To Tithe Or Not To Tithe
by Jack Helser
(The $earch For Truth)
Though I’ve always struggled with the tithe, I still shook
my head in disgust when I heard about the preacher whose congregation quietly
left the church during the prayer following a long sermon on tithing. He said "Amen", looked up and cried out
"half my church is gone!" I laughed saying "they must
have fled the conviction of the Holy Spirit".
What the Lord said took me completely by surprise: "They fled from error and guilt-based giving".
"What?!?" - I’ve heard more sermons
on the tithe than on any other topic except perhaps our need of Jesus for
eternal life! After I picked up my jaw from the floor, the Lord prompted me to
study tithing and giving. Throughout the Bible study I prayed for His guidance
and in the end I reached the inescapable conclusion that the
"tithe" is to the modern church what the issue of
"circumcision" was to the church in Paul’s time.
NOTE: Nothing in
this article is intended as an excuse to stop giving as the Lord leads you to
give.
The verse most often cited
in support of the tithe is from the Old Testament, found in Malachi 3:8-10:
8.
""Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, `How do we
rob you?' "In tithes and offerings. 9. You are
under a curse--the whole nation of you--because you are robbing me. 10. Bring
the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test
me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw
open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not
have room enough for it.
Many preachers shorten Malachi 3:8-10 to just "Bring the
whole tithe into the storehouse", and almost always with the
inference that their church is the "storehouse". For purposes of this
paper, the Lord had me concentrate on the passage: "Bring
the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house".
From that passage, the Lord had me research several questions:
1)
What is the tithe?
2) What was the tithe for?
3) What is the storehouse?
1)
What is the tithe? The tithe is 10% of the increase,
established in Leviticus 27:30-33 as an offering Holy to the Lord. The
scripture identifies the tithe as grain and fruit, herd and flock. The tithe is
food! An example of the tithe can be seen in a shepherd with a flock of 100
sheep who is blessed with the birth of 50 lambs in the spring. Five of the
lambs must be offered to the Lord as a tithe. The tithe was brought to the
temple in
2) What was the tithe for? God
doesn’t need the food – God doesn’t eat. God doesn’t desire sacrifices or
offerings ( Psalm 40:6 and Hosea 6:6 ) – He desires mercy. God doesn’t need us to give
Him a 10th of everything – when He already owns everything ( Psalm 24:1 and Job 41:11b ). The tithe was used to feed the Levite priests
(and their families) who were required to work in the temple day and night
ministering to God on behalf of God’s people ( 1 Chronicles 9:33 ). Without the tithe, the Levite priests
would have needed to raise their own food, thereby taking them away from
ministering before God. Hence the reference in Malachi 3:10 "…that there may be
food in my house". Nehemiah 13:10-13 records a time when the Levite priests were
not receiving the tithe wherein they abandoned their daily temple
responsibilities to work the farms to feed their families. The reference to
‘robbing God’ in Malachi 3:8 is in fact robbing God of ministry and worship by
failing to take care of God’s priests through the tithe of food items. Unlike
the other tribes of
3) What is the storehouse? 2 Chronicles 31 teaches that the storehouse is the
Having established the original purpose of the tithe, the
Lord prompted me with several more questions.
Q: "What happened to the temple (storehouse)?"
A: It was destroyed in 70AD and has not been rebuilt.
Q:
"Why?"
A: The old covenant system of animal sacrifice to atone for
sin is finished. The new covenant is in the blood of Christ who is the final
and everlasting sin sacrifice.
Q: "Where is the temple now?"
A: 1 Corinthians 6:19 says WE are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
God no longer resides in a stone temple, but in the hearts of his children
through the Holy Spirit.
Q: "What happened to the Levite priests?"
A: The Levite priesthood is no longer necessary as the old
covenant system of animal sacrifice in the temple was superceded
by the everlasting covenant of Christ’s blood.
Q: "Who is the priesthood now?"
A: 1 Peter 2:5 and 9 says those who have received Jesus as Lord
and Savior are the priesthood.
Come On Laity, Let’s Do The Twist
Burdening the Body of Christ with the Tithe requires
several twists and reinterpretations of scripture.
1) The tithe must be imported from the OT Law of
Moses to the new covenant of grace by Christ’s blood.
2) The tithe must be redefined from "flocks, herds,
fruit and grain" to "money" and often "time".
3) The storehouse must be redefined from the temple in
4) The Body of Christ must buy into the ordained clergy as
the new priesthood, thereby replacing the Levite priesthood as the rightful
recipient of the tithe.
5) The Body of Christ must forfeit their own priesthood and
buy into the notion that they are the "laity".
