Will a Man Rob God?

You're not "robbing God" if you don't give 10% of your income to a church. It's absolutely wonderful to give, give, give to your heart's content, so please never think that I'm saying "don't give." The "will a man rob God?" passage (Malachi 3:8) was not spoken to the New Covenant church. It was spoken to the nation of Israel (Malachi 3:9) because they (not the New Covenant church, which was not even in existence) had been commanded to supply tithes of food for the tribe of Levi (the Levites), but they had been neglecting this.

The Levites were a tribe that was set apart for certain functions, under the law, within the nation of Israel. The tithes were meant to feed the Levites. See Numbers 18:21-24. Verse 24 says that God has given Israel's tithes to the Levites as an inheritance. So when Israel did not do this, they were "robbing God." This has nothing to do with giving 10% of your income to a church - which has not been commanded by God.

The word "storehouse" is mentioned roughly 15 times in the Old Testament. They were places that stored - you guessed it - FOOD! Items such as grain, wine and oil were stored there, and there were also stalls for livestock in these storehouses. In the context of Malachi 3, the storehouses were places where the children of Israel were to bring their tithes of these things (grain, wine, oil, livestock, etc) so that the Levites could eat.

None of this has anything to do with today's church. You have to go "extra-biblical" (completely outside the Bible) in order to turn the OT tithes into "income" and the OT storehouses into the modern church. It's absolutely ridiculous! But again, I say, give to your heart's content. You will be of great benefit to others when you give. But also get yourself freed from tithing, and simply give freely.

For more on this, check out my blog series Freed from Tithing, Free to Give.

Giving of our resources

A recent post of Aida's, "Giving - Darin Hufford Quotes," along with some of the comments that followed the post, turned my mind to something that I've often thought about but I don't know if I've spent a whole lot of time talking with others about it. When the subject of "giving" is taught in the church today, how much of the teaching is related to giving to a church and/or giving to a ministry? Quite a bit, in my experience! You go into a church and they're talking about giving to their church. You flip on the TV or radio and hear someone from a certain ministry talking about giving, and they're wanting you to believe that God is calling you to give to their ministry.

I'll say from the start that I'm not coming against the idea of people focusing the giving of their resources on supporting the work of a local body of believers (church, building, missions, etc, etc) nor to any other types of ministries - as long as that's truly what's in their hearts to do! My wife and I personally give money to "a church" and to various "ministries," simply because we enjoy being a part of the larger work that's going on and we want to support those works with our resources, when we're able to.

But as long as I've been in the Evangelical church (and I know it extends far beyond my experience), "giving" messages generally aren't preached unless the focus is on getting people to give money to that particular church or ministry... and not so much on giving amongst ourselves to help the needy among us, or to give to help outside of the church where there are many needs as well. Or, if those other things are talked about, the main emphasis still remains giving money for that church or ministry. It's kind of like, "we have to keep this ministry going, so give to us and then if you have money left over, give to others as well." That's not the way it's worded, of course, but isn't that really what's being said?

Aida's comment (I hope you don't mind me sharing this, Aida!) on her blog had something to do with how very often "giving to a church" is equated with giving to God Himself! You're either robbing God, or you're simply not giving Him your best, if a certain portion of your income is not given to a church or ministry. Again, let me be clear that if that's what a person wants to do, then go for it! Even though organized "churches" and "ministries" are not perfect, a lot of great work can come out of the sharing of resources in various ways in these settings, and people may truly enjoy supporting those things.

But when did the emphasis change from giving to people to giving to "a church" or "a ministry." What if I'm really ignoring the prompting of God's love in my heart by giving to my church when there's a homeless man who is in far more need? "Well, just give to your church, and the church will have outreaches that will help the homeless." Nice answer, but what if I truly want to relate personally to the homeless man with my own time and money, but yet the church has taught me to give to IT and to serve IT, and I now have no money or time left to give.

