To tithe, or not to tithe. That is the question!

[Frogster]

the shoulds are always centered on the tither, but there are no shoulds ever centered on the recipients of the 'tithe'.

 

[Frogster]

the other presumption is, that somehow people on my side of the isle, who don't like guilt teachings, or text mainipulation, or the omission of text, about paul wrking, the poor shouldn't give, and all the other stuff i posted, are set up as people who don't give, or are selfish or whatever.

but the fact is, the tithe oponents, might actually give more than tithers, and to the poor, or at least to a ministry that they feel to give to, if they feel to give.

 

[mjere]

Wow, there is no way I could have read all the posts. It is interesting though.

I have been tithing for many years, but lately have been wondering if I should continue (along with a bunch of other questions).

Anyway, I have about $13,000-14,000 in debt. It is my fault and I have no sob story about how I got there. I got there through carelessness. A couple of years ago it was more like $20,000-21,000, so I have made progress. As it stands right now with the minimum payment, I have to pay about $300 a month. That is a good chunk of my income.

I sometimes feel very relieved to think that maybe I don't have to tithe and I could pay off my debt in a couple of years. I have been much better about managing my money (not perfect, but much better), but still it is taking forever.

What do you all think?

I'm in a similar position- only worst-, and my income is not even close to making minimum payments, and I have triple that debt. But I've been trying to figure out if I should be trusting God with my money, or paying my debts; and I'm discovering the two are not mutually exclusive.

The tithe helped me start including God in my finances. Before tithing, I never used to bother. But the tithe is not for a born again believer the same way it was for the Old Testament believer. Finances are not the same for a New Testament believer as they are an Old Testament believer.

So there are alot of valid points on both sides of this argument. For a person such as myself, who never depended on the Lord for finances, or trusted God to provide for them, the tithe was a good place to start; but it didn't profit me because it was never mixed with faith. It was a debt, an obligation. It was a work of the law, done to appease an angry God, who was withholding from me because I wasn't living up to His standards.

Once I learned that I didn't owe a tithe, I didn't stop giving. I felt so free, so secure, that it caused me to give beyond what I was giving before; and my needs were met, and then some. But I could never get out of debt. I could never put anything towards getting out of debt. I could only meet my current needs and bills, and have enough to put towards a my desires.

Recently the Lord, asked me to stop calculating 10% and figure out what was in my heart to give. That's been very difficult, but it has revealed my deep fear of giving. Even though I knew God wasn't angry for me not paying my 10%+, I still felt guilty when I didn't calculate it to the .0001 percentage. It was no wonder I was still not experiencing the blessing chasing me down. I was still trying to earn, buy, and obtain the things of God.

I'm no longer calculating a percentage, but I still give. But until you begin to understand that God has willed for you to live debt free, to be a lender to many... Until you see Christ taking all your debt onto Himself on the cross, and believe it more than you do the creditor, you'll always be wondering, "God is it enough? Now will you help me get out of debt? Now will you lift this curse in my life? I need this money."

Sometimes, a work of faith is simply resting in the Lord, and ceasing from your labors, and from your goodness in order to allow God to give freely to you. I don't believe the tithe or not tithing keeps God from providing. He provides by grace- unearned, unmerited gifting. But I do believe people holding onto to the tithe won't let God give to them, the same way those who've stopped trying to prove their value to God have.

 

[Faulty]

I think part of it is a misunderstanding of position.

The argument is that the "first" belongs to God, which is true for the Jews, being His people in the sense they were chosen by God for certain things.

Christians are another group entirely. Scriptures tells us that we have all been purchased with a price, and we are not our own. One can not be wholly-owned then make a case that the first 10% of their goods, money, whatever, belongs to God, as by definition, 100% already belongs to Him. You can't give a "first" of anything as there is no "first" to give. It's all first, and middle, and last. To declare there is a "first" is really in a way to say you don't belong to Him at all, intentional or otherwise.

 

[Messy]

The woman with the oil with Elia gave him something first and she was in a lot of debts. Maybe you'd better give what God tells you in faith if you have so much debts. I don't tithe anymore, but I give about 10% to my ex and his wife, otherwise they can't even pay the rent or food for the kids, he's a pastor (and Dutch don't give much) and has a lot more debts than I have and has to make more debts to pay his rent. Last year the Lord told me to give him 50 euro, I did it and a week later my brother in law, who has never given me money, gave me 500.
In Acts they had everything in common and the ones who had something gave it to the ones who didn't have so much, no they gave it to the apostles, but they gave it to the people who needed it and if leaders don't do that, maybe better give it directly to the right person yourself.
The church I sometimes attend doesn't preach tithing anymore, but they help each other out also with goods or food.
I don't think you have to make more debts to be able to tithe.

