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.

Missing the Point of the Scriptures (video blog)

Exploring the idea of my last video a little further. I take a look at how the wrong premise about what the Christian life is all about leads to skewed views of various scriptures. When the premise is that we're supposed to always be teaching each other "what to do," then we often miss the point entirely. I look at one passage in particular, Hebrews 7, to show how the church has honed in on a certain aspect of "doing" and has missed the point of the passage entirely! My hope in all this is to highlight the love, grace and goodness of God!

Oh brother --- Tithe Rap

Saw this here.

I just don't see the Levites and the other 11 tribes looking at it this way... at all!!!

The Tithe Series

I'm simply listing the 10 parts to my series on The Tithe from a month ago for easy reference.

Part 1 First Things First - setting a proper foundation for looking at "the tithe"

Part 2 More than one tithe; Abram's tithe; Tithing not a "type" for new covenant giving

Part 3 To repeat - plural tithes; Mandatory tithes; Leviticus

Part 4 Important info about the Levites; Deuteronomy 12

Part 5 Deuteronomy 14

Part 6 Deuteronomy 26, 2 Chronicles, Nehemiah, What is the 'Storehouse?'; Malachi

Part 7 New Testament mentions of tithing - Matthew 23; Luke 11; Hebrews 7 - Explanation of Abram's tithe

Part 8 Separating the Old Covenant from the New Covenant; a NEW priesthood; we are all priests; a spiritual house; one body; New Covenant church pastors and leader are NOT equivalent AT ALL to the Old Covenant Levite tribe and Levite priests

Part 9 Giving; Giving cheerfully; Everybody's finances are NOT the same; Giving in many different ways

Part 10 God does not need us to give (God doesn't need ANYTHING from us!); a sweet smelling aroma; not duty or obligation, but giving by grace

Freed from Tithing, Free to Give - Part 7

Matthew 23 and Luke 11
In this part we'll look at the tithes as mentioned in the New Testament. We'll start with these two passages in which we see Jesus harshly rebuking the Pharisees, who, of course, fancied themselves as keepers of the law but were in reality steeped in self-righteousness and hypocrisy. Jesus brought up many different complaints against them, including their faithfulness in tithing while yet ignoring other parts of the law.

Luke 11:42 "But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.

Matt 23:23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.

Jesus said that as people who were under the law, they most certainly should bring their tithes, as was mandated under the law. And they had actually done that. However, they had "neglected the weightier matters of the law." As Jesus saw it, they were "whitewashed tombs" who appeared clean from outward appearances but were really "full of dead men's bones and uncleanness" on the inside (Matt 23:27). From outward appearance (including the bringing of the tithes that could be seen by everybody), they looked clean. But yet their negligence in other matters proved that they were only self-righteous hypocrites.

Here's my point in all this: If we're to take Jesus' words to the Pharisees about tithing as teachings for Christians to follow, then shouldn't we follow ALL of what Jesus spoke to the Pharisees? Read Matthew 23 and Luke 11 and tell me that you think it should be taught in the Christian church! But of course, Jesus wasn't giving a "Christian" teaching here, was He! He was teaching law to those who were under the law.

Like I've previously mentioned more than once, it seems again to be the case that Christians who teach "the tithe" disregard all of the surrounding words and instructions, and zoom in solely on the tithe. I've tried not to be too strong in my language in this series, but is it not evident that all of this is a gross negligence of context and a vast straying away from the true meaning of all of these scriptures?

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
In Luke 18, Jesus spoke this parable "to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others" (Luke 18:9). Read the full parable in Luke 18:10-14. Not much is needed to say here in regards to the purpose of this series. It simply shows that the Pharisee, who faithfully tithed, is not the one who was justified.

Hebrews 7
I briefly mentioned this passage in Part 2 when I was talking about Abram's tithe to Melchizedek, and we'll go a little bit more in depth here. We really need to start at the beginning of Hebrews to get the full gist of what the writer is saying. At the very least, go back to chapter 5 where the writer begins to write about Melchizedek or chapter 6 where the writer begins to talk about "perfection." But let's quickly look at Hebrews 7:4-10 so we can see how the writer came to his conclusion after verse 11, that perfection could not come through the Levite priesthood, but only through Jesus. I rarely ever use The Living Bible when trying to explain doctrine, but in this case I think it helps to give a better understanding of this passage.  After you read this, feel free to also read it in another version:

