenly Father?
My hunch is that many so-called “biblical feminists” have
believed the line fed to them by our culture – and, I fear, all
too often by male leaders in the church – namely, the false idea
that children of God are “significant,” their lives really
“count,” to the extent that they are achieving “great goals” for
the Lord; to the extent they have a position to influence many
others toward faith and godliness; to the extent that what they
are doing “counts.” And my hunch is that this attitude is rooted
very deeply in every one of us. Don't you think that, whatever
we may say about this issue, many of us actually relate to
others as though the people with office, influence, visibility,
power in the church are the people who really count? Of course
the New Testament calls us to honor leaders in the church for
the sake of their office and accountability, since their role
(when they fulfill it faithfully) is a reflection of the loving
and authoritative guidance of our Good Shepherd. But in terms of
the value we attribute to persons, the New Testament warns us
repeatedly against making the respect and love we show to people
directly proportional to their usefulness to us or to the
positions of prominence and power that they occupy. This
brings us to our text and its context. Jesus' comment on the
widow's mite is recorded in Mark's gospel as well as in Luke.
But the context of Luke's gospel casts a special light on this
little incident. New Testament scholars often observe that it is
Luke of all the evangelists who seems particularly alert to
Jesus' attention to the devalued people in the society of his
day: the poor, women, children, disreputable tax collectors,
shepherds, and other assorted "sinners." It is no accident that
Luke's gospel opens with portraits of two women – Elizabeth and
Mary – who believe the promises of God and praise him for his
faithfulness, and one man – Zechariah – who spends months in
silence for having doubted God's promises. It is no accident
that as Luke's gospel draws to a close we hear two angels
announcing to women that Jesus has risen from the dead – and
that when the women report this to the apostles, “they did not
believe the women, because their words seemed to them like
nonsense” (24:11). Luke's point is not that women are innately
spiritual, saintly believers, while men are by nature
dull-witted doubting clods. We all stand in need of sotêria –
salvation – Luke's central theme throughout his gospel and Acts.
No, Luke's point is that God has a way of surprising us in the
way he bestows this salvation. He bypasses those whom we might
consider the “likely prospects” for Kingdom blessing, and
instead lavishes his love on people who are almost invisible to
the society around them. In his epistle James rebukes our
prejudice and contempt for some classes of people: “Has not God
chosen the poor to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom
that he promised to those who love him?” (James 2:5). So also
Luke points us to God's gracious choice, his sovereign
initiative to give faith to people whom our society tends to
devalue: women, children, the poor, the disreputable and
shiftless. Consider the sequence of events that have
accompanied Jesus' final trip to Jerusalem (Luke 18-19): In Luke
18:9-14 Jesus tells a parable affirming that the righteous God
ignores the self-congratulating prayer of a Pharisee and listens
instead to the helpless plea of a guilty tax collector, traitor
and extortioner of the people of God. Then Jesus welcomes
children – useless, squirming, un-influential children –
reversing his disciples’ rebuke (18:15-17). By contrast, when a
ruler who has power, wealth, and a law-abiding righteousness
refuses to part with his riches for the sake of the Kingdom,
Jesus makes no attempt to adjust his demands in order to be more
seeker-sensitive and hold this potential donor's interest
(18:18-25). Doesn't Jesus realize that this was the kind of
influential man who could do his cause great good? Then Jesus
approaches Jericho, and a useless blind beggar makes a nuisance
of himself, yelling out for mercy, demanding the Messiah's
attention (18:35-43). The crowds try to shut him up: Doesn't he
know his place? But Jesus stops and asks him the sort of
question that a servant might ask his master: “What do you want
me to do for you?” Why waste his time on such unimportant
people? Finally, in Jericho Jesus seeks out a despised tax
collector and invites himself over to Zacchaeus' house for a
meal (19:1-10)! Has he no sense of who counts? In the passage
just before our text, Jesus warns his disciples about the
dangers of imitating the biblical scholars of the day, who loved
the trappings of their office, the expressions of respect
offered by their students, positions of high visibility and
honor – all the while defrauding helpless widows and turning
religious devotion into hollow entertainment (20:45-47)! So in
our text we find Jesus sitting in the temple treasury room as
wealthy donors bring their gifts to sustain the worship of God
in the sanctuary. Now, I must confess that I am grateful for
wealthy donors who give sizable gifts for Kingdom causes. But
the fact of the matter is that Jesus is not counting the zeroes
on their checks as they drop them into the box. He is looking
deeper. He finds what he is looking for in one contributor: a
needy widow. In the NIV the word “poor” appears both in vs. 2
and in vs. 3, but it represents different Greek words. “Poor” in
vs. 3 is the common word that we have memorized for vocabulary
quizzes, ptôchos. But in vs. 2 “poor” is “needy” (penichros).
This is the only time that this word appears in the New
Testament, but a clue to its connotation can be seen in Exodus
22:25, where the Septuagint uses penichros – “If you lend money
to one of my people among you who is needy, do not charge him
interest.” This widow’s situation is not the genteel poverty of
a standard of living somewhat lower than the average. This is
grinding poverty, abject need on the edge of bare survival. But
she comes to the temple, and into the treasury box she drops two
lepta, worth hardly anything – the two together maybe a quarter
of a cent. What good will that do? For all the contribution that
this gift could make to the massive expenses of the temple, she
might as well have kept it! What an insignificant piece of
service to God and his church, don't you agree? But Jesus does
not agree. He couldn't disagree more strongly! “I tell you the
truth, this poor widow has put in more than all the others.”
What's the matter with Jesus? Has he no sense of the value of
money? Is he wearing some sort of “virtual reality” helmet so
that he perceives everything in a video-generated dream world?
