Am I required by God To Tithe?


“Some people are always greedy for more, but the godly love to give.”  Prov 21:26

I recall my boy’s first bikes—that is their first two wheel bikes.  I put training wheels on them to assist in training them to ride.  Once they were accustomed to the larger bikes and sitting on them, I took the training wheels off.
Weekly giving of any sort is the training wheels for tithing.
Tithing is the training wheels for generosity.
Generosity is the goal—tithing is not.



  1. Understanding what tithing does
  2. Understanding what tithing does not do


What tithing does:
  1. Tithing is a training ground for the following things:
    1. Tithing teaches you to give on a weekly basis (or whenever your income comes in).  Tithing trains you to begin to realize that God owns everything you have.  You are not an owner, you are a steward.
    2. Tithing trains you to become what God wants you to be—generous!
  2. Tithing trains you to think in terms of sowing seed.  
  3. Tithing trains you to look for opportunities to give and bless others.
  4. The goal of tithing is to train you to leave tithing as an elementary level of spirituality (see below) and move into the realm of generosity!



What tithing is not:

  1. Tithing will not ensure you have no more financial problems.  Tithing does not fix dumb financial decisions.  Tithing doesn’t give you more money, job security or a better car.
  2. Tithing is not a covenantal blessing that will lift the curse as in the Old Testament covenant.  Jesus’ sacrificial death lifts the curse!
  3. Tithing will not solve all your problems.  Tithing does not release God to wave a financial magic wand over your bank account.  



There is an obscure little passage in Matthew’s gospel
Matthew 23:23 (NKJV) 23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.

Here, in the midst of a series of rebukes by Jesus, Jesus says three things about tithing:
1.   Jesus condemned tithing that was degraded into an act of religiosity. For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin
2.   Jesus upheld the principal of tithing.  These you ought to have done
3.   Jesus believed tithing was an elementary act of spirituality.  …and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.


Goal—-Generosity!
Training wheels—tithing 

Tithing trains me to be a giver.

I need to be a giver, because that is the essence of the gospel!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning to hate your sin

Image
   John 5:13-15 (NLT) 13 The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” 15 Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.   Lord give me grace, power, and effort to maintain a resilience against sin.  Sin is ALWAYS a dark path. It ALWAYS pays wages.  The wage of sin is death.  Sin will always hurt, always destroy, always wound—you, relationships, stuff, goals, etc.  It is a killer.  It is a wound-er.  It is a consumer of all that is healthy, strong, good, and perfect. Learn to hate sin. Learn to fear sin. Learn to run as fast as you can away from sin. Search deeply for hidden sin. Be disgusted with your sin.  Repent, repent, repent daily for your sin. Be afraid of your sin. Be petrified of your sin. Be worried about your sin. And keep repenting, keeping running into the arms of grace and the arm
Read more

Dumb Mistakes

Image
      Dumb Mistakes   Why do Christians, pastors, leaders, ushers, —everyday Christians— make real dumb mistakes.  Now I am talking about real dumb moral mistakes—lying, cheating, immorality, thievery—-like why? Christine Pohl warns us as follows: “By compartmentalizing aspects of our actions or thoughts, we are able to ignore major inconsistencies and wrongdoing.” Ever heard yourself asking this question: ‘What was he thinking when he did that?’   You think of moral failure or just plain —dumb decisions—and you ask that question!   How does that happen?  What were they ‘thinking?’  Well, Pohl suggest “he wasn’t thinking he had stopped thinking and reflecting.  Instead, the person deliberately excluded a part of his or her life from spiritual and moral scrutiny.”   So now a word of help!  Do the daily examen!  (See.  https://pwcusick.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-examen.html )   If there ever was a culture, a time, a season when Christians need to act like Christians —it is now!   The ancie
Read more

Duh--What church should I attend?

Image
Part # 3 of three Part Blog: Why go to church? What is the ‘church?’ How to find the right congregation? How to find the right congregation? A congregation is what we normally refer to as a church.  Here is the distinction I am making.   The Church; This is the one described in my previous blog… “what is the church.”  It is the timeless eternal body of believers. A Congregation: This is a local gathering of believers who are part of “The Church”. Think of it this way—-three levels: Level # 1-  THE CHURCH—the mystical eternal union of all believers. Level # 2-   The Church in a town/ city/ area.  Because of level # 1, there is realistically only ONE church in a town, city, etc. Level # 3-  Congregations:  These are various groups of people that meet together for primarily four interactive, communal, things: Word:  Preaching, teaching, sharing Sacrament:  Celebration of the Lord’s Supper (communion/ eucharist) Worship: Music,
Read more