Others may have ignored her because unlike the rich she would have been poorly attired and would not have come with any fanfare. She would not have stood out from the crowd and probably may have been almost invisible. I expect the widow would have been a humble woman. She had little or nothing on which to live, and yet in her poverty even though she could not really afford to give anything, she gave her last two copper coins. They could afford to give this money because they had plenty from which to give. The key difference though is that the rich were giving out of their abundance. So it was wonderful that the rich people were offering solid support for the temple through their gifts. Also we must realise that these gifts of money had nothing to do with tithing and they were not tithes, they were gifts pure and simple. This money was being offered as a gift, not a tax. And we must remember that there was no compulsion to give. Note that Jesus did not condemn or scorn their generosity, after all they did not have to give anything at all if they did not want to. Now there was nothing wrong with the rich giving so generously. They may have even “oohed and aahed” at what they perceived to be the generosity of the rich people who gave in such abundance. They would have seen the huge sums given by the rich and been amazed by their wealth.
Most people who witnessed this scene would have perceived this quite differently. “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all the living that she had.” (Verses 3-4)
He also saw a widow place two copper coins into the treasury as well and Jesus said this of her gift. Jesus was standing in the temple when he looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. Here in this section of scripture that speaks of people giving money into the treasury at the temple we see a perfect example of how Jesus perceived the events that unfolded. He often took a different path than those around him because he saw things differently. In many places we notice that Jesus saw things differently to those around him.
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