 

[mjere]

I think part of it is a misunderstanding of position.

The argument is that the "first" belongs to God, which is true for the Jews, being His people in the sense they were chosen by God for certain things.

Christians are another group entirely.

I believe this may be the root of where most Christians get confused. They see themselves as an addition to the children of God. Adopted, and not naturalized. There are Jews, and then Us. But that's not what the Word of God teaches.

The Word of God explains that we are Abraham's seed, because that seed of promise was talking about Jesus, not just a physical lineage of believers.

I don't believe this is replacement theology we're talking about here. But Christians, those who've made Jesus their Lord, are more "Jew" then those who are physically Jew, because we have the faith of Abraham. We received God's promise and believed Him, just as Abraham did. I understand alot of people use the term of an Old and New Covenant, but it's not Old and New based on promise. The "New Covenant" was the covenant of Abraham, the father of the Jews, and the "Old Covenant" was the second covenant given to the Jews under the law. Romans and Galatians deal directly with this issue, as many converted Jews tried to bring in Jewish customs to Gentile Christians, trying to "naturalize" them in the ways of God. Galatians talks directly to the right of circumcision, since that was a hot topic, but the scope is much wider. and 1John and Hebrews deals directly with our position as God's chosen people.

I believe if Christians could really get ahold of this, they would start seeing things as God's sees it. More importantly, they would start seeing themselves as God's chosen people. I'm not saying physical Jews and those relating to the law don't have a place in prophesy, or in relationship, but they are not a separated body.

 

[Source Scripture]

Correct, Ephesians 3:6 covers your point, one body, Abrahamic heirs, but it has to be through the gospel. Interesting note, the one new kainos man, of Ephesians 2:15, was created after those very tithing ordinances were abolished, those that the tithe proponents seek to impose on the body of Christ. Thanks, Source Scripture.

 

[ServantJohn]

Curious about the poll numbers. For the longest, the poll was strongly for doing what the Lord placed upon your heart. In the last week, it has drastically swung in the other direction. Has anybody else noticed this? If it's been discussed earlier, please let me know the post number so I can go back to it. Looks like someone has gone out recruiting voters for tithing.

 

[lismore]

Everyone should be allowed to give what they have in their hearts to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion because God loves a cheerful giver.

There should be no compulsion either way.

If some want to give 10 per cent then let them.
If others want to give another amount then let them.

One day God will repay everyone according to what they have done cheerfully for him. So give genuinely, not reluctantly.

 

[Ashlantal]

Greed is a tragic thing . There are of course greedy pastors , but there are also very greedy congregation members .

People should stop bashing pastors because for some of them it is a full-time job .

 

[Messy]

Greed is a tragic thing . There are of course greedy pastors , but there are also very greedy congregation members .

People should stop bashing pastors because for some of them it is a full-time job .

In Holland are not very much pastors who get payed for their fulltime job. When the crisis began, the few people who tithed, stopped with it. Either the wife has to work or they have a fulltime job and do a quick preaching once a week. If people don't want to tithe, there's not much spiritual food in the house. Problems? Go ask a psychiater, pastor is too busy with his other job. There was a very rich lady who wanted a week prayer and counselling, but was offended that the pastor asked some money for it. He told her to go to a healing week at TACF and she payed 5 times as much, but that was no problem for her.

 

[BeforeThereWas]

So he is by no means "getting rich" off of the tithing/giving congregation, nor is he storing up for himself.

Very few of them get wealthy like the charlitans we've seen on TV and heard on radio, which was never a charge I've leveled against the majority.

But herein lies the hypocrisy; having been intimately involved with the inner-workings of our church for quite some time now, as a general rule the people who are most against the "tithe" are also the same people that expect the pastor to do all of the one-to-one ministry while they do *nothing*.

I absolutely agree with you that as a body of believers, you should be able to call anyone in your congregation at 3AM in an emergency. But that simply doesn't happen. People expect the pastor to jump when they need him, but these are the same people that think he ought to get a job so that they don't have to support him. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

Well, that's a two-way street. Tithing or not tithing really has little to nothing to do with the existence of that expectation of hirelings. I agree with your charge of hypocrisy in relation to some non or anti-tithers expecting such men to do it all, but we're not talking only about non or anti-tithing people being the only ones with that expectation of hirelings, are we?

