Tithe – The Heart of the Matter

Is tithing a Biblical principle? Of course it is. Then again, so is the “eye for an eye” principle, stoning adulterers to death and children for bad behavior, by the way. Nobody really wants to argue that we should honor all Old Testament principles today.

The real problem is not giving ten percent to God. Who would have a problem with that? Certainly, if you decide to set aside ten percent of what you have to give to God, we would all agree that’s a good thing. The issue here, and what compulsory tithing supporters and benefactors don’t want to discuss, is the heart issue.

Look, I grew up in church, and the tithe message has always been really simple. Tithe or else… Now, depending on where you go to church, the “or else” is sometimes more severe than at other churches. “Tithe, or else you will be cursed by God! Tithe, or else you will not be blessed by God! Tithe, or else we will read your name in the Sunday service on the non-tithers list!”

I remain a bit confused when man starts getting in on the action. As if God being displeased and cursing me or withholding good things from me isn’t enough, we set up systems of judgment, shame and condemnation to “encourage” non-tithers to trust God. Is that really what it does?

Let’s see how this works. You claim I owe God, but I can’t or don’t pay, so God calls out his church collection agents to twist your arm and more, unless you come up with the money. From that experience, you learn to trust God and His collectors?

Maybe you learn to not do business with God at all! I suppose if you then choose to have no relationship with God, or at least the church, because this all seems just a little to convenient or manipulative, we’ll convene a collective Satan-bashing session. The reality is that money continues to make the church unattractive! It’s not God that people don’t like. It’s the apparently money-obsessed and power-hungry church.

Here is a list of things taught about tithing that are FALSE

FALSE: Blessings from God are based on what I do. If God blesses me, it’s because I had enough faith, because I gave enough, or because I did something right.

TRUTH: You cannot manipulate God by any means. God is sovereign.

Matthew 6:26 “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?

FALSE: It’s the exact amount that I give that’s important to God.

TRUTH: Your ten percent may pale in comparison to my two cents.

Matthew 12:41 And He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury; and many rich people were putting in large sums. 42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. 43 Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; 44 for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.”

FALSE: If you don’t give your money to God, he will curse you.

TRUTH: You are not under a curse. Christ removed it forever!

Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the Cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse.

The real shame is that many use the outdated law of tithing as a blessing guarantee, a sure way to ensure that their blessing stash never gets depleted. For many, tithing is about doing what it takes to earn what is already free. That’s the point of Matthew 6, isn’t it?

Shouldn’t we stop trying to manipulate God and trust Him? I encourage you to stop worrying about money, possessions and the increasing of our wealth, and focus on doing God’s work. Aren’t we called to do God’s work in our communities, not pay our church to do it, thereby passing the buck?

The point of giving is not to get or gain God’s favor. Scripture teaches that you are to give generously because it reflects the heart and the kingdom of God. Do you agree?

1 John 4, 7 & 8

Tithe – The Disconnect

There are those of us who understand that tithing in its truest form cannot be mandatory. Yet we continue to consider a tithe to be a minimum of our giving, and we do so out of relationship with God and our fellow men.

The problem is that most churches give right around 2% of monies collected to the poor and causes of addressing social injustice. Most of the church’s money goes to compensation packages and gifts, media efforts, and building expansion projects. As church buildings get bigger and grander — including things like multiple restaurants, gyms, bookstores, out-of-this-world multimedia systems, synchronized light, smoke and sound shows, and much, much more — more and more money is unavailable for ministering to people.

The lack of involvement has been dubbed as “starving Jesus” by the great folks over at starvingjesus.com

They ask these great questions: “Where is the love? Why are we stuck in the pew? Are you born again lazy?”

Lazy and disconnected! We are taught to feel accomplished and even superior because we tithe, but what do your neighbors know about you? Better yet, what do you know of your neighbors’ needs? The needs of your community, how do you seek to address them? I mean you, personally, not the religious organization you give to.

If your church uses 98% of every dollar given for overhead and operation costs, then you have only really given 2% of your 10% to the major concerns of the New Testament, haven’t you? Do I get kudos for all the years that I gave so I could hear my pastors preach and so that I could enjoy the wonderful instrumentation and bigger buildings? Shall I tip my hat at myself because I’ve paid for my pastor to drive that $100,000.00 car and live in the mansion with everything their heart desires? As a matter of fact, should I print myself an award for giving consistently to an organization that benefits me and does little for anyone who isn’t attached? Does that make me the most generous Christian ever?

