I'm imagining there will be those of you who will ignore this blog, because it goes against everything you've been taught about tithing. Stick with it and find out the truth. Then decide.
First, let’s get our minds set on kingdom premise. Any interpretation that is applied to the New Covenant based on the Old Covenant is invalid. The New Covenant is not a modification of the Old Covenant. It made the Old Covenant obsolete (Hebrews 8:13). Our relationship with the Father is not based on performance, but on paternity. Embrace your inheritance rather than embarking on performance.
With that as the backdrop, is tithing for today, or is it just another way for religion to control you? More shame management. Remember, “religion tries to control what it cannot contain”.
So, is tithing a principle for today’s New Covenant believer, or is it just another rule that man brought through the finished work of the cross to control people? Lets take a close look at it.
First, I’m not talking about giving. I’m talking about tithing as it is being taught to us. In Gal 5:7 it says “You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth?” Now that’s the question.
Remember, we are not under law, but under grace. You can become the best legalistic tither ever and be put in complete bondage. It becomes a work. You will become obsessed with tithing so that you can no longer hear the Holy Spirit. It will also cause you to live in fear, because if you miss, God will judge you according to Malachi 3. You’ll be so bound to the law of the 10% that you’ll ignore bills or buying food or providing other ways for your family in favor of giving your tithe. They may go hungry. Your heat might be turned off. You may not be able to purchase clothes, but at least your tithe has been paid and your safe from the curse. That’s not living by faith as the Lord of the New Testament instructed.
The law of the Old Testament was never intended for use by New Testament believers. Hebrews 7:12 says “Whenever there’s a change in priesthood, there must be a change in law”. New Testament believers are to live by a better “covenant/law”, which is the Spirit of God (Rom 8:14; Gal 5:18).
The Old Testament law of tithing was abolished when Jesus died. Just look at Ephesians 2:15. It says “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances…” 2 Corinthians 9:7 says we must each decide in our hearts how much to give. Not giving reluctantly or in response to pressure. Of course the “law” of sowing and reaping applies. Sow sparingly, reap sparingly and so on. But this is not a commandment. It is instead a principle, like gravity for instance. There has been and will always be seed time and harvest.
Old Testament tithing established the law/rule of giving 10%. New Testament giving established the relationship of giving according to the purposes of your heart. There’s no relationship in using Algebra to figure out what 10% of a number comes out to be. Asking the Holy Spirit what to give brings the relationship bond that is in Christ Jesus. So you can either be proud of your ability to be a good mathematician, or you can be set free as an heir and joint heir with Jesus.
The problem with being bound by the law of tithing is that you make no place for the Holy Spirit to instruct you on what to give. You’ll be so bound by an algebraic expression of 10% that you’ll ignore the prompting of the Holy Ghost. You’ll be so concerned about the “curse” that should befall you if you miss a “tithe” that you’ll ignore the voice of the Lord telling you to give differently. Oh, but you’ll be so proud of yourself when you meet the performance requirement established by man to bring 10% to the building managers. We’ll speak more about “the curse” later on in this teaching.
What if the Holy Spirit told you to give $10,000 when your tithe is only $1,000? Will you do it? That would be difficult and certainly challenging. But here’s something that would be more challenging to those with the religious mindset that you must tithe. What if the Holy Spirit told you to stop giving altogether? Would you do that or would you be in so much fear of being cursed that you would ignore the leading of the Spirit. You see what happens when we follow false doctrine? We live in bondage and fear.
Well, let’s get into the Truth which disproves the old law of tithing for New Testament believers. Hang on. Here we go. Disproving tithing.
The tithe system was primarily, an act of worship to God. In so doing, man was acknowledging that he was only a steward of all that God gave. It was the way in which he worshiped God with his material possessions and, so, brought God into the everyday affairs of life.
It was also a statement that he trusted God as His Provider, and said so by worshiping Him with what He had given them. Tithing also paid the salary of those who ministered to him and for the upkeep of the Temple, which was the vehicle in the Old Testament for declaring the knowledge of God and His salvation. Not only to Israel, but to the whole world. Study Deuteronomy 14 to see more on all these issues.