The tithe has been introduced to the Body of Christ
using 2 tactics of the enemy.
1) Sowing
guilt and shame into the Body of Christ by quoting
Malachi 3:8 "Will a man rob God?
Yet you rob me. But you ask, `How do we rob you?' In tithes and
offerings." What devoted Christian wants to rob God? The net
effect of sowing guilt has been to extort money from the Body of Christ,
thereby robbing the Body of the joy and blessing of giving as God leads. The
practice ignores Paul’s instructions to the church at
2) Blaming the "laity" for the financial troubles
in the Body of Christ , by
telling the Body they are not blessed by God because they do not tithe. Often Malachi 3:10 is emphasized "Test
me in this, says the LORD Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the
floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room
enough for it." In so doing, believers are challenged to tithe,
with the promise that God will bless them if they do. Such giving is not out of
love for God, but out of selfishness. It implies a reward for works, which
contradicts Ephesians 2:8-9 , and completely ignores our status as sons of
God by faith in Christ ( Galatians 3:26 ) and joint heirs of God with Christ ( Romans 8:17 ). The practice also ignores Christ’s words in Matthew 4:7 "Do not put the Lord
your God to the test".
The
Apostles Did Not Teach Gentiles To Tithe
Acts 15:1-31 records a dispute over circumcision that arose in
the Gentile church at
The apostles did not want to burden the Gentiles with Old
Testament practices! The proof is in their letter to the Gentiles and the fact
that the apostles did not impose the tithe on them.
Come, Let Us Reason Together ( Isaiah 1:18 )
Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that Jesus had
commanded us to continue tithing. It would be appropriate then to use the tithe
to feed the priesthood as originally purposed. Who then is the priesthood? The
apostle Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:5 and 9 that every believer is a priest ! Hebrews 5-8 also teaches us that Jesus is the only priest
that we need .
However the institutional church has borrowed from the Old Testament model of
the Levitical Priesthood, thereby establishing a new
priesthood (ordained clergy) that is separate from the rest of the Body of
Christ. The division between the clergy, and the so-called "laity" is
not Biblical (Is this the doctrine of the Nicolaitan’s
that Jesus says He hates in Revelation 2:6 ) ?In fact, Jesus did not establish the ordained clergy
– He chose fishermen and tax collectors to preach His gospel. Neither did He
establish division in His church, He desires unity ( John 17:20-23 ). The apostles did not set up an ordained
clergy – they chose men full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom to serve the Body ( Acts 6:3, 1 Timothy 3 ). This man-made division between
"clergy" and "laity" has effectively served to divert the
offerings of the Body of Christ away from the people it is intended to bless
and the offerings are most often used in ways contrary to the will of God. The
net result has been starvation and financial bondage for many believers, and the real priesthood – the whole Body of
Christ – has not been prepared to carry out Christ’s command to preach the
gospel to all nations!
Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh ( John 1:14 ). He knew that Malachi 3:10 says "bring the
whole tithe into the storehouse" when He instructed the rich man to
sell everything and give the proceeds to the poor ( Matthew 19:21 ). I imagine the Scribes and Pharisees about
choked on what Jesus said as they were in the habit of devouring widow’s houses
for profit ( Luke 20:47 ) and the rich man’s possessions would have been a
real feast for them. In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus reiterated His desire to help the poor
in the parable of separating the sheep from goats, wherein at judgement Jesus
will reward those who feed the hungry and clothe the poor. Since Jesus judges
us for our care of the poor and hungry, and since He commands us to preach the
gospel throughout the world, why is most of our giving used for church buildings
and salaries with only a small percentage devoted to the poor, missions and
evangelism?
Is the church making goats
out of us by not feeding the hungry and clothing the poor
with our offerings?
Let’s not wait until the Judgement of Christ to find out!
Sins of the Church Against the
Needy
The Lord
has been trying to bring me to the truth about giving for years. On many
occasions, He prompted me to take what I would have normally put in the
offering plate at church and give it directly to someone in need. I love giving
like that! Still, in the absence of specific giving instructions from the Lord,
I never questioned the common practice of giving everything to the church,
whereupon I trusted the church to administer my gifts. That is until the day
the Lord had me witness an abomination that left me nauseous.
In the main office of a church I attended years ago, I was
fixing a computer one Friday morning. Two young black women, with 3 adorable
children dressed in their Sunday best, came into the office to ask for a food
donation. The 3 secretaries of our all white upper middle class church stared
at them, and finally one said nervously "our deacon of benevolence is in
the office on Thursday afternoons – can I make an appointment for you next
Thursday?" One of the women pleaded "We can’t wait a week, we need
food now". The secretary repeated her offer, and I became sick to my
stomach. I left quickly and drove a mile up the road to a cash machine and came
directly back to the church only to find that the 2 women and 3 children had
left empty handed. The staff did not know where they had gone, and I returned
to my car and wept. I felt as if I had failed but the Lord said "you did
not fail son, the church failed".
