I don’t know about you, but for my family of five, I can’t seem to make it out of a grocery store without spending more than I’d like.
Many American families are finding it harder to make ends meet these days, which you’d think would result in a reduction in charitable giving. It hasn’t. Experts predict growth for 2024 and 2025.
They have reasons of their own for predicting growth. But my work with Come and See, which has partnered with “The Chosen,” to help ensure this acclaimed TV series is funded and made available for free around the world suggests more than mere statistical upticks in giving. I’ve witnessed nothing other than profound, radical, biblical generosity that truly does not make sense.
I recently received a handwritten note with a cash gift. It was neat penmanship in red ink, with the donor’s message written on a torn piece of notebook paper. She told us “The Chosen” had changed her life. She sent us a gift to support its production and distribution costs internationally, saying she hoped “it changes viewers’ lives too.”
The donated money came from her grocery budget.
This is, of course, a profoundly humbling and inspiring gift to receive. So much so that I’ve kept it on my desk to get me through my long days. But it’s also a deeply Christian gift to make. Jesus goes out of his way to draw the apostles’ attention to a widow who contributes two mites, just “a few cents,” to a temple offering.
“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,” we read in Mark 12:41-44. “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.’”
The widow gives because of love, not abundance. And so do many who write us notes after watching “The Chosen” and choosing to give. They come into contact with the story of Jesus through their phones or TV screens, and their hearts are changed.
That’s part of what is so interesting about this moment in evangelism, and in Christianity more broadly. Technology has made the distribution of media possible nearly anywhere in the world—and through media, we can tell the story of Jesus. Unprecedented numbers of people are seeing the extravagant love of God, perhaps for the first time, and are moved to action by what they witness.
And we need only turn to scripture for more examples of precisely this same sort of generosity. Not all the parables we could use to guide us are explicitly about financial generosity, either: Consider the Good Samaritan, whose financial generosity was just one small part of the more important and more radical generosity at the heart of his actions.
