TITHING

A very disputed subject I am sure you will agree. Like me, you have probably been told that the scriptures teach that we are to tithe because it is taught in the Old Testament. Not the New Testament, just the Old.

I read somewhere that if we are New Testament Christians, why do we have to live under the Old Testament law. Worse still why do we cherry pick the Old and impose its rules on the New Testament way of life if they suit us.

A good question. Either we are New Testament born again Christians living under grace or we are not. Mixing and matching seems a bit strange.

In addition, those who insist on Old Testament tithing forget or choose to ignore that tithing in the Old Testament is 30% not 10%. There were three offerings of 10% each. The other thing is that they were not monetary offerings they were goods.

So if you want to press home Old Testament tithing, you had better get a sheep or two ready for the offering.

The only time that tithing is mentioned in the New Testament is when Jesus told the Pharisees off because they were tithing to the last little thing but ignoring the more important things of the law like mercy and justice.

In all the passages in the New Testament about money, tithing is not mentioned once. What we do find is that the believers held all their possessions in trust to be called on as and when the church wanted them.

Take a look at Acts 4:32. There is says that ALL the believers were of one heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.

In other words, tithing and 10% was unknown because they did not own anything. You can’t tithe what you don’t own. It is noticeable that everyone thought the same way.

This verse alone puts paid to tithing along with several others.

So why do we talk about giving a tenth? Primarily due to the fact that this is the way that the CEOs (pastor/priests who are running a religious organisation) can generate enough money to pay their wages and pay the bills.

The other is that due to the fact that most pastors/priest do not live by faith in the provision of God, they want to make sure that they get paid a weekly salary so insisting on a tenth is a good way to ensure that they have a certain amount coming in.

If they left it to the Lord to tell people what they should give and where, they might find themselves at the end of the week with insufficient money to draw their wages and then they would have to trust God for their income, which they prefer not to.

After all why trust God when you can talk the people into giving enough to keep you with an out of date ideology that was done away with in the New Testament.