Heb 7:4-10 See then how great this Melchizedek is: Even Abraham, the first and most honored of all God's chosen people, gave Melchizedek a tenth of the spoils he took from the kings he had been fighting. 5 One could understand why Abraham would do this if Melchizedek had been a Jewish priest, for later on God's people were required by law to give gifts to help their priests because the priests were their relatives. 6 But Melchizedek was not a relative, and yet Abraham paid him. Melchizedek placed a blessing upon mighty Abraham, 7 and as everyone knows, a person who has the power to bless is always greater than the person he blesses. 8 The Jewish priests, though mortal, received tithes; but we are told that Melchizedek lives on. 9 One might even say that Levi himself (the ancestor of all Jewish priests, of all who receive tithes), paid tithes to Melchizedek through Abraham. 10 For although Levi wasn't born yet, the seed from which he came was in Abraham when Abraham paid the tithes to Melchizedek. (TLB)

In short, what's being said here is that the Levites, although descended from Abraham (born after him), in a sense paid tithes to the High Priest Melchizedek (who is a 'type' of Jesus) through Abraham. Now, in reality they didn't actually pay tithes to Melchizedek, nor is this passage talking about the actual paying of tithes to Melchizedek (nor to Jesus). This passage is using the example of the one-time tithe of Abraham (the lesser) to show how the priesthood of Melchizedek (the greater, who lives forever) is superior to the Levite priesthood (imperfect priests who died) - thereby showing that perfection could not be gained through the Levite priesthood, but that a NEW priesthood was necessary (that of Jesus, whose priesthood is "of the order of Melchizedek"). That's what this passage is about!

Think about it. Was the writer of Hebrews giving all this doctrine about a better covenant, a better priesthood, and so on and so forth, and then he suddenly decides, "Oh, I guess I'll drop in a little word to Christians about tithing?" That's silly! His bringing up the Levitical priesthood, and Abram's tithe, and Melchizedek, ALL had to do with his pointing out the weakness of the Old Covenant and the need for, and the superiority of, the New Covenant.

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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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Freed from Tithing, Free to Give - Part 5

This series on "The Tithe" is, from one perspective, fairly long and in-depth, but from another perspective is not nearly in-depth enough to cover every last aspect of the tithe and tithing. On the one hand I could make it a lot shorter - perhaps even boil it down to one blog post - but on the other hand I really did want to take at least a little bit of extra time to peel through some of the layers of scripture to take a closer look at the tithes than you normally see in churches that teach tithing as a Christian principle. My main goal here is to highlight what the tithes actually were and how the tithes were actually put to use. To recap what we've already seen in this series, the tithing system was set up because God had set apart a specific tribe of Israel, the Levites, to perform specific functions that were required under a specific covenant (the Old Covenant), and He specifically provided for them via the tithes from the other eleven tribes.

Deuteronomy 14
A few times we see some odd instructions about the tithes. But it's odd only from the perspective that this stuff is never taught in churches who seem so gung ho on the tithe! Hmmm... why is that? :) This passage from Deuteronomy is one of those interesting ones. Read it, and tell me if this will really preach in churches. In all my life, I had never heard this passage until I saw it for myself.

Deut 14:24-29 "But if the journey is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, or if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name is too far from you, when the Lord your God has blessed you, 25 then you shall exchange it for money, take the money in your hand, and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. 26 And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen or sheep, for wine or similar drink, for whatever your heart desires; you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household. 27 You shall not forsake the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no part nor inheritance with you.

28 "At the end of every third year you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up within your gates. 29 And the Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.

Wow! Where has the church been hiding this one! The people were to take the tithe and eat it! (And drink it). And not only that, but if the place the Lord had set up was too far for them, they were to take the tithe and exchange it for money, and spend the money on whatever their hearts desired! And they were to eat and to rejoice before the Lord. This passage also highlights again the very important fact that the Levites had no inheritance, and so the people were to not forsake them with their tithes, and they were also to store up their tithes every third year for the sake of "the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow." Again, all of this was directly relational to the Old Covenant system in which they lived.

And what about all the other instructions?
Right along with all of the passages that have to do with tithing instructions are many other instructions for the people of Israel. I think it's very interesting that the people of the Christian church will dig into these Old Covenant scriptures, totally ignoring all the other Old Covenant practices (rightfully so), and yet pulling out "the tithe" as something they teach and practice as a New Covenant principle! Again, all of these tithing passages, along with their surrounding verses and chapters, give many more rules and instructions that were a part of that system.

So if you're going to stick with the Old Covenant practice of tithing (which you'll by necessity have to take out of context if you're going to use it in the church), then please tell me that you keep the other instructions too! There are instructions about cutting and shaving, rules about what animals, birds and water creatures could be eaten and not eaten, and there were even rules about boiling a young goat in its mother's milk! And please tell me you don't eat bacon, ham, lobster or other "unclean" creatures!

