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
acknowledgement
and appreciation of God’s provision for His people.
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 TitheActs 15:1-31
records a dispute over circumcision that arose in the Gentile church atThe 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 4:32-37where 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.
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