Who Was The Widow With Two Mites?

The widow gives, even though she is poor.

       The widow with two mites (Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4) has given us one of the most meaningful short stories in the Bible. During the last Passover week of Jesus' life on earth, this poor woman entered the Court of the Women in the Temple at Jerusalem and cast into the chest there her two mites, hardly enough to buy a loaf of bread.
       Streams of visitors were in the Holy City through the seven days of the great annual Feast of the Jews, and this woman would have passed unnoticed, but devotion like hers could not escape Jesus' notice. Her sacrifice appealed to Him, and He preserved her story in the safekeeping of His praise. Both Mark and Luke relate it.
       Luke tells that in praising her generosity Jesus said, "This poor widow hath cast in more than they all: For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had." (21:3-4)
       The cash value of her gift compared to the gifts of the wealthy was hardly enough to notice, but the devotion behind it was another matter. That devotion, beginning there and spreading throughout the world, has built hospitals and helped the needy, fed the hungry and encouraged the imprisoned. Today the world knows more about the poor widow than about the richest man in Jerusalem in her day.