Tithing and WOF

I believe I should tithe and give. Not because some church expects me to or is desperate to keep their lights on - their source is from God first and foremost. I believe being like Christ is being charitable and giving. That means looking for ways to bless rather than trying to get it down to a bare 10% and thinking you paid some bill. We are blessed to be a blessing, and as we bless, we are blessed even more. You try to get by with as little giving as possible, by that measure you will receive. Personally, I prefer a much larger measure.

I believe required tithes - like some church tax - are wrong. No one should be peer-pressured to tithe. God values a CHEERFUL giver. Not a spiteful or begrudging giver. However, I do believe that the tithe is as effective today as ever. And I believe if one truly walks by the Spirit, this is a non-issue - he will give reflexively and will feel odd if he doesn't give.

I believe in Spirit lead giving. Tithing for the NT believer is not biblical.

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Why do you believe that you should tithe? Answer: Because that is what you were taught. Yes, they used scripture to back up their teaching. Misinterpreted scripture, but scripture.

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Originally Posted by WOFFER

I believe in Spirit lead giving. Tithing for the NT believer is not biblical.

Agreed, any Christian giving less than 10% or exactly 10% certainly does not know Jesus that well or have much faith!

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Never let experiences or circumstances determine how you interpret the Word.

Stand on the Word and change your experiences and circumstances.

Where did you get that from?

We all know that tithing was in the old testament and by the way tithing predates the law, I would like anyone to show me in the New Testament where tithing was done away with...

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Please re-read my post rather than using it to spring-board your soap-box. I have my own mind and the Spirit is my teacher and I do as I please in order to please my Father, not by some peer-pressure system or begging preacher.

Tithing is indeed applicable as are the promises around tithing - and these promises extend to holy giving in general. Yeshua's birthday did not change that. Giving is what we in Christ do. Call it what you want - but to bicker over words and over details is futile and counterproductive. Far more productive is to seek to give. Seek what the Spirit wants YOU to do, which may not be the same as what He has ME doing - and be blessed and be a blessing.

Question: Was tithing required of all of God's people in the Old Testament?

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No, you show me in the New Testament where it is to continue.

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I haven't read any of the posts in this thread, but I'd like to share something regarding tithing that I wrote in June of this year after much internal conflict. It is very long, and will span 2 posts. Get comfy...

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Tithing - Where I've been, where I'm at, where I'm going. 6/8/09
-Pete Robinson
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From the time I was very young, I was taught about tithing. My parents instilled in me the importance of tithing when they began giving me an allowance. I was taught that tithing was a non-debatable topic, just something you do out of love and obedience to God. So, with my $1.00/week allowance, I would give $0.10 every week. This was something that I just accepted as true, and never really questioned.

Two wonderful teachers taught our Jr. Church classes at church, and I played my keyboard. I have a great respect for these people, as they taught me many things that are now a foundational part of my Christian belief and lifestyle. At some point, they wrote a song that we would sing every Sunday simply titled, "A Tithe is Ten Percent" that went like this;

A tithe is ten percent
That's what we give to God,
What we give to God,
What we give to God.
A tithe is ten percent
That's what we give to God,
All the rest is called an offering.

Every week we would sing this song in Jr. Church. For years and years, the concept of tithing was taught to me and reinforced with this song. Again, it was something I just accepted as being true, without really ever giving it too much thought.

As the years went on and I grew older, my allowance increased. My tithe just followed along with it. Then, I got a paper route, and again, tithing was just something I did without even thinking about it. Then I got a job at Pizza Hut, and my tithing increased again. However, at this point, I was about 18 and I had all kinds of "needs". Dating wasn't cheap, all the things I wanted to buy looked pretty tempting, etc. And so, I said within myself, "I'll have more money if I stop tithing." So I did. I stopped tithing.

