The Humble Giver

This week, Jesus addresses both the right spirit of giving and the wrong spirit of giving. The religious leaders of Israel have it all wrong. They use their giving and really all of their adherence to religious guidelines as opportunities to boast about how religious (holy in their minds) they were. They made ostentatious spectacles of themselves when they gave. They wanted everyone to see them giving or doing “their religious duties.” They were doing what athletes do at times: they play to the crowd to win approval. The problem is that making a spectacle to get the approval of man does not equate to getting the approval of God.