We have tried, with some success, to get back to a body ministry.

I've heard of that type program, among so many others just like it; that try to grapple with the status quo of dysfunctionallty inherent within churchianity and most church-goer's perceptios about ministry within institutionalized, religious church oranizations. Many of those programs cost quite a bit. Varying levels of success do exist, but the inherent nature of the institutionalized church model tends to work against the reality of how things should be.

....Now I know there are places where pastors and leadership want all the control and authority, and they hold people back, and that is why some churches can't operate as a body.

That's the nature of the institutionalized model. Greed for power and control over others exists independently of whatever model to which one may point a finger. However, the modern, institutional church model is a creation of men built upon the very foundation of power and control over the masses. History bears that out. With the people relegated to the level of an audience, passively participating on cue, and under the control of the almighty program and those who control the program, assuming they're enjoying fellowship while looking at the backs of other people's heads. Yes, the problems of form and assumed biblicity present their own brand of error in most people's thinking. It's amazing what the historicity behind systems of thought can accomplish.

But I also know that when you give people the ability and encourage them to operate as a body, it's not always that simple.

That comes as no surprise considering many of them were raised under the shadow of a system that expects them to remain nothing more than bleeting sheep in need of perpetual feeding and tending. On top of that, we live in a culture that values self-sufficiency and self-reliance. We haven't suffered the hardships so many others have lived through in the history of this world, although we're currently on the precipice of the long slide down into deeper corruption, socialism, totalitarianism, and whatever else may come our way. There's nothing new under the sun.

People have got to come to the realization and understanding that they were not intended to sit in a pew on Sunday morning and do *nothing* for the rest of the week.

That's exactly the way MOST institutions want it. It's tradition. It's the paradigm.

....It takes a step of faith, in some cases a HUGE step of faith, to step out and say, "God, use me!"

Faith? Nope. The precursor is to consciously adopt a desire to simply believe what's written in the word of God as opposed to blindly accepting what one may hear from pulpits, and a desire to actually LIVE what's revealed in scripture. Faith is required later to fulfill what seems impossible.

But I would say this is mostly a result of people not wanting to do things themselves. I mean, this is nothing new. People have long proclaimed that they need a king to lead them, and they got just what they asked for.

The historicity of churchianity is such that such a model was forced upon the people, not the other way around as you've posited here. Protestants during Luther and Zwingli's time were too happy to continue the institutional tradition created first by paganism, and later adopted by roman catholicism, and perpetuated by protestants through the centuries to modern times, and yet most have no idea just how roman cathlolic they truly are within their institutional church organizations.

BTW

 

[BeforeThereWas]

the other presumption is, that somehow people on my side of the isle, who don't like guilt teachings, or text mainipulation, or the omission of text, about paul wrking, the poor shouldn't give, and all the other stuff i posted, are set up as people who don't give, or are selfish or whatever.

but the fact is, the tithe oponents, might actually give more than tithers, and to the poor, or at least to a ministry that they feel to give to, if they feel to give.

Pro-tithing proponents must somehow cover for their own wrongful denials and practices in relation to scriptural commands and mandates in the NT, so they have little else to fall back upon than to rely on the weakness of attacks against the character (ad hominem) of those who disagree and who dare give them rug burn for their improprieties.

BTW

 

[BeforeThereWas]

Greed is a tragic thing . There are of course greedy pastors , but there are also very greedy congregation members .

People should stop bashing pastors because for some of them it is a full-time job .

Just because some dude landed a job as "pastor" within a church organization doesn't mean he's called of God.

Yes, people should support a church organization from which they benefit, but they should support it SECONDARILY to our PRIMARY responsibility toward one another's needs.

BTW

 

[Messy]

Pro-tithing proponents must somehow cover for their own wrongful denials and practices in relation to scriptural commands and mandates in the NT, so they have little else to fall back upon than to rely on the weakness of attacks against the character (ad hominem) of those who disagree and who dare give them rug burn for their improprieties.

BTW

I think the principle of tithing is good, but we don't have to live to the letter of the law. The Pharisees tithet, but they forgot the most important thing. Giving comes out of love. Just like we don't have to keep the sabbath and stop working on saturday, but it's in God's heart and we came into His rest. It was a shadow of things to come. New Testament is sharing everything and nobody had his own possessions.

 

[GaryArnold]

I think the principle of tithing is good, but we don't have to live to the letter of the law.

Are you talking about a man-made principle, OR a principle that comes from the scriptures?