Since that first eye-opening experience, the Lord has shown
me many more sins of the church against the poor that have left me ill. One
church considered installing an air conditioning system for which several
members had pledged $35,000 while another member of the church who was
wheelchair bound from advanced multiple sclerosis didn’t have enough money to
buy food at the end of the month with what little state aid she received. Often
she was forced to chose between food, medicine or heat
in winter. For many months my wife and I gave to her anonymously and when she
went to be with the Lord last winter, she was at peace – the kind of peace that
only acts of love can bring ( 1 John 3:18, James 1:22 ). As she was relieved of her financial stress, she
blessed everyone around her with unquenchable joy. Most importantly, she taught
us about right giving.
More recently, I attended a conference where the host
appealed to the audience to give "an offering for the
poor". I heard the Lord say "the poor are among you" ( Mark 14:7 ) and immediately I thought of a dear friend in
attendance who is experiencing financial difficulties and had recently lost her
home. The next day I began a letter to the host saying "Last night you
took an offering from the poor" . I groaned at the error and
started to rip the page from my notebook when the Lord said "that is not
an error – last night’s offering was taken from the poor".
The Lord then brought to mind the parable of the sheep and
goats, specifically Matthew 25:40 where it says "whatever
you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine , you did for me". The
words "these brothers of mine" had not made an impression on me before, and the
Lord brought me to the understanding that our first obligation to the poor is
to the poor within the Body of Christ. The Lord then brought Matthew 15:26 to mind wherein Jesus said "It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss
it to the dogs".
The early church had a much
better understanding of Christ’s intent to care for the needs of the Body of
Christ than we do today. The proof of their caring for each other can be seen
in Acts 2:44-47 and Acts 4:32-37 where the Body of Christ shared everything, and
through their giving, they eliminated poverty and indebtedness. In fact, Acts 4:34 says "there were no
needy persons among them!" Taking up offerings to feed the Body of
Christ was common in the early church. In Acts 11:27-30, the Gentile church at
How did the church get so
far off course?
Giving as Christ Intends
Though the tithe is not a
requirement for the Body of Christ, we are still instructed to give. What
changed from the Old Testament to the New is our motivation for giving. In the
Old Testament, giving was compulsory – a tenth (tithe). In the New Testament we
are to give with joy as we are led to give ( 2 Corinthians 9:7 ), not by compulsion.
Our
attitude about giving should be like that of the poor widow who Jesus esteemed
in Mark 12:41-44. She put 2 small copper coins, worth a penny,
into the temple treasury. They were all the widow had to live on. She
understood that God owns everything and was willing to give all that she had
with cheer as God had prompted her to do.
It is time to invest cheerfully in what is eternal,
specifically in God’s children for the completion of Kingdom work ( Matthew 6:19-21 ). The children must be fed, clothed and
equipped to carry Christ’s gospel throughout the whole world and to make the
Bride of Christ ready for her soon returning Savior.
Imagine what it could be like if we resumed giving and sharing as Jesus
intends. Surely we would rediscover the same abundant and powerful living as
the early church enjoyed!
On the topic of giving, John 8:36 might seem like a strange scripture to cite: "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free
indeed". While it is true that Jesus set us free from the curse of
the law ( Galatians 3:10-13 ), sin and death ( Romans 8:2 ), our failure to give as Jesus taught us has
kept the Church in financial bondage, and has prevented the Church from
completing the work of Christ on earth. How many children of God fail to reach
their full potential as ministers of the Gospel because they lack provision? It
is through our giving and sharing that we equip the Church for service,
eliminate hunger and poverty, and realize the fullness of our freedom in
Christ.
We can no longer afford to misuse our offerings for church
buildings, parsonages, conference centers,
multi-purpose buildings, air conditioning, padded pews, pipe organs, and the
like, all of which will soon be forgotten, while God's children go hungry, poor
and ill equipped to minister the Gospel. Instead, like Abel, we should give
our best gifts to the true Church – the people – because we love God and want
to see God's work accomplished on the earth.
On concluding my study, the Lord asked one final question: What building ever won a person to Christ?
Ask the Lord to show you what to give and to whom, and
remember that His words "Feed my sheep"
(John 21:17) go much deeper than a pastor's sermon on a Sunday
morning. His words are spiritual, and they are literal.
Jack Helser Web Site: http://www.LordYouAre.com