Interestingly, the Good Book depicts true charity in a much different light. Christianity’s founder Jesus once publicly drew the difference between genuine charity and the pretentious kind.

At the temple in Jerusalem Jesus noticed how well-off worshippers would contribute in the treasury vault their surpluses. But then a poor old widow slowly sought her way to that funnel-shaped box and carefully dropped in two small coins. Jesus at once drew his disciples’ attention to that widow. He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow put in more than all the others who put money into the treasury chests. For they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her want, put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:43, 44)