The Biblical tithe was never money and never came from anyone's income. The one tithe that supported the priesthood (the Levitical tithe) was given to the Levites BY GOD, not by the Israelites. The Israelites merely transported the tenth to the Levites.

No one "gave back to God a tenth" as incorrectly taught by many pastors.

There is a principle in the 3-year tithe, feeding the poor, and that is repeated in the New Testament. We are to give where there is a need.

Those who speak of a "tithing principle" need to understand that 10% is not a principle. The only principle I get from the Levitical tithe is that God will take care of supporting the priesthood. To carry forward the 10% is the most legalistic part of any Biblical tithe.

It's time pastors start trusting that GOD, not man, will provide for their needs. Let GOD decide how He will provide.

 

[BeforeThereWas]

I think the principle of tithing is good, but we don't have to live to the letter of the law. The Pharisees tithet, but they forgot the most important thing.

In addition to what Gary said, ALL the people Jesus addressed at that time, such as those pharasees, were still under the Law, so for Jesus to have instructed them in any other direction would have been a legitimate violation of the Law.

So, the situation with the pharasees was indeed a matter of Law, not principle or anything else men concoct out of thin air.

Giving comes out of love. Just like we don't have to keep the sabbath and stop working on saturday, but it's in God's heart and we came into His rest. It was a shadow of things to come. New Testament is sharing everything and nobody had his own possessions.

I've heard the error parrotted many times about the idea those people gave "everything" they had, that they allegedly sold ALL their homes.

What's so idiotic about that assumption, besides the fact that they're adding to scripture what isn't there, it makes no sense anyone would impoverish themselves into the gutter, only to become a burden upon others who had not yet given everything they had so that the cycle of impoverishment continued until all believers were foolish beggars living out on the streets, victims of their own looniness.

No. That's not how it was back then. Having all things "common" has a connotation quite set apart from the perceptions of some simple-minded fooilshness I've read in articles and heard spouted from pulpits at various times.

BTW

 

[Messy]

Just because some dude landed a job as "pastor" within a church organization doesn't mean he's called of God.

Yes, people should support a church organization from which they benefit, but they should support it SECONDARILY to our PRIMARY responsibility toward one another's needs.

BTW

But it should be the primary responsibility of the church to care for the ones in need. They cared for the widows who had nothing. Now they care about a building and a pastor getting payed. But some pastors have enough and are not in debt and have a big church, while they ask their members who are in debt to tithe. I'm not going to give 10 percent of my income to someone who has enough and doesn't give it to the people who need it.

 

[Messy]

Are you talking about a man-made principle, OR a principle that comes from the scriptures?

The Biblical tithe was never money and never came from anyone's income. The one tithe that supported the priesthood (the Levitical tithe) was given to the Levites BY GOD, not by the Israelites. The Israelites merely transported the tenth to the Levites.

No one "gave back to God a tenth" as incorrectly taught by many pastors.

There is a principle in the 3-year tithe, feeding the poor, and that is repeated in the New Testament. We are to give where there is a need.

Those who speak of a "tithing principle" need to understand that 10% is not a principle. The only principle I get from the Levitical tithe is that God will take care of supporting the priesthood. To carry forward the 10% is the most legalistic part of any Biblical tithe.

It's time pastors start trusting that GOD, not man, will provide for their needs. Let GOD decide how He will provide.

But He used people to give it to them.
Nehemia 13:10
And I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been given"them": for the Levites and the singers, that did the work, were fled every one to his field.
People think it's normal when they get payed for their job, but also think a pastor has to do it for free, well, at least in Holland.

 

[Messy]

In addition to what Gary said, ALL the people Jesus addressed at that time, such as those pharasees, were still under the Law, so for Jesus to have instructed them in any other direction would have been a legitimate violation of the Law.

So, the situation with the pharasees was indeed a matter of Law, not principle or anything else men concoct out of thin air.



I've heard the error parrotted many times about the idea those people gave "everything" they had, that they allegedly sold ALL their homes.

What's so idiotic about that assumption, besides the fact that they're adding to scripture what isn't there, it makes no sense anyone would impoverish themselves into the gutter, only to become a burden upon others who had not yet given everything they had so that the cycle of impoverishment continued until all believers were foolish beggars living out on the streets, victims of their own looniness.

No. That's not how it was back then. Having all things "common" has a connotation quite set apart from the perceptions of some simple-minded fooilshness I've read in articles and heard spouted from pulpits at various times.

BTW

I don't know that kind of preachings. The ones who had a few houses just sold some, they didn't sell everything.