Freed from Tithing, Free to Give - Part 10

In Christ we are fully God's. The blood of Jesus has brought us near to Him (Eph 2:13), and we are in Him (1 Cor 1:30), He is in us (Col 1:27) and He is our life (Col 3:4)! The Apostle Paul said, "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else... 'For in Him we live and move and have our being.'" (Acts 17:24-25, 28). We don't give because God needs us to give or compels us to give. We give because God has freely given us all things and because we are wholly His.

When it comes to giving, I like to consider the life of the Apostle Paul, who is easily nominated as one of the hardest gospel workers of all time. He didn't preach that the people should provide for him! At various times people willingly took up collections for him and even gave sacrificially, but it was never because he preached "the principle of giving." It was simply because they wanted to. In 2 Cor 12:14 he was talking about coming to visit them in Corinth and he said, "I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions, but you. After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children."

Paul's words to the Philippians were of the same spirit. In Philippians 4 he was commending them for how they had provided for him unlike any other church had done. And here's what he said, "Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that abounds to your account." He was happy about the things they had sent him (it's not bad that they gave to him!), but what he was really happy about was that their gift to him was "a sweet-smelling aroma, and acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God." It was selfless, and not given under compulsion but out of love, from their hearts. Paul adds, "And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Why will God do that? In return for their giving to Paul? NO! It's simply because that's who God is! He makes all grace abound toward people, that they, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.

It seems that almost all of the teachings I've heard in my life in the church have been based on a "duty" or "obligation" to be a generous giver. But true, generous Christian giving is done from a heart of love. You can't force or oblige love to do something. True love does everything freely. The bottom line for me is that we give by grace, just as we live the whole of our lives in Christ by grace! "Tithing" and "grace-giving" are very different things. In Christ, we are grace-givers. He doesn't want our "tithes." Giving by grace, as with the entirety of our lives being lived by grace, involves trusting in a Father who is full of grace and provision, who is never lacking in anything and who cares tremendously for us and loves us with a never-ending love!

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Freed from Tithing, Free to Give - Part 9

Giving is a most wonderful part of the Christian life. It's not meant to be a "teeth pulling" experience, but rather something that is done joyfully and with grace. As the Apostle Paul said, "let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work" (2 Cor 9:7-9). A person who gives cheerfully from their heart doesn't give so they will get something in return, nor does that person give because some law or some church rule tells them they have to give. Giving should never be done according to a rigidly set method or principle. Giving cheerfully as we decide in our hearts to give - what a freeing way to give!

The church of today seems to put a heavy emphasis on two things in particular: financial giving and giving to a church. And you know what? Giving to a church is fine, as long as all the people who give "to" that church have decided in their hearts that that's what they want to do. However, when the church leaders teach giving as a "must," or worse yet, when they teach "tithing" ten percent of their income to the church, then they've moved completely out of Christ-land and into a doctrine that is not of the New Covenant. (I hope this series has done a sufficient job of establishing that fact!).

Everybody's financial circumstances are different! Some people have careers that provide a 'healthy' living for them and it may be quite easy for them to give liberally and freely. Other people work two or three jobs and barely scrape by, even in the necessities of life. For them, giving even a small amount may mean missing their next meal. Some people have small families with only a few mouths to feed and bodies to clothe, and other people have huge families that cost a lot more money to provide for. The circumstances are wide and varied. There simply can't be a "set amount" that should be expected of anyone. In many cases, instead of a church asking all the people to give money to them, shouldn't the more prosperous people of the church instead be reaching out and giving to those who are in greater need? Again, we're a body, and all the members minister to one another, each according to how God has fitted them within the body.

Often the very best things that we can do in our lives in Christ is to give of ourselves to other people in all kinds of ways that aren't financial. This can be in the context of "a church" or in can be in the context of any of our relationships with other people! The church of today has unfortunately seemingly become a financial institution (!) with everything revolving around how much money people give. That said, I do want to also highlight that there truly are legitimate ministries, church programs, etc, that are dependent upon the generous financial giving of others, and if our hearts lead us to give financially, then let's give as generously as we can!

But the point here is that we can all give of ourselves according to what God has given us individually, whether it be finances, talents, time, service, friendship, food, hugs, mercy, love, or in a million other ways. Think about the ways in which you are able to give to others that have nothing (or little) to do with money and nothing (or little) to do with "a church." ALL of it is legitimate Christian giving! God said that His grace would abound toward us so that we would always have an abundance for every good work. Why do we always interpret that as referring to finances and churches?

One more post to go! I realize this has been a long series, but I sort of wanted to do a "once for all" series on the tithe. While I think I've covered a lot of bases in this series, it's never really complete, but I think for the most part I've touched on some of the more common issues involving tithing and giving.

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Joyful living and joyful giving - Part 2 of 2

In Part 1, I left off by saying that there was more to the stories about joyless giving that I had briefly mentioned. Check out that post to see the stories.

In story number one, the host of the program made things worse for the woman, in my opinion. It was obvious to me that he was a supporter of Christian tithing, and so instead of addressing the fact that tithing is a non-Christian principle (again, stay tuned and I'll eventually lay out a series of posts, showing how tithing is not a New Covenant principle by any means), and freeing the woman up to simply give freely from her heart as she determined to do on her own, which would by nature involve nothing less than cheerful giving, he gave her a list of rules and principles she could try to follow in order to have more joy in her life.

