THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW - Chapter 26 - Verse 9
Verse 9. Sold for much. Mark and John say for 300 pence; that is,
for about 40 dollars, [about £ 9.] This, to them, was a large sum.
Mark says, they murmured against her. There was also an implied
murmuring against the Saviour for suffering it to be done. The
murmuring was, however, without cause. It was the property of
Mary. She had a right to dispose of it as she pleased, answerable
not to them, but to God. They had no right over it, and no cause of
complaint ff it had been wasted. So Christians now are at liberty to
dispose of their property as they please, either in distributing the
Bible, in supporting the gospel, in sending it to heathen nations, or
in aiding the poor. The world, like Judas, esteems it to be wasted.
Like Judas, they are indignant. They say it might be disposed of
in a better way. Yet, like Judas, they are interfering in that which
concerns them not. Like other men, Christians have a right to dispose
of their property as they please, answerable only to God. And though an
avaricious world esteems it to be waste, yet if their Lord commands
it, it will be found to be the only way in which it was right for
them to dispose of that property, and will be found not to have been in
vain.