There is no command to tithe in the New Testament. To extract from the Old Testament that we are to tithe to the local church as the Israelites tithed to the Levites and the Temple, is to distort Scripture! The local church building can never be seen as equivalent to the Temple. Besides, we as New Testament believers are now the Temple (1 Corinthians 6:19,20).
The local pastor is not an equivalent of the Levite priest for Christ is our High Priest in the heavens. To even think that we are under a similar setup as Israel, is to return to the shadows of the Old and cancel the realities of the New. The problem with trying to live in that old place under those old rules is that you’re still wanted back there. You’re a fugitive. But in the new dispensation of grace through faith, you are free.
The New Testament does not give us the Law, but instead the Spirit is placed within us. That Spirit within goes beyond all the outward law of the Old Testament. All of the “thou shalt not’s” of the old are replaced by the one statement that includes them all and then goes far beyond: “LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU” (John 15:12).
So with tithing, it is not a law under the New, but the Spirit within urging us to give as God has given! We give as “the Lord has blessed us,” according to the “grace given to us” (1st. Corinthians16:2; 2nd Corinthians 8:1-5).
If the Law demanded the tithes it did, then, in the light of all our blessings today in Christ, our giving should certainly equal and even go far beyond what the Law required.
Where do we give our tithe? The same principles hold true. We minister financially to those who minister to us. That does not mean to whoever happens to have the title of pastor, but to the one who is feeding our spirits and caring for us in the Lord. To tithe where this is not being done is in direct disobedience to the principle of Scripture (Gal 6:6)!
Paul instructed the followers to take up a collection for the saints (1 Corinthians 16:1; 2 Corinthians 9). The principle of giving to the poor and to the dependent still holds true, and will include ministries outside the local church.
When someone tells you that you “have to” tithe, tell them you’d be glad to tithe the same way anyone in the bible tithed. Just show me which scriptural example you’d like me to follow. They’ll have a problem doing this, because all they’ve been taught is Mal 3:10 which has been taken out of context.
So help them out and say “I’ve looked” and I only found 3 groups of people who tithed. The first was Abraham. The second were the Israelites living under Old Testament law. The third were the Pharisees. Take your pick. Tell me which one I should follow. You’ll notice there’s no New Testament references.
So, let’s start with Abraham. Abraham only tithed once. He never tithed on his income and he was rich. He tithed on the spoils of war. So, if that’s how you want me to tithe, I’ll tithe once but only on the spoils of war if I win one. Never on my income.
Then they may say ”well Jesus told us to tithe”. Okay, where is that in the bible? Jesus did not command us to tithe. What he did do is commend the Pharisees for their tithing (Matt 23:23). They were Old Testament Jews. Living under Old Testament law. They did not tithe money even though they had money. They were lovers of money.
Old Testament law commanded the tithing of agricultural products and livestock for those who grew products or had livestock. If you were a carpenter or had a trade you were not commanded to tithe, because you earned money. That’s how the Old Testament system of tithing was set up. Just do a word search on tithe. It’s all Old Testament. It deals with agriculture and livestock.
If Jesus is our example, show me where he tithed. Did Jesus tithe? Did Paul tithe? Did Peter tithe? NO!!!
So, if they want you to tithe the way the Pharisees did, tell them okay, but I don’t have any crops. Besides, I’m not a Pharisee or Jewish. I’m a Gentile. For the sake of argument, lets disregard the part about not being a Pharisee or Jewish. In that case, if I have a garden, I’d be glad to tithe 10% of the output from that garden, because the Pharisees tithed mint and cummin. They actually planted gardens so they could strive to obey the Old Testament law of tithing.
Since they were Old Testament believers, Jesus commended them for being an example to tithe after the law. Don’t forget however that He chastised them for ignoring the weightier matters of the law which were justice, mercy, and faith.
Now, the person telling you to tithe will default to the last group on the list. Old Testament Israelites living under the law. They’ll tell you that you need to tithe like they did according to Malachi 3:10. We will look into that in the next blog. Don't stop studying this subject. There is so much more to come. Grace and Peace.
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