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While visiting in a neighborhood near
our church, I met a man who responded to my introduction by saying,
“Oh, you are the preacher who makes everyone pay ten percent to the
church.”
“No, you are not talking about me,” I
replied. “There is no way that I can make people pay ten percent of
their wages to the church if they do not wish. I do not have that
authority. The people who pay ten percent, or a tithe, of their
income do so because they want to.”
Why do people tithe to the church?
The reasons are many. As I considered my own motivation, I
discovered at least ten reasons why I give ten percent of my income
to the church. A study of these reasons will help us to understand
the great blessing of tithing and the Biblical responsibility to
tithe.
1)
To Honor the Creator.
“Render…unto God the things that are
God’s” (Matt. 22:21)
Acquisitiveness is one of the basic
drives of mankind. Children grasp their toys and cry, “Mine!”
Someone has noted three attitudes in the parable of the good
Samaritan. The priest and the Levite had the attitude, “What’s mine
is mine and I’m going to keep it!” The thieves had the attitude,
“What’s yours is mine, and I’m going to get it!” The Samaritan had
the attitude, “What’s mine is yours, and you can have it.” There is
another attitude that should permeate our thinking, even above the
commendable attitude of the Samaritan. That is, “Everything we have
belongs to God, and we are stewards of his goods.”
God owns the entire world and its
substance. “The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof”
(Psalms 24:1). “Behold, all souls are mine” (Ezekiel 18:4). “The
silver is mine, and the gold is mine” (Haggai 2:8). It is God who
give people the power to obtain wealth (Psalms 75:6-7; Ecc. 5:19).
We are not to glory in what God has given us, but to glory in Him
(Jeremiah 9:23-24).
Why should I begrudge God ten percent
when everything actually belongs to him? If it were not for Him,
there would be no land, no seed, no strength, no income, and no
life. How generous He is to tell us, “The tithe…is the LORD’S”
(Lev. 27:30).
2)
To Acknowledge My Heritage.
“And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye
Abraham’s see, and heirs according to the promise”
(Gal. 3:29).
Abraham was the first tithe payer of
record (Genesis 14:20). Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, paid tithes
(Genesis 28:22). Scripture says that Levi, Abraham’s descendant and
the father of the tribe from which the priesthood came paid tithes
in Abraham (Hebrews 7:9). My heritage of paying a tithe precedes
the law of Moses. As a child of Abraham and heir of the promise of
Abraham, I acknowledge my family relationship by paying tithes.
Jesus said to the Jews, “If ye were
Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham” (John 8:39).
It would be strange to claim to be a child of Abraham and yet to
neglect one of Abraham’s most fundamental and noteworthy acts. I
pay my tithes as a spiritual descendant of Abraham, the father of
the faithful.
3)
To Fulfill the Covenant.
“For if that which was done away with
was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious” (II Corinthians 3:11).
In every comparison of the law of
Moses and the new covenant that came by Jesus Christ, the new
covenant stand supreme. The characteristic word in the book of
Hebrews is better, and everything is better about the new
covenant. If the law demanded tithes, then how much more should we
who are under the “perfect law of liberty” give our tithe
willingly. (See James 1:25.) If the law is written in the fleshly
table of our hearts and we follow God’s command not from outward
rules but because of our new nature, then how quickly and how easily
we should give the tenth that belongs to the Lord! (See II
Corinthians 3:3-6.)
Some people say, “Oh, we do not pay
tithes, because tithing was under the law.” If that is a sufficient
reason for not paying tithes, then we also could mistreat our
parents, for the law said, “Honour thy father and thy mother”
(Exodus 20:12). In actuality, we honor our father and mother and we
give our tithes because the principles of the law are written in our
hearts by the Spirit of God. We give willingly and liberally
because the Spirit motivates us to give what God has said is His.
4)
To Show My Love.
“Many waters cannot quench love”
(Song of Solomon 8:7).
Love is the strongest motivation in
the world. I have seen bumper stickers that say, “If you love
Jesus, honk your horn!” Anyone can honk his horn. But David said,
“Neither will I offer…unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost
me nothing” (II Samuel 24:24). Someone should print a sticker that
says, “If you love Jesus, pay your tithes!”
For someone who genuinely loves the
Lord, the tithe is only the beginning of his giving. He gives not
only his tithe, but his offerings (plural), not grudgingly and not
of necessity, but cheerfully with love.
5)
To Fulfill an Obligation.
“Ye pay tithe…: these ought ye to
have done, and not to leave the other undone”
(Matthew 23:23).
Jesus did not criticize the Pharisees
for paying tithes. He commended them. He said it was something
they “ought” to have done. The word ought expresses an
obligation or duty. It is one of the strongest words in the English
language. To pay tithes is something every Christian ought to do.
