The Widow's Mite?

By Cal Cook

So here I set in Panara trying to ignore the business meeting going on right next to me and think about the widow’s mite. My ignorance and simplicity sometimes astounds me…what the heck is a mite? The KJV is where that word comes from yet the Greek that is translated is leptos so again I ask, what is a mite? After a bit of digging I found out no one really knows for sure! When the KJV was originally written there was no unit of money called a mite. There was a farthing which was the smallest coin of the day. It is speculated that it may have been translated from the Latin ‘minuta’ which means small or a portion. There was a mite minted in the Netherlands about the time of the first KJV and later mites were stamped even within Great Britain. The whole thing to say according to several sources, about 1/64th of a day’s wage…so if a worker worked for 12 hrs (considered a day’s work at that time) that means just over ten minutes of work! We’re talking almost nothing here! Interestingly enough if you take the minimum wage today $7/hr and work it out that’s just over $1!

How many of us have put a dollar in the offering plate? I know I have…there was a time when I had no concept of stewardship, when I viewed giving to the church as charity, and I wasn’t very charitable. I didn’t have very much and what I had was mine, I worked for it…mine, mine, mine! I didn’t want others to see I wasn’t putting anything in the plate when it went by so I would put in as little as possible. I dreaded those days when the smallest bill I had was a $20! Awe man! It’s either put nothing in and be embarrassed or drop a $20…it was a hard choice.

Eventually as the Holy Spirit convicted my heart over the issue I started to have a check sent once a month from my on-line bill pay service…initially it forced me to be faithful, even when I wasn’t feeling like it. Eventually as I finally worked my way up to a real tithe (10% of gross income.) it allowed me to not be like the others Jesus watched…the ones who proudly put in large amounts of money. We’re talking over $1000/month here, more than many people’s mortgage. I don’t say that to brag (since I cowardly did it through bill pay) but just as a point of honesty…I’m not talking about doing something I don’t do myself.

The widows mite, could actually be called the widows might. Because even though I have given much, it has been out of my abundance I have given. I still have a long way to go when it comes to actual sacrificial giving. The widow didn’t give 10% but 100% according to Jesus…that is true might! Faith that would allow someone to do that still escapes me. God did give me the ability to do math. I can figure out a budget and know what I need to pay the bills…yet here is this widow, living beyond math…living on faith, Lord give me faith.