This is the type of thing in which I tend to have more verbal communication with my radio than I otherwise would have. ;)

And worse yet, in story number two the woman and her husband were commended by the host for what they did. I will mention that the woman said that she and her husband were very happy with what they had done and that they were thankful that they were in a position to be giving to something that they really wanted to give to. If they were truly changing their lifestyle because in their hearts they had decided that this was a way to give, and they did it cheerfully, then I can't argue with that.

But yet the whole story seems to me to be based more on legalism and religion - and not just a small wiff of it. This couple did feel obliged to "pay a tithe" to their local church. It didn't seem like they thought they had a choice in the matter. The root of their actions, it seems to me, was obligation, not giving freely.

When it comes to both joyful living (an overall life of joy) and joyful giving, the root can never be obligation. It can never be religion. It can never be rules. It can never be law. Christ came to set us FREE from all of that! I think that many Christians are living joyless lives, or at least seem to have very little joy, because they are mixing either a little or a lot of law and Old Covenant principles into their Christian lives. It only takes a little leaven of the law and religion to leaven the whole lump (see Gal 5:1-9).

Someone (well, ok, a LOT of people) might want to take some New Testament words and make "rules and principles" out of them. I'm thinking of words such as Peter's words, "What kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives..." (2 Peter 3:9). I recently heard an entire sermon on the radio based upon this passage. It basically turned out to be a list of do's and don'ts for the Christian life.

But the more I find out about my freedom in Christ, I find that the "oughts" of the Christian life are rooted in something much deeper. We can't simply yank passages out of the Bible and make rules out of them. Peter, in the above passage, continues with words that are often overlooked. "...as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming." This "ought" was rooted in joyful expectation of the coming of the Lord. It wasn't rooted in any kind of obligation to "be a better Christian" by following the rules. Joy wasn't going to come as a result of trying to live by "oughts."

Rather, the types of lives we live are rooted in the fact that in Christ we have freedom and we have joy. We have a wonderful Savior and Friend, and as we get to know Him intimately and freely, not through rules and oughts, but through His grace and love, then we won't be obliged to change our lifestyles in order to try to do better for Him. Instead, our growing process will be much more natural, over a period of time, as we rest in Him. It deeply saddens me that for many, the Christian life is not much more than futile attempts at rules and oughts.

As you read through other New Testament epistles, note how Paul and the others lay a foundation of life, love, grace, etc. And much more than a foundation, life, love and grace are also the makeup of the entire Christian life. And the actions of the Christian life, such as giving, kindness, love, holiness, etc, are not the root of the Christian life. They are the legitimate fruit of being grounded firmly and deeply in God's love and grace!

Joyful living and joyful giving - Part 1 of 2

I don't quite understand it (ha ha), but for some reason churches seem to make a priority of teaching on the topic of giving. And many of the teachings I've heard on this topic just make me sad. This is stuff I've heard all throughout my church life but I can't say that I ever get any happier when I hear it.

Here are two sad stories I've heard lately that I believe are direct results of how giving is taught in churches today.

1. On a Christian radio talk show, a woman called in with a problem. The gist of her problem is that she gives money to the church but she just can't seem to do it joyfully. She said something like, "We do pay our tithe to our church, but it just isn't a joyful thing for us."

2. Another woman called into a Christian talk show (I can't remember if it was the same program) and said that there was a time when she and her husband couldn't afford to pay their tithe to their church, because they wouldn't have enough money left over for other necessary things, but they felt guilty about it. So what did they end up doing? They SOLD their house, and in her own words, they took a huge loss on it. But, she says, now they are in a smaller house that costs less and they can now afford to "pay their tithe" to their church.

OH

MY.

Why do things like this surprise me? It probably happens far more than we can imagine.

But the point is... what has the Christian religion done to us??? We take Old Covenant laws and practices that served specific purposes for Old Covenant times, we stretch them and manipulate them to fit into the ways we've devised to do things in the church, and we call it "Christianity." I've written full commentaries on "the tithe" in the past and I've shared bits and pieces of my thoughts in various newgroups, and even more recently on other blogs, and I have in mind to do a full series here on "the tithe."

But for now I'll just say that I'll bet there are many similar stories to the ones I shared above, with people dealing with joyless giving, changing their lifestyles so they can "pay a tithe" to a church, and other problems rooted in legalism, and this is one of the areas of modern day legalistic Christianity that really gets under my skin.

The stories above didn't end where I left off. I'll pick up where I left off in Part 2.

Tithing

The second post from yesterday that really spoke to me was a post from Forgetting the Former Things called "Learning to Give Out in the Wild." Aida talks about the big difference between Old Covenant tithing and New Covenant cheerful giving.

She writes:

In these New Testament days, we have the life of God in us. That was not true before the coming of Christ. The law, which includes instructions about tithing, was put into effect to bring us to Christ. Now that we're in him, our relationship to the law is ended. That includes the law of the tithe. We're no longer required to tithe and we're not robbing God if we don't.

I know some toes are being stepped on in a major way right now with all this, but the church has been bound up in religion for too long to not talk about it! It never ceases to amaze me how the New Testament church continues to manipulate and twist Old Covenant scriptures in order to come up with New Covenant versions of Old Covenant laws. It's absolutely ridiculous at best, and on the worst end of the scale it puts Christians in undue bondage. In the most commonly used Old Testament passage that the church wrongly uses to get Christians to "pay a tithe" to a local church, God, through the prophet Malachi, was in actuality rebuking the Jewish people for not keeping the tithing laws (note: plural) that He had given them. These laws were given for certain times and for certain purposes that have absolutely nothing to do with the Christian church!

As I said in the comments of Aida's post, I'm planning on confronting this issue head-on here on my blog, hopefully soon! In the meantime, check out her excellent post.