The word ought has three
meanings: (a) obligation or duty; as in “He ought to pay his debts”;
(b) desirability; as in, “You ought to eat more slowly”; (c)
expectancy or probability; as in, “I ought to be through by
Monday.” Each one of these meanings puts an obligation upon the
Christian. It is desirable for him to pay his tithes, he is
expected to pay his tithes, and he has a duty to pay his tithes.
6)
To Escape Condemnation.
“Will a man rob God? Yet ye have
robbed me…in tithes and offerings”
(Malachi 3:8).
How sad it is that people who are
honest in business and who pay their debts to the bank, the store,
and the government will not pay God what belongs to Him! Sometimes
people quibble about whether they are “paying” or “giving” tithes,
but both terms seem appropriate. The tithe is the Lord’s, and He
expects us to pay it to Him; at the same time, He does not receive
it until we give it to Him. He does not give us the authority to
use His tithe for other purposes, but we have the power to spend it
as long as it is in our hands. Nevertheless, a person is condemned
if he spends God’s money.
7)
To Spread the Gospel.
“So hath the Lord ordained that they
which preach the gospel should live of the gospel”
(I Corinthians 9:14).
God has ordained for people to be
saved by the preaching of the gospel (I Corinthians 1:21). “How
shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14).
Tithing is God’s way of supporting
the ministry. In the Old Testament, the Levites and the priest were
God’s ministers to the nation of Israel, and they were supported by
tithes. In the New Testament, God has called people to minister the
gospel. These ministers can be more effective if they do not have
to provide for their own livelihood by working on a secular job but
can devote themselves fulltime to the work of God. They need time
to give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.
It is not wrong for a man to labor
with his hands, nor should a minister feel too god to engage in
honest labor. Yet God’s plan is for those who preach the gospel to
live of the gospel.
When God inspired Moses to write that
the people should not put a muzzle on the ox that had labored. God
was not as concerned with the ox as He was with the principle that a
laborer should receive his livelihood from his work. The
application of this principle is that the minister of the gospel
should earn his living from his ministry. (See I Corinthians
9:9-14).
Some ministers have endured financial
hardships and deprivation in order to proclaim the gospel in needy
areas. If the tithing income insures that the minister can live in
a good house, drive a good car, and buy sufficient clothes for his
family, why should I begrudge providing these things to a man who
would preach the gospel even if he had to work on a secular job to
do it? It is a disgrace to a church if the pastor has to take a
secular job to supply his family’s needs when there should be
sufficient tithing income available to allow him to do God’s work on
a full-time basis. My tithing can help to spread the gospel.
8)
To Avoid a Curse.
“Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye
have robbed me” (Malachi
3:9)
Someone has said, “You can’t outgive
God, and you can’t outsqueeze him either.”
Some people put their money into “a
bag with holes” (Haggai 1:6). They do not give God his tithe, but
they eventually spend the money for automobile repairs, medical
bills, and a thousand other things that they might have avoided if
they had been faithful to God in their giving.
God said that the whole nation of
Israel was cursed because they had not give God His due. God asked
Israel to dedicate the gold of Jericho to Him, but Achan took a
wedge of gold and hid it in a tent. It became a curse to him and
his whole family.
I do not want God to curse my
blessings. I want to give Him His tithe.
9)
To Enjoy God’s Blessings.
“Bring ye all the tithes into the
storehouse,…and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I
will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a
blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it”
(Malachi 3:10). (See also Luke 6:38).
God blesses the people who pay
tithes. They do not always have the most money or the best clothes,
but they are blessed.
However, I am wary of those who
promise, “If you give God a dollar, He will give you back four.”
The expectation of a return should not be our motivation for
giving. And His richest blessings are not necessarily monetary.
But I do want God to notice me and
remember me. He noticed that the widow put money into the treasury
at the Temple. He noticed what Cornelius was giving. He noticed
what Israel was not giving. He knows what we give and He notices
when we give.
God has asked us to prove Him and see
if He will not give us His blessings. I have trusted Him, tested
Him, and tried Him, and I have concluded that it is better to give
God what belongs to Him.
10)
To Be Consistent.
“Be thou an example of the believers”
(I Timothy 4:12).
For most of my ministry, I have lived
on tithing income. How could I receive tithes and not pay tithes?
I could not do so and be consistent. The Levites, who received
tithes, also paid tithes on what they received (Nehemiah 10:38).
Preachers who receive tithes should be most faithful to pay them.
Paying tithes will not save a person
– everyone must be born again to be saved. But paying tithes will
reap a blessing. Genuine Christians not only pay tithes, but they
willingly pay tithes.
WCP
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World
Aflame Press
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