Introductory words.
‘And as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and offerings, he said,'
Luke is deliberately vague about where and to whom these words were spoken. He does not want to move attention away from the Temple area, nor specifically restrict the words to the disciples. He wants it to be seen that these words were finally meant for all, and link them as closely as possible to the Temple in which Jesus has and will spend His last days.
Excursus on The Temple.
Luke's treatment of the Temple and Jerusalem is fascinating. He closely links it with Jesus' birth, (although the birth itself takes place outside it), as He is seen as it were to come from it, as we now discover, in order to replace it (1-2; John 2:18-21) as Samuel did of old (1 Samuel 1-4 with 1 Samuel 7:15-17). It is closely linked with these last days prior to His death as He comes there as God's Servant (Acts 4:27) to be examined as God's perfect sacrifice, ready for the offering of Himself outside the camp (Luke 23:26-31; Hebrews 13:11-14), and its final destruction (Luke 13:34-35; Luke 19:41-44; Luke 21:5-24; Luke 23:28-31). In the first part of Acts (1-6, mentioned eleven times, followed by silence) it is closely linked with the first outreach of the church, although deliberately not mentioned in Acts 2 so that the ‘birth' of the church might be seen as from above, and it is then seen as rejected, first in the defence of Stephen (Acts 7:48-49; compare Luke 17:24), and then by its treatment of Paul (in Acts 21-24 it is mentioned ten times), once Paul has been ejected from its doors (Acts 21:30). The Good News, having first gone out from Jerusalem (Acts 1-12) in fulfilment of the idea in Isaiah 2:2-4, will then go out from a replacement of the Temple, which is found in those appointed by the Spirit to carry forth His word, the church of Christ as symbolised by the church in Syrian Antioch - Acts 13:1 onwards. This will be the result of the Lord coming in power to Jerusalem (Isaiah 52:7; Mark 9:1; Luke 22:69; Luke 24:49) and the Apostles going out to the world bearing figuratively ‘the vessels of the Lord', now to be made available to the whole world (Isaiah 52:11-12, see our commentary on Isaiah). The Servant will take out light to the nations (Isaiah 42:6; Isaiah 49:6). The difference is that in Acts Luke depicts the Spirit as transferring His effective working to Antioch, because Jerusalem had again accepted a false and blasphemous king (Acts 12). From now on in the New Testament the true Temple and the true Jerusalem is seen to be above (Acts 7:48-49 with 55-56), although present on earth in His true people as part of the corporate Servant (Acts 13:47) and as bearer of the Good News. The earthly Temple and the earthly Jerusalem are replaced by the heavenly Temple and the heavenly Jerusalem (Galatians 4:26-27; Hebrews 12:22-24; and in Revelation constantly, for in Revelation 11, as the description of it makes clear, the ‘Temple' there is the true people of God in Jerusalem, not a building. See our commentary on Revelation), of which in Christ the people of God on earth are a part by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16; 2 Corinthians 6:16-18.
End of Excursus.
The goodly stones and offerings have already been mentioned above. The huge white stones and marble columns, the glistening gold plating and special ‘gifts' such as the huge vine of pure gold whose clusters were each as tall as a man, gripped all by their splendour, and looking from the Mount of Olives, possibly while the sun was setting and making all shine with radiant light, we can understand why it impressed the disciples. It looked indestructible, and glorious. Only Jesus' heart was filled with the thought of that hugely costly gift of the poor widow, which surpassed all the others. And when He heard their admiration for the Temple He clearly felt it necessary for them to see that their minds should be on other things, rather than on a Temple which would shortly be destroyed. Their glorying in the Temple was all a part of their failure to see things from the right perspective.