<p>12:5 <i>Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred dinarii and given to the poor?</i>- This kind of secular approach to spiritual devotion is of the flesh and not the Spirit. What is done with money and how it is done is all on one level; the essence is of devotion to the Lord. A denarius was the penny paid for a day's hard work (Mt. 20:2). The figure of 300 denarii may therefore be a round figure referring to the money earned in a year. The implication is that the disciples had a common fund from which they donated to the poor; such almsgiving was common in first century Palestine, and for the Lord to have pointedly not given alms would have been controversial. We note that He had the power to totally heal the sick, provide food and transform the material lives of people. But He used a great economy of miracle. He must have allowed this small scale poor fund to continue for the sake of developing the attitudes of the donors amongst His disciples- rather than for the sake of what the donations would achieve. There are many principles which arise out of reflection on these things, living as we do in a grossly unequal world.</p>