溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Who Gave More — the One Who Gave a Small Fraction, or the One Who Gave All They Had?
Is worth determined by the size of the amount given, or by the share it takes from a person's whole?
For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in everything she had, all she had to live on.
The story of the widow's two small coins became a narrative that completely overturns the standard for measuring the value of giving and devotion. Christian tradition made it a model of pure devotion, and later ethics of charity took it as grounding for evaluating good deeds not by absolute amount but by proportion of sacrifice. Modern utilitarianism, by contrast, valued actual effect, countering that in the end it is large sums that can help the most people — that real outcome matters more than pure motive. This weighing between the size of the heart behind a gift and the actual effect it produces still continues today.
Even today, when efficient giving is emphasized, this ancient scale — measuring worth not by amount but by the share it took from the giver's life — still holds.
Before the temple treasury, Jesus pointed not to the rich putting in large sums, but to a poor widow who put in two small coins, saying she had given more than all of them.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Before the temple treasury, Jesus pointed not to the rich putting in large sums, but to a poor widow who put in two small coins, saying she had given more than all of them. The amounts are not even comparable — but it was everything she had. I see in this scene the scale of value turned completely upside down: something small given out of nothing weighs more than something large given out of abundance. I too weigh today, when I give something, whether it comes from my surplus or from my whole.
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