Tithing is really just an old English word we find in the Bible that means a tenth. Most Christian churches say we only should give what we feel is right, that tithing was part of the law that was hung on the cross. Is this REALLY what the Bible says about tithing? Christian Churches seldom say we should give our "increase," the Lord's tithe, which is 10% of our gross income that is really His. Let's see what the Bible actually says about tithing for Christians.
A group of scientists decided that mankind had advanced far enough that they no longer needed God. So, they went to find Him. They said, "Look Lord, we have conquered space, we can cure any disease, we can talk instantly around the world, we can even clone human beings, basically, we do not need you anymore." God listened patiently. Then finally says.... "Tell you what, we will settle this with a man-making contest. Each of us will make a man, and the first one to finish wins." "Sure," say the scientists, who headed off to consult with their colleagues. "Wait a minute," called God. "We are going to do this the real way, the way I did it in the beginning." "No problem," responds the man, bending down to grab a handful of clay. "No, no, no," says God. You get your own dirt. This is all mine!"
Look at the ground under your feet. Do you see a mechanic's wrench, a carpenter's hammer, a doctor's stethoscope, a teacher's chalkboard, a chef's stove, and a farmer's plow? What you see is everything anyone can use on any job. It's dirt, iron, copper, lithium and carbon. It's clay, sand, nickel, chromium, and magnesium. It's every element that exists that we use on any job in the world to earn an income. Do you know who actually owns all of this? God! He owns it all! Where did our Creator get the right to claim 10 percent of everything produced by "OUR" hard work? It's simple. God really owns everything we use to earn our income! Without His raw materials we can produce nothing! The Bible says that all of the earth and everything in it or grows on it actually belongs to Him.
Here is what the Bible actually says:
Deuteronomy 10:14. "Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it."
Psalm 24:1. "The earth is the Lord's, and all it contains".
Psalm 89:11. "The heavens are Yours, the earth also is Yours; The world and all it contains, You have founded them."
Lev 27:30. "A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD."
It does not matter if you are a Jew, a Gentile, a Christian, a Muslim, or an Atheist. No matter who you are, The Bible says "A tithe of everything... belongs to the LORD!" PERIOD! I could actually stop right here. This is all we need to see. It's a simple statement from the Bible that a tenth of everything we earn really belongs to God, NOT US! Since God owns it all He has a claim to it all, but God is very generous. He gives us the largest portion of what we get from the earth, 90%, and only asks that we give Him His tithe, just a little 10%. He says the tithe actually belongs to Him. It is really never ours. We are not actually giving Him our money, but HIS own money.
Evenn Christians say our own efforts produce what we earn. We say we earn our own paycheck. Right? God warns us about this false belief in the Bible.
Deut. 8:12-18. "lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; ... when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, ... then you say in your heart, My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth. You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth".
Christians don't remember! We are told not to say, "My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth."
Instead, our Heavenly Father says to "remember HIM for it is He who gives you power to get wealth."
The tithe is simply the way God expects Christians to acknowledge that He actually owns everything and gives us everything we need. All He really says is to give Him His tithe of whatever He allows us to produce from HIS raw material.
When preparing a Bible Study here on this site about the ten commandments I asked Christians about the 1st Commandment. I wanted to know what Christians really considered "false gods" in modern times, that our Creator said we should never put before Him. The number one answer Christians say for what we put before God is "money" that we use to buy "things". Have we ever actually considered the possibility that when we Christians refuse to give Him His tithe we are really breaking the 1st Commandment by treating the tithe as a false god? Money is actually a false god for most people. We worship the almighty dollar! Many Christians say giving our Father what is His is extremely difficult. It is a true test of our faith in believing what the Bible says!
Let's start all the way back in the beginning in the book of Genesis, long before Moses, long before there was any Jewish Law that says anything about giving God a tithe of everything that belongs to Him! It's not 10% of everything a Jew earns! It's 10% of everything EVERYONE earns!
The Bible says in Genesis 14:19-20 "and God blessed Abram, saying, Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And praise be to God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand. Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything".
The Bible says in Genesis 28:20-22 "Then Jacob made a vow, saying, If You will be with me, and will watch over me on this journey I am taking, and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear, so that I return safely to my father's household, then the LORD will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."
Isn't that interesting? Both of these great men of the Bible recognized that it is the Creator of the earth and everything in it, who really provides for all their needs, and they understood the importance of tithing long before there was actually a law commanding it. No Mosaic law existed about tithing at this time. Many Christians say the law for the tithe was hung on the cross but how is that possible when it existed before Moses? There were no 613 Jewish laws written in the Bible yet, so how can Christians say tithing was done away with when Jesus died on the cross? They don't know tithing existed in Abraham or Jacob's time. Abraham and Jacob both knew the importance of giving their Creator His tithe to be blessed by Him. It would appear that the Lord Himself had actually taught them this eternal tithing principle that predates the LAW given to the Jews in the Bible. How else could they know? Law or no law, tithing is something our Father expects from everyone, including Christians saved by Grace, not just the Jews, and has been since the beginning, long before the Jews even existed!
The Bible says in Matthew 23, "For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest part of your income, but you ignore the important things of the law - justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but you should not leave undone the more important things"
Matthew 5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."