I've been "out of church" for a couple years now. ( I'm not "attending" a church). Some people have wondered out loud to me how I could possibly be 'serving' or 'giving' in the body of Christ, if I'm not focusing my time and money and other resources on a "local church" (the building, the programs, the outreaches, etc). The wonderful thing is that I don't have to answer to anyone... only my heart and my conscience... and all I can say is I'm quite happy to be giving of myself in the ways that I do.

An organized local church is not a "storehouse." Can a local body of believers organize an efficient way to gather together the resources of many and hand it out for the welfare of others? Sure!!! How wonderful it is when that happens! But don't let "a church" or "a ministry" manipulatively rob you of serving others and giving cheerfully from your heart as the love of God compels or directs you! Grow in the grace of giving from your heart... not in the legalistic bondage of giving!

Freed from Tithing, Free to Give - Part 8

The New Covenant is not a continuation of the Old Covenant, nor is it related to the Old Covenant in any way. The Old Covenant was weak and unprofitable (Hebrews 7:18) because it could make nothing perfect, and therefore a New Covenant was needed that was completely different than the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant had many high priests who had to offer sacrifices often for their own sins and for the sins of the people, but in the New Covenant we have One High Priest, "who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens" (Hebrews 7:26) and who offered Himself up "once for all" (Hebrews 7:27).

In this series we've talked about the Levite tribe and priests who received the tithes that their fellow Jews from the other eleven tribes brought to support them. The New Covenant is a matter of a completely different Priesthood. There is no such thing as a set-apart "tribe" or group of Christian "priests" who are sanctioned to perform sacrifices or offerings or other duties that are a part of the covenant. In this covenant, ALL of the work has been done by One High Priest, Jesus. Please understand that the duties and functions of the Old Covenant priests were not carried over into the New Covenant in any way, shape or form. Why? Because it was all done away with (annulled - Heb 7:18, made obsolete - Heb 8:13) and the work of the New Covenant was all fulfilled (nothing left undone) in the finished work of Jesus.

In this New Covenant, ALL Christians are a new breed of priests. We are not a physical priesthood, but rather we are "a spiritual house, a holy priesthood" (1 Peter 2:5). We don't offer up physical sacrifices to God, but rather "spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (also 1 Peter 2:5). We are "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people..." (1 Peter 2:9).

In the New Covenant there is no "tabernacle" nor "storehouse," nor anything that resembles them. Please don't tell me a church building is a modern day equivalent to the Old Covenant tabernacle! "The church" is not a place. It's not a building nor a location. It's true that local bodies of Christians gather together to meet in buildings, but these buildings are not tabernacles, and they are not storehouses and they are not "the house of God." The "house of God" is the people in whom He dwells. It is a spiritual house, not a physical house (see Eph 2:19-22). Again, we are a royal, spiritual priesthood.

This royal priesthood is one body. This one body of new-creation priests (including you and me!) happens to have many parts (see Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12), and each "part" has specific functions and giftings within the body - but none of the parts are set apart for ministry in any sense like the Levites were. Rather all the parts "are individually members of one another" (Rom 12:5), and each part is to minister to one another for the profit of all, according to the gifts given them by the grace of God (1 Cor 12:7, 1 Peter 4:10, Romans 12:6).

Let's let that sink in a little. One body, many parts. All parts individually members of one another. All parts ministering to one another for the profit of all. Can we see from this that the body of Christ - the spiritual house of God - is nothing like the Levitical system in which one tribe required the support of tithes from all the other tribes. In Christ, the entire body is to support the ministry of the entire body.

Now, Paul does indeed say that God "gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers." Does Paul lift these people up as being higher on the totem pole than other members of the body of Christ? Does Paul say that they are an extra-special type of "priest?" Of course not! The people in today's church seem to lift them higher, but as far as I can see in scripture they are simply playing their part in the body just like all the other parts are doing!