If the point is to give to the poor and those who can’t attend to their needs themselves, then sadly the typical local church is not always the place to get the most bang for your buck in the sowing of your seed.

Don’t take my word for it. Ask the question. It’s a simple email to send.

“Dear Pastor or Board Members,

As a contributor to your organization, I would like a distribution statement, please. I simply need to know how much of our money goes specifically to the poor and standing up for those who are taken advantage of.”

Then ask organizations like Feed the Children and the Red Cross.

As a matter of fact, let me help you.

Distribution Percentages for Feed the Children:

During FY 2007, Feed The Children committed $459,130,694 to program services.

Here is the percentage breakdown of expenditures:

• Program Services (childcare, food, medical, disaster relief, and community development): 83%
• Fundraising: 13%
• Management and Supporting Services: 4%
• Total: 100%

And your church?

The Red Cross keeps management and support services at around 8% found in this report readily available on their website. You can easily compare spending habits by going to your church’s website and pulling up it’s annual report, Form 990 or distribution statement. Certainly there is no reason why, as a good steward, you can’t know exactly where your money is going. Certainly your church encourages this.

The visionaries over at relational tithe dot com have launched an experiment. Here is what the welcome page says:

Welcome to Relational Tithe

As you explore this site you will find a global community of people who are committed to meeting the needs of others. We believe that each person in the world is just as important as any one of us, and that there are enough resources to satisfy everyone, if only people will live in abundance towards one another. We think, perhaps it’s not that the rich and poor don’t care about each other, maybe they just haven’t met one another.RelationalTithe.com is an interactive platform for connecting and meeting needs across socioeconomic and geographic barriers. It is also a place to explore, to meet, to share dreams and ideas, to ask and discuss questions, to learn and to grow together. We are determined to live intentionally, in joyful and responsible relationships with those around us. This site is only one, although powerful, tool to connect with people all over the world who share this vision.To really understand what this is all about, create a username and start connecting with people around the world. And take action – start your own group for redistribution or join an existing one.

Bottom line is this: there is a disconnect between Christ and the Church. Many who stand on the outside identify money and the church’s mismanagement of it as a key reason why. Are we listening?

There is a disconnect between the increasing prosperity demonstrated by the church and the increasing poverty in our cities.

There is a disconnect between preaching that it’s more blessed to give than to receive, then turning around and doing more receiving and rejoicing over receiving than giving.

The only way to reconnect is to confront the issue honestly and change. Short of that, we can keep printing awards for those who are proud of tithing to their own benefit.

Tithe – Not what Malachi 3 is about

If you’ve been in church even for one day, the chances are good that you have heard or seen this:

3:10

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

To this verse, the well-established rules of hermeneutics — the art and science of interpreting scripture — seem not to apply. Before you stop reading, unsubscribe, or click away, indulge me for one question, please. What is the chapter about? If you said tithing, you were absolutely wrong.

You know one of the simplistic rules of hermeneutics is this: first ask, “What is the writer speaking about?” In other words, what is the context? And then you follow up by asking, “What is the writer saying about what they are talking about?” More involved are the literal, grammatical, and historical studies needed to properly extract from scripture its true meaning.

No matter the approach you take, you cannot honestly end with a conclusion that this chapter is about tithing. The tithe issue here is merely an example of a specific rule that a specific people ignored. Is this all that the Messiah was coming to judge? Maybe we should look at other verses in the chapter to discover the context.

3:1 “Look! I’m sending my messenger on ahead to clear the way for me. Suddenly, out of the blue, the Leader you’ve been looking for will enter his Temple – yes, the Messenger of the Covenant, the one you’ve been waiting for. Look! He’s on his way!” A Message from the mouth of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

3:5

“Yes, I’m on my way to visit you with Judgment. I’ll present compelling evidence against sorcerers, adulterers, liars, those who exploit workers, those who take advantage of widows and orphans, those who are inhospitable to the homeless – anyone and everyone who doesn’t honor me.” A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

3:6

“I am God – yes, I Am. I haven’t changed. And because I haven’t changed, you, the descendants of Jacob, haven’t been destroyed.

3:7

You have a long history of ignoring my commands. You haven’t done a thing I’ve told you. Return to me so I can return to you,” says God-of-the-Angel-Armies. “You ask, ‘But how do we return?’

Okay, so did you read verse 5? Is it just me? Did I miss the point? What do you think Malachi 3 is about?