Also, what about the instructions to stone people (Deut 13), and the instructions to go into other cities which serve other gods, and kill the people with swords, utterly destroying the city and all its livestock, plundering the city and burning it in the middle of the street? Sounds like a fun "outreach!" What about every seven years, all creditors being required to release the debts of their debtors? The point is... All of these instructions were given to the same people and in the same context as the instructions on tithing, so why do we preach "the tithe," but leave out all the rest?

So many unnecessary questions come up in the Christian church because of how all these scriptures are manipulated! "Do I tithe off of my gross or net income?" "What is meant by "firstfruits?" "What is meant by tithing off of the 'increase?'" The truth is, we need not be concerned with any of that because all of those passages have to do with the children Israel functioning under the Old Covenant. None of it, including the tithes, has anything to do with Christians living in the New Covenant!

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Freed from Tithing, Free to Give - Part 4

The Levites
The Old Covenant was a special system, set up for special purposes. The Old Covenant was set up for the people of Israel. Included in the covenant were various laws, ordinances, rituals, etc. The Levites were one of the twelve hereditary tribes of Israel. God set apart this tribe for special service to Him under this covenant (this happened after Israel's exodus from Egypt). In the book of Numbers, we find out about the special office and functions of the Levites. In order to properly understand the tithes (which I think a large majority of the church today doesn't understand), it's important to know about the Levites, because they were the recipients of the tithes! The duties of the Levites varied, and were divided up among all of the Levites. At different times the duties included guarding the sanctuary, moving the tent and carrying the parts from place to place, preparing the bread of the Presence, leading music during worship, slaughtering and skinning the animals for sacrifice, and a whole slew of other important duties. I'm intentionally being very brief here.

Important Information about the Levites
Something that's very important to note - and this is where we see the true purpose for the tithes - is that unlike the eleven other tribes, the Levites were given no territorial possessions or physical inheritance. The Lord Himself was their inheritance (Numbers 18:20). Therefore, the way in which they were supported in return for their service to the Lord was through the receiving of the tithes of the produce and of the flocks and herds of the other tribes, as well as certain portions of the sacrificial offerings. Again we're now getting to the real meaning and purpose of the tithes. The Lord spoke about how the Levites would be taken care of through the various offerings of food, oil, wine, etc, that the people gave, and He speaks of the tithes:

Numbers 18:21, 24 "Behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance in return for the work which they perform, the work of the tabernacle of meeting... For the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer up as a heave offering to the Lord, I have given to the Levites as an inheritance..."

Many Christians today, who at least have a little bit of an understanding that the tithes had something to do with the Levites, unfortunately take the liberty of equating the office of the Levites and the tabernacle in which they served with that of the modern day pastor and "church." Somewhere along the line they seem to forget the purpose of the Levites, or perhaps never really had a proper understanding in the first place. Take some time and read through all of Numbers 18 (and other passages that speak of the tithes and the functions of the Levites and the tabernacle). As you read about all of this, ask yourself if the comparison is anything close to being valid!

Deuteronomy 12
In Deuteronomy 12, the Lord was laying down "the statutes and judgments which you shall be careful to observe in the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth." (Deut 12:1).

Included in this were instructions about many things, including the tithes:

Deut 12:5-7 "But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go. 6 There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. 7 And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.

What were they to do with all of this (the burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, heave offerings, etc)? Were they to bring it to the "local church" so that God would "open up the windows of heaven and pour out such a blessing that there wouldn't be enough room to receive it?" No! They were to eat it!

You think this is strange (according to what you've previously been taught about tithing)? Wait till we get to Deuteronomy 14!

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Freed from Tithing, Free to Give - Part 3

Let's Make it Clear Again: Tithe, or Tithes?
To repeat a point I made earlier, we're talking about tithes (plural). "The tithe" (ten percent of your income, given to your local church) is what is (wrongfully) taught in churches today. But contrary to what seems to be a common belief, there is more than one tithe in the Bible. There is not simply one "blanket" tithe from which we get our information about tithing. As we look closely, we see that each tithe has its own purposes. Different tithes are put to different uses. And just as a reminder (as I've previously mentioned), the tithes mentioned in Malachi 3 were not original tithing instructions, but rather were brought up because the Lord was rebuking the people for not keeping the tithes they had previously been commanded to keep. The reason I want to put special emphasis on this is simply because Malachi 3 is the predominant passage that the church wrongfully highlights when teaching the tithe - wrongfully in more way than one, as we'll see in this series.

