Tithe

I tithe.

I started when I was about 13 or 14 and have given 10% of my income to the church off and on since then. 

When I was in high school, I didn't get around to tithing for a few years and I felt pretty guilty about it.

Sometimes I forgot to tithe and I would add up all I owed for the time when I forgot and it would hang over me like this huge cloud of guilt.  Sometimes I could pay it off and sometimes I didn't.

I have always been haunted by the story of Ananias and Sapphira.  I've always felt that if I don't give an exact 10%, that I will somehow be cursed by God or be struck dead or something...

At some point I was also told that if a person is really giving to God from the heart, they will sign their check, put it in the envelope, and cut off any interest in where it goes. If you know/care where the money goes, you really aren't giving it with a willing heart. Have you heard this?  Sounds more like the teachings of a manipulating cult that would like to use money for their own interests.  It's not biblical.

For the past eight or nine years I have given to small church ministries.  I don't believe the Adventist conference uses funds responsibly so I don't give to them.  I am not even convinced my local church budgets according to Gods will so I have given to off budget ministries.

I heard a local pastor say recently that tithing is not biblical.  This is contrary to everything I have believed yet, I have sensed this contradiction between traditional tithing taught in the Adventist church and the biblical tithe so it caught my interest.

Here are some bible parts that challenge my way of thinking:

Deuteronomy:  22 Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. 23 Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. 24 But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the Lord your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the Lord will choose to put his Name is so far away), 25 then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the Lord your God will choose. 26 Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice

So when tithe was first introduced to the children of Isreal, it went to the Levites and to buy food and alcohol for these holy celebrations...  interesting.  So conflicted with how tithe is used now.

Many references to tithe in the old testament seem to refer to the Levitical law.  So a big question would be: are we still bound by the levitical law?  Seems like Adventists like to pick and choose which Levitical laws they keep...  It's not ok to buy or sell on Sabbath but if you have a sore on your chin with yellow hair, you no longer have to have it examined by the priest.   See my blog a few posts down about the law.  A quick synopsis: I would like to suggest that we are no longer bound by any of the Levitical law, including the 10 commandments and the one that says you can't buy or sell on Sabbath.  Jesus fulfilled the law and eclipsed all of those wonderful details with the simple life giving law of love.   So that creates tension with my original understanding of tithing.

I reread the story of Ananias and Sapphira and realized that it was written during a time when the believers were still into selling everything they had and giving to the poor and needy and sharing everything.  (Somewhere along the lines we lost that kind of generosity...) So the After-Jesus understanding of what belongs to God is not 10% but 100%. 

This changes everything. 

Matthew ¹⁵ Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. ¹⁶ They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. ¹⁷ Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”
¹⁸ But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? ¹⁹ Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, ²⁰ and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
²¹ “Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

"Give back to God what is God's."

If 100% of what I have is God's, and I am to give it back to God, what does that look like in this day in age? Does it still mean selling everything and giving it all to the poor and needy?  Does God not want me to prepare some sort of a stable future for my wife and kids?

If I think of 100% as just my financial income am I not limiting it?  How about 100% of my time and my energy?  Talent? Skills? Relationships?

So I am rethinking all of my previous ideas about tithe. 

It's liberating.

And I feel like the more questions I can ask, and the more of this institutional BS I can leave behind, the closer I can get to Gods heart for giving.

Cheers!