What? Jesus said in both of these verses in the Bible that we Christians should tithe, that He did not actually abolish the LAW about tithing? Yes, Jesus strongly reinforced His teaching about tithing which is 10% of our gross income. He could have easily told them that Christians no longer needed to tithe now that He was here. Instead, Jesus told them not only to practice justice, mercy and faithfulness, but that they should really practice tithing too. Jesus taught tithing to Christians, which is 10%! Tithing which predated the LAW was not actually abolished at the cross! That's a false Christian church teaching that the Bible doesn't say. Tithing 10% pre-existed before the law! Fulfill means to bring something to its fullness, to develop the full potentialities of it. Jesus was telling Christians He would bring the law to the fullness of its potential, not abolish it. He magnified the laws about tithing and says to give offerings from our heart even above what tithing commandeds. Christians should actually give MORE than 10% according to what Jesus says!
Luke 17:10 in the Bible tells us this. "So likewise, you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do."
Yes, the Bible says tithing is commanded for Christians. It is our duty to give the Lord His tithe, but we as Christians are supposed to go beyond that which is commanded, beyond tithing 10%. It is not the tithe that Christians "HAVE" to give that is really most important. It is our freely given "OFFERINGS" which we lovingly and thankfully give that are MOST IMPORTANT. Our offerings above the required tithe show how much Christians REALLY love, respect and appreciate our Heavenly Provider. The Bible has much to say about us giving from our heart, generously of our own free will.
2 Cor 9:6-7: "Each man should give as he has decided in his heart. He should not give, wishing he could keep it. Or he should not give if he feels he has to give. God loves a man who gives because he wants to give."
The Bible is NOT talking about tithing here, the 10% which is commanded. It is talking about what we WANT to give as an offering and our attitude in doing so! We should really WANT to be generous with our offerings when we understand ALL that actually has been given to us! "Each man should give as he has decided in his heart" is not about the amount a person gives, but their HEART, what they feel, their attitude in wanting to give freely and without reservation. Many Christians think that since they already do what the Bible says and pay the tithe, which is commanded, they shouldn't really HAVE to provide even more as an offering on top of it. They actually have a bad ATTITUDE, secretly "wishing they could keep it"
Proverbs 11:24-25, "There is one who is free in giving, and yet he grows richer. And there is one who keeps what he should give, but he ends up needing more. The man who gives much will have much, and he who helps others will be helped himself."
This is not really a question about tithing, which is clearly required, but of New Testament Christians being taught a timeless principle about our attitude in giving, both to Jesus, and to our fellow man.
Matthew 6:19-21: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
The same principle about the attitude in our heart applies to the tithe as well as it does to our offerings. When we really give the Lord His tithe from our heart, not grudgingly, not wishing we could keep it, we are actually storing up treasure in Heaven according to what the Bible says. Tithing is good for our soul!
The Book of Malachi in the Bible actually raises an important question about tithing which would certainly apply to Christians. Here is what Malachi says.
"Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, How are we robbing you? In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse, your whole nation, because you are robbing me. 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 there will not be room enough to store it" (Malachi 3:8-10)
So besides breaking the 1st Commandment when we keep our false "10% god" for ourselves, according to what Scripture says Christians are also really breaking the 8th Commandment by robbing God of His tithe!
"You shall not steal". (Exodus 20:15)
If Christians don't tithe, we are really robbing God and our Savior Jesus of what is actually theirs. We have put what we believe is OUR money as a false god and broken the 1st commandment. Most people, even Jesus loving Christians, don't give a full tithe because they say they really can't afford to. The truth is they can't afford to because they DON'T tithe in the first place! They pray to Jesus to provide His blessings, but He is not financially blessing them BECAUSE they don't tithe! We are plainly told here to test Him. Tithing is a TEST COMMAND from God! People don't really have the faith to believe what the Bible actually says about tithing. They don't trust that they will be blessed so they foolishly steal the tithe and keep it for themselves, and then wonder why they can't make financial ends meet and their debts mount up even higher. Malachi 3:8-10 is also talking about "offerings", what WE freely give God from OUR money, offerings from the heart, not God's money, not His tithe. The tithe is required but our offerings show how much we REALLY love God.
Proverbs 3:5 says this. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own insight."
Proverbs 3:9-10 says, "Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine."
First fruits were 10% of the harvest given before anything else. Blessings were actually promised for giving God what was His. If you are not tithing, don't wonder why your barn is not filled to overflowing.
Lev 27:30 says. "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."
Deuteronomy 14:22 says, "You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year."
Remember WE are not giving OUR money when we tithe. The 10 percent is NOT OURS! We are only giving back to God what is already HIS, which is HOLY to Him. Do we really want to foolishly keep something that belongs to God and is holy to Him?
There is an important message in the Bible for us modern Christians who downplay what the Old Testament says, thinking it is of no actual value to New Testament Christians.
Romans 15:4, "Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us."
1 Corinthians 10:11 says, "Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction".
Old Testament teachings were actually written for the benefit of the New Testament Church. They were written for our instruction. The Bible is actually teaching us! Tithing is one of those teachings.
Tithing is really a true test command for Christians! Tithing is strongly taught against by many churches (which is really foolish when you consider they would get the money). This makes it hard for a true Christian to read this study on tithing and embrace it as God's WILL for us today. So, should a Christian cheerfully give a tithe of our gross wages? The Scriptures say we should, but even more than that, we need to remember... We Can't Out Give God! Test Him and see!
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