It's also important to mention that the tithes never have anything to do with financial earnings or income, nor the handing over of finances to any individual or entity. Money does come into the picture one time in the tithing instructions, and when we get to that you may just be surprised at how it plays out in that particular tithing law! In the end, my hope here is to show the stark contrast between "the tithe" as it's taught in churches and "the tithes" as they are taught in scripture, and to show how the teaching of "the tithe" in Christian churches is way out of line.

The Mandatory Tithes - Law
Aside from Abram's voluntary tithe to Melchizedek and Jacob's promise to voluntarily tithe all of what God gave him, the rest of the mentions of tithing in scripture have to do with tithes (again, plural) that were mandatory, according to God's laws. You will thank me :) for not copying and pasting all of the scriptures that pertain to tithing into this series of posts (copied from my PC Study Bible), because when pasted onto a Word document it takes up about 6 full pages! My purpose here is not to give an in-depth analysis of all of the tithing instructions but rather to lay out the gist of the tithes for the purpose of showing that tithing was an Old Covenant practice that had specific purposes, having absolutely nothing to do with New Covenant saints giving 10 percent of their income to local churches. And in fact I think we'll find that we really don't want to use these tithes as a "type" of New Covenant giving, because it gets quite complicated due to all the rules, options and variables involved in each tithe!

Leviticus
The next time tithing is mentioned is in Leviticus 27. This particular passage has to do with instructions about "redeeming" people and property dedicated to the Lord. Instead of getting into what all that means (and it does mean something - within the context of the times and purposes of these particular instructions), I want to use this passage to point out the folly of taking scriptures out of context, as is always the case when teaching tithing as a Christian principle.

Lev 27:29-32 No person under the ban, who may become doomed to destruction among men, shall be redeemed, but shall surely be put to death. 30 And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's. It is holy to the Lord. 31 If a man wants at all to redeem any of his tithes, he shall add one-fifth to it. 32 And concerning the tithe of the herd or the flock, of whatever passes under the rod, the tenth one shall be holy to the Lord.

What's this about being put to death? What's this about redeeming tithes, and adding one-fifth to it? What's this about one-tenth of the tithe passing under the rod being holy to the Lord and not being redeemed? My point here is that as with ALL tithes, and ALL Old Covenant laws, ordinances and instructions, we aren't to "Christianize" them. After all, if we're going to grab the "tithe" verses out of passages like this, shouldn't we also add the "put to death" verses as well? And the "redeem his tithes" verses? In the end what we are to do is to understand that these were Old Covenant practices - and we leave them in their Old Covenant contexts!

Coming up: The "tithe" instructions get even more interesting (and fun as well)! We'll see how it's so very easy for preachers to simply pluck out Malachi 3 and misapply it in the church today, but yet if those same preachers were to look into the true purposes and applications of the tithes, they'd have to chuck it all aside because it simply wouldn't work in the church! (Which is kind of the point here, anyway).

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Freed from Tithing, Free to Give - Part 1

In the past I've mentioned that I want to do a series of posts on "tithing." Well, here I am, finally doing it! Why am I doing this? It's been my observation that "tithing," as it's taught in various Christian ("New Covenant") churches in various ways, has put people under a lot of unnecessary bondage in their walks with God. Various Old Covenant scriptures are used in the teaching of the tithe in Christian churches, with various assumptions being made as to how these scriptures apply to the New Covenant Church. But are these scriptures being used properly? Are the assumptions proper? I don't think so, and I'm going to show from the scriptures themselves how they are terribly misused in the teaching of "tithing" in the church today.

First Things First
In almost all "tithe" teachings in the Christian church, one scripture in particular is used predominantly, and one assumption in particular about that scripture is predominantly made. You probably know the scripture well. Malachi 3:8-11. The words in this passage that most people are familiar with are "bring all the tithes into the storehouse." The assumption that is made is that "the local church" is the storehouse.

We'll get into that a little later, but we really need to put first things first. See, while many Christians start with Malachi 3 in their teaching of the tithe (or at least highlight it in their justification of teaching Christians to "tithe"), Malachi 3 was actually the last thing said in Old Covenant scripture about tithing. Malachi was not giving instructions about tithing. Rather God, through this prophet, was reprimanding His people for not keeping the tithing laws He had already given them. If we start with Malachi 3, we're destined to get it all wrong right from the start.

If we want to see what tithing is really all about, then we need to look back to the scriptures that show the original tithing instructions. As we do this, my hope is that we'll begin to dispel some of the false assumptions that the New Covenant church has made in regards to tithing. Is the New Covenant church to be a people who give? Surely! I think we find that idea supported all throughout the New Covenant scriptures. But how about New Covenant people "tithing" ten percent of their income to a local church? Do we find that idea supported anywhere in the scriptures? I think the truth about all this will unfold as we start with first things first, and move on from there.

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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.