As a matter of fact, Jesus is looking at things very differently
from the way we are inclined to look at things. Earlier his
disciples have quibbled over places of prominence in the
Messianic Kingdom, but he says that the culture's system of
values is turned upside down in the Kingdom: “You know that
those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over
them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not
so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you
must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be
slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served,
but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark
10:42-45). So also in this text. Jesus not only sees
leadership in the Kingdom very differently from our culture, but
also he values ministry very differently from our culture. This
widow has given more than the wealthy who had contributed so
much in dollars and shekels. Do you believe that in your heart
of hearts? If so little a gift from so needy a giver is, in the
King's eyes, so much greater than the great gifts given by great
people, perhaps we all need for Jesus to restore our eyesight so
that we recognize as significant those things that he regards as
significant. If we are to be liberated by Jesus from
accommodation to our culture's scale of values, our culture's
system for determining what are or are not important types of
service, we need to reflect on the reason Jesus gives for
praising the greatness of the widow's gift. Vs. 4: “All these
people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her
poverty put in all she had to live on.”
One commentator sums up Jesus' point: “God measures the gifts of
his people not on the basis of their size but on the basis of
how much remains, how much one keeps.”(2)Close, but not quite right. After all, Paul
says, "If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body
to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing" (I Corinthians
13:3). At the bottom line the issue is not amount, great or
small; nor is it proportion given vs. proportion kept. The issue
is not amount at all – it is allegiance. In Luke 10 we read of
a lawyer who came to Jesus with the question, “What must I do to
inherit eternal life?" Jesus turns the question back to him:
"What has God already told you in the Law?" The lawyer knows his
Bible: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all
your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind" and
"Love your neighbor as yourself' (10:27). Jesus gives him an "A"
for memorization, and then assigns some homework: "Just do it!"
But this demand seems so extreme, so life-consuming. Aren't
there any reasonable limits here? The lawyer, of course, knows
that it would not be politically correct to suggest that there
might be some loopholes in the first, great command. . . but
perhaps the second: "Who is my neighbor?" What are the limits
here? On the other hand, look at this widow. (We wouldn't have
noticed her, of course, if Jesus hadn't pointed her out to us.)
She loves the Lord with everything in her, she trusts him with
all that she is and has. So she gives all, holding nothing back.
How different she is from the upright, law-abiding rich ruler in
Luke 18, who had echoed the lawyer's question about how to
inherit eternal life! He's kept the commandments from his youth,
and lacks only one thing: "Give it all to the poor and follow
me." Love the Lord with all you have and are, and your neighbor
as yourself. And the rich ruler refuses. It costs too much. He's
kept plenty of commands, all right. But his heart is far from
the heart of God's Law. But isn't the widow being financially
imprudent to abandon herself so unreservedly to the care of her
Father, to give all she has? No! You see, she withholds nothing
from her God because she loves the God who, in his love for her,
withholds nothing. Her utter abandonment in loving service is
her grateful and trusting response to the God who would not
withhold his own Son, his greatest treasure, but who freely gave
him up for us all. We see, now, how this casts the questions
of service in the Kingdom in a new light. What would be the
result if we all believed Jesus' surprising evaluation? How
would our attitudes toward ourselves and others change if we
really believed Jesus when he says, “This widow gave more than
them all”? Is there any type of service in the Kingdom that is
insignificant to the King? Men who are training to be pastors,
elders, teachers, how would this affect the way you think about,
talk with, care for the “average members” in the church you
serve-the women, widows, children, teenagers, the poor, the
uneducated, the unemployed? How would you view the custodian's
job, your secretary's ministry, the nursery workers' task? In
fact, even before you get into the pastorate, if you believed
Jesus, how would you treat the sisters who sit with you in
class, invited by the Master himself to sit at his feet and
receive his Spirit's teaching (see Luke 10:38-42)? Do you treat
“older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with
absolute purity” (I Timothy 5:2)? Sisters and brothers who are
serving and plan to serve the Lord Jesus in roles other than
ordained leadership, how does Jesus' surprising praise for his
daughter's service impact your attitude toward ministry in the
Kingdom? Among other things, it means that you can relax a bit,
realizing that your worth to the Savior doesn't rest on your
being allowed to perform a particularly prominent role in his
Kingdom. Your worth is secure in the gift of his love. That
means, then, that you can explore the question of where and how
to serve our God not from the perspective of your "right" to
self-fulfillment, a "right" to achieve significance in terms of
your function or usefulness to other people or recognition by
them. Rather, service in Christ's kingdom becomes a response of
self- sacrifice, an offering of love in return for his
self-sacrificing love on the Cross. As Anna L. Waring wrote in
1850: I would not have the restless
will that hurries to and fro
Seeking for some great thing to do, or secret thing to know
I would be treated as a child, and guided where I go.
I ask thee for the daily strength, to none that ask denied
A mind to blend with outward life while keeping at thy side
Content to fill a little space if thou be glorified.
In service which they will appoints there are no bonds for me
My secret heart is taught the truth that makes thy children free
A life of self-renouncing love is one of liberty. Dennis E.
Johnson is academic dean and professor of Practical Theology at
Westminster Seminary California. This reflection was delivered
in the seminary's Morning Devotions on November 16, 1993.
Footnotes
(2) Robert Stein, Luke (New
American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman, 1992), 508‑9.
© 2006 Westminster
Seminary California. All Rights Reserved.
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S. M. Baugh
R. Scott Clark
Iain M. Duguid
Bryan D. Estelle
W. Robert Godfrey
Michael S. Horton
Dennis E. Johnson
Hywel R. Jones
Peter R. Jones
Joel E. Kim
Julius J. Kim
George C. Scipione
Robert B. Strimple
David M. VanDrunen
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