Two coins

Dorien Hoeve (2024)
Acrylic on canvas (60 x 80 cm)

This canvas was painted during the church service in ‘De Schuilplaats’ (Ede, The Netherlands) on May 26. The painting is based on Mark 12:41-44 (NIV):

“Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

In the time Jesus was living as a human on the earth, there were several money chests in the temple. There was a special nickname for the money chests in the temple: the trumpets. The money chest owed their nickname to their special shape. The money chest consisted of a kind of funnel with a container underneath. They were wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. This prevented people from stealing from the money chest, but the side effect was the amplification of the sound of the falling coins. The more you gave, the more sound. The shape of a ram’s horn was chosen in the painting because this is the Israelite version of a trumpet.

The poor widow probably threw her money into an offering box for non-obligatory offerings. The poor widow threw in very little money. It was barely audible. Yet Jesus says that she gave more than all the others, because out of her poverty she gave everything she had. She had two coins and could have chosen to give one and keep the other. She didn’t. She gave both coins. She gave everything she had to God. Her gift was a sign of surrender and trust in God. God is not so much concerned with the value of our money, but with the heart behind it. This does not make money unimportant, because your investments show where your heart longs for.

If we give all we have to God, He can multiply it and make it more enough. (Luke 9:10-17)

Please contact me if you are interested in this painting or a printed copy.