Tithing and You

Keeping in mind that in the passages of Scripture which define tithing, it is always a tenth of one’s increase, most often food. Once it is a tenth of one’s spoils of war, but it is never said to be a tenth of one’s actual wages. Strictly speaking, according to the Law and the Prophets, the tithe was a food offering sent to the temple to provide for the Levites who had no “secular” job, living their lives in service to the Lord and His temple.

Nowadays we have Christian leaders who earn money not only from possibly having a secular job, but also from book sales, starting a school, making music albums, and so much more. Combine that with the freewill offerings of the congregation so that the preacher of the Gospel may live from the Gospel, and I see little reason to actually enforce the Old Testament practice of tithing upon anyone.

What do you think?

5 thoughts on “Tithing and You”

  1. I mean, yeah, if you’ve got a church leader that is making money from all those avenues then I’d say something needs to be done in terms of how and why he receives money from a tithe. But then, the vast majority of ministers out there only work for the church.

  2. And those who do dedicated their lives solely to the Gospel and God’s Church, I fully believe they ought to be supported by those they minister to.

    However, I don’t believe the tithe is proper for this; rather than giving a tenth of grain, cattle, etc., we lay aside monetary offerings in proportion to our own prosperity. The care of the minister is no longer a mandated 10%, but is given of love just as we would otherwise give alms.

    Giving liberally, however, seems to laugh in the face of a mere 10%, if you ask me.

    Actually, giving is a gift listed in Romans 12:6, alongside other gifts such as prophesying, exhorting, teaching, leading, and ministering. Not all are prophets, nor are all teachers; and so I wonder what is special about the giving of those gifted to do so. It isn’t of necessity more liberal, for here Paul admonishes those who are gifted to give to do so liberally — if the gift was liberal giving, it seems to me that no such exhortation would be needed.

    But I’m rambling (and hungry), so I’m just gonna stop there, press Submit, and await the delicious pizza’s arrival. Mmmmm, pizza. *Homer-esque drooling*

  3. Hey! This is actually Mrs. David here. I just read this today (Jan. 7) so pardon me for coming late to the party. There seems to be something missing from this discussion – the fact that you are giving to God, not just the pastor. The act of giving by Christians should be a reflection of the heart attitude that it is all God’s anyway, not ours. We are merely “stewarding” what is His.
    When we give, it should not be a matter of how much do I want to give, but how much does God want me to give? This puts the focus on Him. When we give, we are exercising faith – but only when you give to God first, not just the remains after we’ve taken “our share.”
    You know, when you think about it, God doesn’t need our money – it’s all His anyway, whether we admit it or not. Giving is to glorify and worship God, as well as to change our hearts from thinking everything is “MINE” to holding everything out to God as His.
    As far as the gift of giving, this is one gift that we should all try to exercise.

  4. Oh I fully agree, Mrs. D. The focus ought to be wholly upon Christ for ultimately everything is for and about Him anyway!

    I like the closing few verses of 2 Corinthians 9. I like the phrase “liberal distribution” in verse 13, and I really like verse 7. There Paul tells us that in our giving, we determine what to give not because of any feeling of obligation or necessity, not to save face with the church or appear godly, or anything of that matter. We’re to give “for (or, because) God loves a cheerful giver.”

    If God loves it, then when we do such, we are glorifying Him.

Leave a Reply to Rick Beckman Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Use your Gravatar-enabled email address while commenting to automatically enhance your comment with some of Gravatar's open profile data.

Comments must be made in accordance with the comment policy. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam; learn how your comment data is processed.

You may use Markdown to format your comments; additionally, these HTML tags and attributes may be used: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

the Rick Beckman archive
Scroll to Top