To tithe or not to tithe, that is the question!

I had an interesting question from a friend in South Africa yesterday concerning the scriptural basis for tithing. He sent me a document that was emailed to him from a friend and wanted more clarification on the issue. Here is my reply. I thought you may find it interesting and perhaps helpful if you are faced with the same question. (Names have been removed)


Hi David

Hope all is well with you and your family.Please give me your comment on the attached letter.I got this from a friend of mine.I strongly believe to give at least a tenth of my income for Gods work.He sent me this letter.I still believe the way I do, but I have no answer on this to my friend.

Thanks very much.

Regards
F.



Hi again F.

I just read the article you sent me, and I must say that I am in agreement with what this guy is saying to a large degree... but I find that he is leaving a few important things out of his argument (on purpose?) and I will try to cover some of that here.

Some of the things I agree with:
He is quite right that there is no teaching to give tithes in the New Testament, neither Jesus nor the apostles ever taught their followers to tithe. This is something that I have taught people for years already.
He is quite right that modern "prosperity doctrine" preachers are teaching false doctrine when it comes to giving to the church, I have even heard one preacher teach that you can "buy" your property in Heaven by giving money to the church! You can hear television evangelists teaching about money and nothing but money any day of the week on TBN and other Christian TV stations, with almost no mention of Jesus at all. These same preachers drive expensive foreign motor cars and fly in private jets while their followers sometimes live in abject poverty. B is a classic example, he raised millions of US dollars preaching in Africa, from people who live on less than $1 per day. And I have seen examples of people giving money that they don't have by taking loans to give to the church. This certainly is not scriptural. (However Jesus does say give and it shall be given unto you, so I am sure He would bless the giving heart anyway if they gave with the right motives)
There is more I agree on, but I will move along.

Things he left out:
While Jesus and His apostles never taught anyone to tithe, it is wrong to teach that they never took money from anyone, a good example is Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-4) who sold a certain possession and tried to keep half the price (money) of it for themselves. "Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." They withheld money from God and God actually struck them down dead. Pretty heavy stuff!
There are more examples of people selling their possessions and bringing the cash and laying it at the feet of the disciples. Check Acts 4:34-35 "Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need." Of course, as you can see, the Apostles did the right thing and distributed the cash among the believers and ensured that nobody lacked anything (themselves too), nobody had too much or too little. This is where a lot (not all) of the modern churches and preachers fail, they often tend to use the cash to buy the preacher a better car or house and to put in a better sound system in the church or build a bigger and better church building, while sometimes the people attending the same church are battling to buy food for their kids.
See also Acts 4:36-37 where a Levite sells some land he has and gives the cash to the apostles.
In Luke 21:1-4 Jesus and His disciples watch a bunch of rich guys, and also a poor widow, giving their offering of cash to God. Cash again.
It also mentions in John 12:4 and 13:29 that Judas kept the bag, or the purse. This indicates that he was the treasurer of Jesus ministry which implies that even Jesus received some money during His work on this Earth. While it is not explicitly stated that He received cash, the implication is certainly there.
There is also a classic section of scripture in Acts 2:44-45 "And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need." Gods economics are amazing!

In Matthew 19:16-22 a rich young man comes to Jesus and says that he has kept the law all his life and asks what he must do to be perfect. Jesus tells him to sell all that he has and give it to the poor, and then to follow Him. But the man goes away sorrowful because it would cost him too much.
In Matthew 13:44-46 Jesus says "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it."
And in Luke 21:1-4 it says "And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had."
Really what Jesus is saying in all of these passages is that we should not be holding back, but we should be giving our all to Him whether it is a little or much! (Note: Don't sell everything and end up poor yourself, that is not the point, rather be giving of the increase/earnings, or else it would just be plain bad economics and that would not be good, or of God either!)

In the Old Testament times God could see that the Jews were not going to give Him anything. At various times He called them rebellious and stiff-necked people. And so He had to force the law on them make sure that they obeyed. Paul says in Galatians 3:19 "Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions" and in Galatians 3:24-25 "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." And so God forced them to give to His work by putting down a minimum of 10% to be given or face punishment. But now we are under a new dispensation and we should be giving because we want to give to His work, not because we are forced to, but because we love Him and want to give out of our obedience to Him. If we don't give then we will no longer be cursed as they were in the Old Testament, but we do lose out on potential blessings that God wants to give to us. These blessings may be physical, but they could just as easily be spiritual blessings in the form of peace, contentment, happiness, wonderful obedient children, a happy marriage, etc. the list goes on!! These days I think it is better to use the tenth as a floor to start giving, and not as a ceiling to stop giving. It's a good place to start off and work our way up to where Jesus wants us to be. And as long as we are giving with a clean, giving heart, being "cheerful givers" then we will benefit as much from God's blessings as He has promised in His Word.

God says a just balance is His delight (Proverbs 16:11) and whenever we study His Word we need to take all sides into account and not leave anything out in order to fulfill our own purposes. We need to read all of His Word and not just the bits we agree with as if we have a buffet style faith. Too many false prophets have built whole doctrines and churches based on unbalanced scripture without balancing what they want to believe against all of God's Word. Paul said to Timothy to "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (2Timothy 2:15) And really that is what it is all about, if we faithfully study all of God's Word, then when the time comes we can "rightly divide" or have a balanced view of the truth, and then we will not be ashamed.

I hope this helps.

Much love and blessings in our dearest Jesus!

David