In 1 Timothy 5, Paul talks about "elders who rule well" being counted worthy of double honor, "especially those who labor in the word and doctrine." Now, instead of getting into what all of this means, I'll simply point out what it doesn't mean. None of it has anything to do with bringing a "tithe" of income or of any other physical possession to "a church." Can it mean that other members of the body can give a portion of income, or food, or possessions to support those people? I'm sure it can mean that. But the point is that there is no set amount (such as a "tithe"), and it's most certainly not based upon anything that has to do with the Old Covenant Levite/tithing system!

This has gone long so we'll pick it up in Part 9, where we'll finally begin to wrap up this series with a couple of posts on "true Christian giving."

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Freed from Tithing, Free to Give - Part 6

To list out all of the rest of the Old Testament tithing scriptures would involve a lot of repetition and echoing of previous scriptures, so as we wrap up our look at them we'll skim by a few and we'll highlight a few others. And we'll finally get to the famous Malachi passage!

Deuteronomy 26:12-13 and 2 Chronicles 31:5-12 list out some tithing instructions, and you will also see the tithes in actual practice in the latter passage. Then we get to Nehemiah, where we see many of the same things, and mention is made of a special tithe that the Levites themselves gave. Out of the tithes they received from the other people, the Levites were to "bring a tenth of the tithes to the house of our God, to the rooms of the storehouse" for the sake of "the priests who minister and the gatekeepers and the singers." We'll get into the issue of "priests" in Part 8, but for now I just wanted to highlight this passage as yet another one that doesn't fit into the format of how "church" is set up today and so it gets ignored.

There is a little more about the tithes and the storehouse in Nehemiah 12:44-45 and 13:4-5. What was the storehouse? It was simply the place where the tithes and offerings were stored before they were eaten! My goodness, how we've taken that way out of context by teaching that a local church is the modern day equivalency to the "storehouse!"

Finally in Nehemiah we have a passage that will lead us into Malachi. First a brief background: To make a long story short, Nehemiah was allowed to go to Jerusalem and act as a governor of Judea. He arrived there and secretly surveyed the city, and he saw that many, many things were out of line (too many things to mention), and he worked to fix it all. One of the wrongs (of many) that he fixed had to do with the tithes:

Neh 13:10-13 I also realized that the portions for the Levites had not been given them; for each of the Levites and the singers who did the work had gone back to his field. 11 So I contended with the rulers, and said, "Why is the house of God forsaken?" And I gathered them together and set them in their place. 12 Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain and the new wine and the oil to the storehouse.

As we see, among the many ways in which Nehemiah saw that the people were transgressing, they had not been bringing their tithes for the Levites. Well, a contemporary of Nehemiah was the prophet Malachi, and if you read the book of Malachi from start to finish, you will see that he prophesied against many, many ways in which the Jews were transgressing. For some reason the church likes to zero in solely on the following passage - which leads me to ask again, why only this passage? Why not the rest of the book as well?

Mal 3:8-11 "Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me!

But you say, 'In what way have we robbed You?'

In tithes and offerings. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation. 10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this," says the Lord of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. 11 "And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field," says the Lord of hosts.

Just as with Nehemiah, Malachi saw a host of things that were wrong, which happened to include the neglect of the tithes and offerings, and he prophesied God's word to the people of Israel.

Do you see why I spent so much time leading up to this? As I said at the beginning of this series, the church seems to start with this scripture, or at least put heavy emphasis on it, and declare that Christians are to bring ten percent - a "tithe" - of their income to the local church. But this passage - along with all the other ones - has absolutely nothing to do with the New Covenant church, nor with "income!" Even Christians who preach that we are no longer under the curse if we don't "tithe" still wrongfully bring up this passage as Christian doctrine! Why do they do that???

In Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, 2 Chronicles, Nehemiah, Amos (a short passage that I haven't mentioned) and Malachi, the tithes that are being spoken of are tithes that were mandated by God for the sake of the Levite tribe that He had set apart for special service under the Old Covenant. There is nothing that is "New Covenant" about the tithes.

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