Now I had been taught that the act of tithing is what protected the source of my income. The passage of scripture most often used in conjunction with tithing was this;

Malachi 3:8-11 (AMP)
8 Will a man rob or defraud God? Yet you rob and defraud Me. But you say, In what way do we rob or defraud You? [You have withheld your] tithes and offerings. 9 You are cursed with the curse, for you are robbing Me, even this whole nation. 10 Bring all the tithes (the whole tenth of your income) into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and prove Me now by it, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. 11 And I will rebuke the devourer [insects and plagues] for your sakes and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine drop its fruit before the time in the field, says the Lord of hosts.

Key thoughts; The idea that not tithing equated to "robbing God" was something that was drilled into me from the time I was very young. Furthermore, it was drilled into me that if someone did not tithe, God would curse not only that person, but "even this whole nation", which by inference, though never directly stated, seemed to indicate our whole church would be cursed if only one person in the congregation didn’t tithe. The scripture also seemed to indicate that by tithing, God would open the windows of heaven and pour out blessings so large that there would be no room to contain it. And finally, by tithing, God would rebuke the devourer for our sake. Some translations of scripture say that tithing "protects the source of your income". Again, these were all things that I just accepted as truth without too much questioning. The fact that I had tithed faithfully my whole life and still had not seen a blessing anywhere near large enough for me to not be able to contain it seemed irrelevant, for some reason.

Back to my job at Pizza Hut; Immediately after I quit tithing, I experienced a very large financial hardship. My car broke down and was very expensive to fix, some past due bills suddenly were called in, and everything just seemed to fall apart at once. Naturally because of what I had been taught and my beliefs concerning tithing, I attributed all of this to my not tithing. I hit my knees and repented for not tithing. I even stood up in church and testified about the importance of tithing, and how because I had stopped tithing I had so many problems.

A few years later, my wife and I were married. She too believed in tithing, and we were in agreement that we needed to tithe. So we did. It was the first thing I did when I sat down to pay my bills, almost like a machine. I got my pay stub, looked at the gross income, multiplied it by .10, wrote a check and stuck it in an envelope. This went on for about 5 years, up until my son was born.

When my son was born, money instantly became very, VERY tight. We had gone from a 2-income family of 2 to a 1-income family of 3, and one of those 3 needed things we never needed before; diapers, wipes, baby food… I had about half as much money, and I needed to do about twice as much with it.

Nevertheless, my wife and I tithed faithfully. We continued to tithe, to the neglect of other bills. We gave very much “sacrificially”. We fell behind on everything. We were behind on electric, gas, water, garbage, credit cards, student loans, car payments... you name it, we were behind on it. We came perilously close to having BOTH of our cars repossessed and at one point we were less than 30 days away from foreclosure of our house. At one point, my wife and I even "stepped out in faith" and increased our giving to 15%, believing that if we went above and beyond the call of duty, God would certainly honor that. However, I now know that I can not just arbitrarily grab a percentage figure out of the sky and give, expecting God to honor that. In fact, I would say that by giving 15%, we actually made things MUCH WORSE for ourselves financially.

Thanks to some very gracious gifts from our church, a larger-than-expected tax return, a hefty loan from my parents, and a timely promotion at work, we were able to pull ourselves out of the mess without losing anything, without having any utilities shut off, without any real negative impact (except our pitiful credit score). That was an incredible testimony of God’s provision.

Also about the time my son was born, there was a very ugly church split. My sister made some damning accusations against my pastor and our church, which resulted in a complete decimation of our church. For a while, there were only a dozen or less people that stuck it out, and even some of them left shortly after. It was incredibly discouraging for me, and I can only begin to imagine the pain and discouragement that my pastor and his family had to be feeling as a result.

However, out of the ashes of this mess, my pastor asked some old friends of his to come to our church. When they came, they brought with them a message of the Love of God like we had never heard before. The message of the "Love-deficit" was one that was incredibly hard to swallow, especially in light of the recent pain of that church split, but it was a message that we all needed to hear, very much. Even though it was painful at first, as I began to realize some of the hurts I had not let go of, I suddenly began to feel free as I truly let them go, as if a huge burden had been lifted off of me.