Tithe – The original purpose

Even if you have been in church for over a decade, chances are you have never heard a sermon on Deuteronomy 14. In context, this scripture IS about tithing. But what it says may shock you and doesn’t bode well for tithe-dependent churches and ministries.

EAT THE TITHE! Just one of the shocking instructions you’ll find as you rush over there to ensure that I’m not making this up.

Welcome back!

Turns out that when instruction for tithing was given to the Jews, they were really instructions for having an all-out party or feast to celebrate the covenant! That would be the old covenant, as we know it. The point was for them to remember the day that God gave them the covenant. To ensure that neither they, nor their children, would forget, they were to have an annual shindig, an all-out bash, an unforgettable party to remember the covenant, and thereby teach their children to revere God.

The language for this is stunning! It involves beer or strong drink and trading the tithe for money, which in turn, was to be used to buy whatever you or your family wanted. Again, all of this celebrating was to the point of remembering the covenant and teaching it to their children and their children’s children. Deut 4: 10 – 14

When you know this, when you see this for yourself, it puts Malachi 3 into proper context. In spite of the fact that God had given them this wonderful way of remembering Him and the covenant, they had long forgotten.

God also told them to remember to take care of the Levites and those who were without or the poor. (More about this in “Tithe – Support for the Poor.”)

Let me point out a couple of things here. We, too, have a way of celebrating our covenant with God. It’s not the tithe. We don’t put as much into making it celebratory, relevant, or unforgettable anymore, but maybe we should. Maybe we should put as much emphasis into celebrating the new covenant as we put on the celebration of the old covenant.

What do you do to celebrate your covenant with God that is memorable to your children and your family? Do you have any ideas for a celebration fit for our covenant?

Share your thoughts here.

Tithe – Support for the poor

So as we see in Deuteronomy, a portion of the tithe was to be given to the Levites and the poor. Let’s make sure we understand this. This should not be interpreted “the rich” and “the poor.” No. The Levites, not all of whom were priests, were without an inheritance, because they were set aside to the work of the temple.

You would not find those serving in the temple in the upper echelons of their society like you readily find in ours. Today, you find the servants of God boasting about driving the most expensive cars and living in multiple luxurious complexes all over the country and world, in the name of God, no less. Not then!

See, what today’s church has gotten into the habit of doing is only taking from scripture what supports their position and or desire; in this case, their endeavors to be rich, famous and powerful. If we were to apply the tithe as law to today’s church, we would have to demand that those dedicated to the work of the lord — to include missionaries, cleaning staff, along with pastors, bishops, musicians, and anyone else who, because of their call to serve the people of God, have had to walk away from all other profitable ventures — be limited to a livable wage. Here’s the balance. We don’t want them in lack, yet they are not called to a life that allows for excess. Their inheritance is the Lord, or will come directly from the Lord. If one wants to be rich, famous and powerful, and if that is the ambition they hold, so sorry. Wrong tribe, wrong calling!

The blatant irony here is that the old covenant law of tithe is now used to coerce and manipulate people into guilt, submission, and giving.

This is done in decided disregard for clear scripture that says giving should never be done under these conditions. 2 Co 9:7

Imagine that a man put a gun to a woman’s head, poised and ready to shoot, and then asked that woman, “Will you marry me?” If she says “Yes,” I would guess that it may not be because she loves him. She’s afraid! So many preachers and pastors are happily enjoying the benefits of their fear-induced rhetoric. Malachi also has this to say.

Malachi 3:5 “Yes, I’m on my way to visit you with Judgment. I’ll present compelling evidence against sorcerers, adulterers, liars, those who exploit workers, those who take advantage of widows and orphans, those who are inhospitable to the homeless – anyone and everyone who doesn’t honor me.” A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

The fact remains that we are undoubtedly not under the old covenant. We are stewards, and we recognize that it’s not 10% percent of what we have that belongs to God. It’s 100%.

Let’s be honest. The problem is that if we teach this truth, we have no idea how much people will give to our ministries. The fact that ministries are known and identified as “ours” is indicative of the problem.

Even in finances, especially as pastors and leaders of the church, we are called to walk by faith and not by sight, are we not? Walk by faith and not by pledges. Walk by faith and not by ill-gotten or manipulated gain. Walk by faith, and that means trusting God to lead His people in the area of giving and trusting the people to give to advance the kingdom of God and take care of the poor.

We ask people to trust God by giving a tithe. I sometimes wonder if we’re not really pressuring them to tithe because we lack the faith that God will take care of His body, His ministry, and His work. What do you think?