Should You Be Tithing?

Transcript:

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.Here is this week’s question:“Dear Dave and Tom:What is your view on tithing?Our pastor tells us each Sunday to bring our tithes and offerings to the Lord, meaning give 10% or more of your income to the church.I thought tithing belongs to the Old Testament and is not applicable for New Testament Christians.Am I wrong?”

Tom:

Dave, take it, I’m going to let you take this one.

Dave:

Well, Tom, you catch me with these things unawares.I don’t think tithing is for Christians, everything belongs to the Lord.Now, they took an offering, I don’t know how many offerings—for example, when there was a famine in Jerusalem, the other churches took an offering and they sent it up there to Jerusalem to help the saints.By the way, the saints were not dead, they still needed food and clothing and housing, because saints are living people, not somebody who has been voted in by the Congress or Cardinal, or a candidate announced by the pope or canonized, and so forth, someone you pray to.All the epistles were written to the saints at Ephesus or Galatia, or whatever, but I don’t read anything in the New Testament saying that we give 10%.Now that was a command to the Jews back then, but the Jews had a number of commands.They gave the first fruits of their produce, and everything they grew, and so forth.So, for a Christian, everything belongs to the Lord, I belong to the Lord, Christ has bought me with His blood.It does trouble me—well, I don’t know that it troubles me because I’ve heard it so often, but when they take an offering at a church they usually say, Your tithes and offerings.

Tom:

Right, that’s what this writer says.

Dave:

I don’t think it’s a biblical statement.I couldn’t find that in the New Testament, can you, do you know where it is in the New Testament?

Bring all of your tithes and offerings?You would find it in Malachi, Bring your tithes into the storehouse, and I will pour out a blessing upon you that you will not be able to receive.God is saying that to the Jews, but never said to the church.So, when you get to the Book of Acts, for example, Acts 2, after the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon the disciples, and 3,000 have come to Christ, then it goes on and talks about, They continued steadfast in the apostle doctrine fellowship, bringing bread and prayers.The it says, They had all things common, and anyone who had land or houses an so forth, sold them and came and laid the money at the apostles feet.That sounds like a bit more than a tithe.And there are some Communists who said, Hey, there the Christians were into communism, they sold everything!Or there are other people who say you shouldn’t even live in a house, just walk the streets, shouldn’t have a car, sell everything.Well, I guess sell you clothes too, maybe you ought to keep enough to cover your nakedness, they had all things common.Well, they laid the money at the apostles’ feet, and the apostles were divvying this out intelligently.They didn’t just say, Here it is, folks, come and grab what you want.There has to be some responsibility.Paul even talks about those who won’t work.You’ve got to work, you’ve got to earn your own keep, you’ve got to earn your own bread.But what was this that they lived then?Did the farmers sell their farms and they had no means of income?Are there only beggars in the streets?Oh, God is going to send manna from heaven?No, but there are some people, Tom, who take it to the extreme, but if you go a little farther in the Book of Acts, what do you know!They are having a prayer meeting in the house of John Mark’s mother!Oh, so she had a house, apparently quite a large house!So, I would have to understand it to mean they sold houses and lands, extra ones that they didn’t need, but they kept the residence, they kept the farm.Anyway, Tom, I don’t get the impression of a tithe.Whatever you didn’t need, you gave it.

Tom:

Right.Now Dave, as you know, we just got back from, really a mission trip to Russia, and I don’t think I was ever more excited in my life about giving stuff away.Here was a fellowship, doing a wonderful work, and out of maybe 150 people only two or three families had automobiles.This was a joyous congregation.

Dave:

The pastors did not have automobiles.

Tom:

They didn’t have much of anything, and it was a thrill to be there to give what we had.And then, when we have a board meeting, and we get together with our board members and we talk about, really our tithing, although we don’t look at it in the Old Testament way, we have a system of how we donate things to other ministries, to ministries or to situations we feel that—

Dave:

Funds and materials.

Tom:

Right, funds and materials, and so on.

Dave:

In other words, Tom, the board believes that we ought to give a certain percentage, we set up a percentage, so we can—and it’s not the Old Testament tithe—it’s more than that.

Tom:

Yeah, at one point it was like 5%, and then it went over that, 15%.So we’re not trying to lock into a system or a methodology, but just a way of going about donating, blessing ministries, organizations and so on that we feel are doing a good work.

Dave:

So, although we never ask for anything, and we trust God to provide, and we feel that if God doesn’t provide, then He’s not guiding, He doesn’t want us to go there if He doesn’t provide the funds.At the same time we recognize that there are other ministries that need help, so from what God has given us we feel we should give a certain portion of that to others.But that is not a tithe, it’s not the law, it’s not from the Old Testament.I think, in the New Testament, if some individual is listening, give as the Lord provides, as He allows you to do, and do it joyfully, and be a generous as you can.