Along with this message of the Love-deficit came the message of God's Love and grace toward us. We began to learn, really learn, about how God Loved us. How nothing we could ever do would cause Him to stop Loving us. How His Love superseded everything else.

Messages began to flow about how God gives us the best, *even when we didn't think we deserved it*. We heard messages about His prodigal, reckless Love. I began to find and songs that talked about how God was "recklessly, wildly Loving a dangerous world". A message of God's Love and grace was being revealed in my heart like never before. God's grace, Love and mercy were thrust to the forefront, and I began to realize just how deep His love for me was.

The messages emphasized how God was not interested in our performance, but rather, in a relationship with us, BEING with Him.

Typically, church would consist of 2 messages. We would almost always have a mini-sermon on tithing before receiving tithes and offerings, and then the regular sermon would follow. These mini-sermons about tithing would talk about the scriptures in Malachi, things I'd heard my entire life. During this time, I was tithing faithfully, though struggling immensely. I began to wonder why I did not have a blessing large enough that I could not contain it. I had tithed faithfully my entire life. I was obedient in tithing, even when it was tough, and yet I was on the verge of losing everything. It sure seemed like things were being devoured left and right, despite my believing that by tithing, God would rebuke the devourer for my sake.

Then one Sunday, one of the mini-sermons was about how it was OK to miss a weekly tithe, but if you did, the next week you had to give that tithe, plus an additional fifth part. This did not sit right with me at all. If true, this meant that God REQUIRED the 10% that you skipped, plus a "penalty" of 20% on top of that. In other words, if you did not tithe this week, you were obligated to give 40% of your gross income the following week (10% from the last week + 20% “penalty” for missing the tithe + 10% this week). I began to wonder if God had ever heard of usury, as I could get a better deal from the local bank if I were to take out a loan. Not only that, but I began to wonder why the “law” applied here. I know that Abraham tithed to Melchizedek long before the law was instituted, but the fifth part penalty was certainly a part of the law.

I stopped tithing. Not only that, I stopped giving. Period.

A few weeks later, the mini-sermon used one of the songs we had sung that morning, "Our God Reigns", suggesting that if we stand up and sing "He reigns" and then don't tithe, then He isn't really reigning in our lives at all. This sermon also contained the message that if we did not tithe, the church could not function. Again, something I'd heard all my life, but I was now hearing it very differently in light of the messages of God's Love, grace and mercy. Why was it OK for the church to say they couldn't function without the tithe, but it wasn't OK for me to say I needed that money for my electric bill (most likely the same thing the church needed it for)? I will confess that this thought consumed me for sometime afterward, and I ultimately had to repent for those thoughts.

I should note here that I love my pastor with all my heart. He has been my pastor for nearly 20 years, and I consider him one of my greatest friends. It is largely because of the faithfulness of him and his family to stand firm through all the adversity that I am who I am today. He has been a tremendous example of strength, and an incredible example of the Love of God in my life. I am immensely grateful for the gift I believe God has placed in my life in my pastor, and I do not wish to be offensive toward him. I am simply trying to put into words the things that I have been thinking and praying about.

When we stopped tithing, my wife would "bug" me about it. I already felt an enormous amount of condemnation coming from the mini-sermons, and now I was getting it from her as well. I should note that I believe there is an enormous difference between "conviction" and "condemnation". What I was feeling was no doubt condemnation; a feeling of inadequacy, of being unable to fulfill God's "requirement" and provide for my family, a feeling of complete financial failure and hopelessness.

(continued in next post...)

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"You're so vain, you probably think this post is about you."

"It's never as bad as it seems."

(continued from previous post...)

The mini-sermons didn't seem to gel with the actual sermons. At all. We would begin by saying that the only way God can bless us is if we give 10% of our full income, and we would end by saying that God can and does bless us even when we don't deserve it. I began to wonder if tithing was the one glaring exception to God's grace, like He would bless you because of His unconditional Love for you UNLESS you didn't tithe. Was tithing the one condition to God’s unconditional Love?

