Worship, Not Waste

WHAT the disciples saw as waste (Mark 14:4-9) the Lord saw as worship. The woman’s gift of costly oil was worth about one year’s average wages, yet she poured it out, apparently sensing that her days with Jesus were drawing to a close.

This incident raises the issue of how one’s material wealth enters into worship. While Jesus was still physically present and available to her, the woman did “what she could” (Mark 14:8). She took one of her most valuable possessions and gave it to Jesus in an unusual act of devotion. A waste? Not to the One she honored by it.

Today Jesus is not physically among us. Yet while we are alive, we control a certain measure of the world’s resources. So we might ask: What act of worship might we give while we have opportunity? How might we honor the Lord materially?

There are no easy answers. But Jesus offered a clue when He told His disciples that just as the woman had done Him “a good work,” so they could do good to the poor at any time (Mark 14:6).

Courtesy of Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Commentary
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
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