March 01, 2007
The T-Word (Tithe)
I recently heard a television evangelist say, “We’re able to come to you because of your tithes and offerings. We want to thank you for your support.” I thought this was a bold statement and I can almost hear the church screaming foul. We’re taught that the local church has dibs on the tithe and that donations to other missions are to be over and above the tithe. Normally organizations outside the local church who seek financial support are careful to avoid the word tithe and prefer to use words like gift, offering or support. To my recollection the New Testament doesn’t make a clear distinction between a tithe, an offering or a sacrificial gift. Nor does is it define or restrict to whom our gifts are to be given. I can tithe to a missionary or a TV evangelist just as cheerfully as I can to the local church
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5 comments:
Very good point that the new testament doesn't make a distinction between tithe, offerings or a sacrificial gift. That just means that we've taken what we think the Old Testament says about how the church should function. I've never found any other instructions in the Old Testament that pertain to a specific operation of the church. Of course i'm not talking about the laws of justice, mercy, and faith. For some reason, we've taken the instructions of Israel to tithe, and said well, they operated that way, i guess we can to. We've taken what Israel used to operate as a nation and made an operational standard for the church today. There are many other operations that they did that we do not perform. Anyways. good article. keep giving, and praying. http://churchtithesandofferings.com
Tithe Dude,
Thanks for your comments and the insights on the web site.
Gail
Gail,
Just wanted to let you know that I was happy to see your comments about tithing on your blog site.
I feel the same way about tithing to other Christian orginizations or missionaries, and etc. It's between God and us as to who, and how much we want to give. The bottom line is that it should be given gladly and from the heart, not forced upon us in order to belong to any particular church body.
Yes, yes!
Gail;
-----How nice it is to hear someone else acknowledge that the New Testament does not teach tithing, and I like to go one step further in that acknowledgement. It teaches giving generously from a heart of desire to participate in real needs. When Paul addressed the idea of being freed from the law, he was addressing the idea of a new life. The old life was tied to laws and regulations. The new life is about a character. You are either developing in that character, or you are not. The old law requiring the support of the priesthood is erroneously carried over to imply the required support of the clergy through mechanistic tithing. But the New Testament does not teach this. The gospels teach the character of Christ and the epistles teach putting on the character of Christ. Measuring His generosity up to the tenth was not Christ’s character, measuring it up to the need was.
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