Suddenly, I began questioning everything I ever believed about tithing. It just didn't fit at all with the new found revelation I'd had of God's Love, grace and mercy toward me. The messages that I’d heard that caused this revelation of God’s Love in me were also the catalyst for what caused me to begin to question what I believed, not only about tithing, but about all of the aspects of my relationship with God

So I thought back to when I stopped tithing when I worked at Pizza Hut. Why did everything fall apart when I stopped tithing? Is it because I was being disobedient and not tithing? After much prayer and reflection, I no longer believe that is true. Instead, I now believe that the reason was one word; greed. I wanted that money for myself. I wanted it for my own purposes. I did not want to give it, because it would mean more stuff for *me*. I did not want to give anything at all. I wanted it to spend on my own desires. It was a horrible attitude.

Then I thought of my financial hardship a few years back. My desire truly was to give. I wanted to support the church where I believe God has called me. But I simply did not have the means to do so. Or so I had been taught...

Having been taught the "tithe" was the only acceptable minimal amount, it's as if I were only able to give 9.5% that it wasn't good enough. This engendered in me a belief that if I could not tithe, a FULL 10% of my GROSS income, then it was not good enough, like God was sitting up in heaven with a ledger sheet keeping track of all I'd given. It was this idea that caused me to stop giving altogether. Why bother to give anything if 9% isn't good enough? That was my attitude.

This bothered me. For a period of probably 6 months, I gave very, very sporadically, feeling some incredible condemnation when I would give. However, I began to notice something during this time; My world didn't fall apart! In fact, despite the economic downturn in the world, I received a bonus, just like I had in the years before when I was tithing. Our tax return was much larger than I'd anticipated. In other words, even though I was not tithing (not to mention hardly giving anything at all), I was still being blessed pretty handily.

Then it happened. The 5% pay-cut at work. Those beliefs I'd had my entire life caused me to begin to wonder, is this happening because I didn't tithe? Could I have protected the source of my income and that of all of those people at work had I only tithed, had I only performed and measured up to God’s expectations better?

Then I wondered even further; What about the tens upon hundreds of thousands of people at GM? Chrysler? Circuit City? Were there no Christians there that were tithers? Why weren't they able to protect the source of their income by tithing?

I began to realize that I had a 5% pay cut at work for one reason; a really bad economy. It had nothing to do with whether or not I gave 10% of my income. I took a 5% pay cut because we live in this world that is in shambles at the moment. God never promised us that we would avoid all trouble. In fact, Jesus tells us that in this world, we will have all kinds of trouble. But He also tells us to take heart, because He has overcome the world and all of the troubles associated. We may go through difficult times, but we emerge victorious every time because of the Love, grace and mercy of God through His Son Jesus Christ.

Despite that pay cut, I have been very blessed. I have a nice home. There is more than enough food on our table every night. My 2 children are an amazing blessing, and we were even able to send my son to an excellent Christian preschool at a sizable additional monthly cost with little to no impact on our financial situation. My wife has been the most wonderful blessing of all. All of these blessings and more continued to increase despite us not tithing.

It was then that God began to show me that He was not interested in 10% of my income. He was interested in a relationship with me. Ironically, this is the same thing that we have been hearing at our church. It is the teaching that I've heard at church that has since become revelation to me that has caused me to think very differently about tithing.

God began to bring things to my remembrance. I remembered looking at my tax return, looking at the receipt for my giving at the church, and feeling as if I had failed because I had only given 9.7% of my gross income. I remembered looking at a prior year's tax return and thinking that I was some kind of wonderful because I'd given over 11%. It was as if I was measuring my relationship, at least as far as my giving was concerned, to a hard-coded number instead of an intimate relationship with my Father. Never had it been so glaringly obvious to me that I was basing my blessing upon my *performance*. The “bar” was set. It was just a matter of whether or not I could reach that bar.

Then God led me to this scripture;

2 Corinthians 9:7 (AMP)
Let each one [give] as he has made up his own mind and purposed in his heart, not reluctantly or sorrowfully or under compulsion, for God loves (He takes pleasure in, prizes above other things, and is unwilling to abandon or to do without) a cheerful (joyous, "prompt to do it") giver [whose heart is in his giving].

I had given reluctantly, sorrowfully, and under compulsion my whole life. I was rarely truly and genuinely happy about it, and my heart was almost never in my giving. It was nothing more than a performance mark. Even when my wife and I would pray over our tithe, it was just an automatic response to receiving money. Get $10.00, give $1.00, say a prayer. Really, no relationship required. Simple.

I also noted that the Amplified Bible says that the one that gives as he has made up in his own mind and purposed in his own heart, that is the one that God takes pleasure in and is unwilling to abandon or do without. There is no mention of God abandoning us or allowing the devourer to run amuck in our finances if we don't give a tenth.

This paradigm shift in my thinking and my believing greatly concerned me. It was so very foreign to everything that I had ever learned and believed prior, but it was something I could not deny. Despite the chaos I felt inside, I still felt an indescribable peace. This was not me trying to make excuses to get out of tithing, or desiring more money for myself for selfish gain. Quite to the contrary, this was me examining my beliefs in light of the revelation of His Love toward me, and with a real desire to give to and support the church where I believe God has called me.

This has been an extremely difficult and awkward thing for me. Never before have I come to such a radically different conclusion than I was hearing taught at church. I've had minor disagreements on some issues, but never before was the belief that I felt welling up on the inside of me so diametrically opposed to what I was hearing taught.

We have recently been talking about renewing our minds at church. That's just what I have done. In receiving a revelation of God's Love, grace and mercy, hearing how His Love is unconditional for us, hearing how His Love is "prodigal", hearing how He is "recklessly, wildly and dangerously" Loving us, hearing how there is nothing we can do to separate ourselves from His Love, my mind has been renewed. All performance-based criteria that I once thought were important no longer matter.

As a result, try as I might, I could not reconcile to my renewed mind some of the things that I'd been taught my entire life concerning tithing. It seemed like it was the one performance-oriented exception to the rule. It made absolutely no sense to this renewed mind.

So, I brought this topic up with my wife recently one evening. Much to my surprise, she had been thinking about the exact same things I had. We hadn’t talked about tithing or giving for months, but the things she said to me in our conversation were almost verbatim the things I felt God had been speaking to me for months. It was a confirmation of things God began stirring in me months before.

As a result, I have stopped "tithing". I am now giving as God leads me. Additionally, I am not keeping track of what I give. I have changed from writing checks to giving cash, from fully completed envelopes to receive a receipt for my giving, to plain white envelopes with no information on them at all. I do not want to know the amount I have given. I do not want to look at the amount at the end of the year and think for one minute that the blessings from God I've enjoyed are because I've met the 10% quota for the year, or think that the reason I've not excelled is because I missed the mark. In short, I do not want to measure my *performance* in my giving any longer.

I simply want to give cheerfully and be a blessing to my church that has been such a blessing to me and my family. I don't want to feel condemned when I don't "measure up" to the 10% line. I want to get to a place where when I see a need, God can rely on me to do all I can to help. I want to get to a place where I hear the voice of God clearly concerning my giving.

I don't want to measure my giving any longer to see if I measure up to the 10% requirement. I simply want to determine in my heart what to give, and give it cheerfully. Maybe that will be 10%, maybe 8%, maybe 14%, maybe $30... whatever it is, I want to give it cheerfully from my heart, knowing that because of my relationship with God, I have heard His voice, and I've done what He has asked of me.

I do not anticipate that many people will agree with me on this, but I am thankful for my wife, and that we have a true peace that we are following what we believe God is calling us to do with our finances.

__________________
"You're so vain, you probably think this post is about you."

"It's never as bad as it seems."