Featured Poll: Your view of tithing and giving

Tithe = devoting 10% of ones property (meaning livestock most typically, although plunders of war were also included in tithing calculations) to religious uses, from feeding the priests and supplying the sacrificial animals, grains, etc, to setting aside property for the temple and the temple keepers, because the priests and their servants were set apart for the sacrificial system where in they earned nothing to provide for their own welfare.

In our New Testament economy, tithing is an outdated notion, and that is not even quite the right way to express that. We are still to pay our pastors, missionaries and so forth, but there is not longer a nation of God's chosen as there was in Israel, and there is now the covenant of grace, where in we give because we have received. We love, because we have been loved. And we also give because we need to give, not because God needs our money. We also have the new teaching from Jesus that to him whom much is given, much is expected, as well as the principle of sacrificial giving for the sake of the gospel. Giving is no longer a reason to boast, nor a reason to feel shame. It is an occasion to trust God with all that we are and all that we need on the basis that both belong to Him. I do believe that we are blessed by giving, but I do not believe that our blessing is in greater prosperity, or financial gain. Our blessing is in a loss of fear for the future and a gain of peace from our Provider. We also give of more than just our financial means. We may support the Body with our time, our prayers, perhaps actual material means for community mneeds, like lumber for building, or food for visiting missionaries or itinerant preachers. We give sacrificially and cheerfully because we've received eternal life, a debt that cannot be repaid. We are commanded to give and a regenerate person, growing in love the for Lord, will want to keep His commands because that is how we show Him our love.

Hard to fit all of that in on a poll.

 

My husband and I do tithe, and we wish more would. Not because we're being held at gunpoint and made to do it, but because we feel it is the right thing to do, and God does bless it. You really can't outgive Him. I've tried. It's impossible.

 

You're right about that line, "you can't outgive God" being used as a sales pitch meaning "God's going to make you rich if you tithe." No, that's not how I see it. I have been desperately poor in my earlier life. I am disabled and cannot work at a paying job. Even Vocational Rehabilitation said they couldn't help me. Ten years ago I was living in subsidized housing (read that "slums"), and eating maybe once a day on a good day. The fact that I'm diabetic makes that even worse. Even that was an improvement over the times I was homeless. My family and most of my friends had always been very poor, couldn't help me, and were probably so accustomed to that lifestyle that they didn't see anything unusual, although they would help out with groceries when they could. I had no bootstraps to pull myself up by.

God sent me a husband. Now I'm middle class. My husband has set things up so that if something should happen to him, our house will be paid off, and barring extreme circumstances, I'll never be homeless again.

That's worth a whole lot more than my last $5 in the collection plate. You can't outgive God.

Did God send me a husband because I faithfully tithed? Well, that's up for debate. I really don't know. I don't think it's that I did something to earn it. I think it's because He is good and was looking out for me. Will God somehow reward my husband because he tithes? I don't know, are "reward" and "bless" the same thing? He did promise to bless. He just didn't say specifically how.

No, He doesn't promise wealth. But He does promise to sustain, and He met that promise for me.

 

You certainly can outgive God, and I've done it.

There was a time, after becoming a believer, when I had determined I was going to build a business. I knew God didn't want me to pursue it, but I knew I had all the right ingredients for success. So I tried for nearly 5 years and failed miserably.

Then I was ready to come back and do things God's way. The only problem was that I was still trying to run the show - even in "my decision" to do things God's way, and what I determined God's way was.

I went and got a job, in for a while gave up on the idea of owning a business. My finances actually straightened out.

I hadn't tithed regularly in a few years, so I started tithing. Within three weeks the wheels fell off my finances, and I stopped tithing for several months.

My finances straightened out again, and I felt remorseful that I had not been tithing, so I started tithing again. And within one month the wheels fell off my finances again.

I was so bewildered. People had been telling me forever that you can't out-give God, but I was out-giving Him. Every time I started tithing, my finances went in the tank. A speeding ticket. A broken down vehicle. Loss of job. And there were more.

After about a year and a half of this tormenting cycle I was just about in tears, begging God to tell me what's up. Every time I tried to be faithful with my money it blew up in my face.

that's when God told me, " I don't want you to give anything"

Huh ?? Don't give? Whatchu talkin' bout?

What he was trying to teach me that he didn't need my money. He didn't need me setting up the parameters of godliness. He didn't need my works based, self-righteous attempt at towing the line.

Now, I most certainly am not insinuating that everyone who tithes has a works based self-righteousness, but I sure did. And God did not honor it.

There was a time, in Acts chapter 5, when God did not honor the giving of Ananias and Sapphira. We're not told exactly what about it rubbed God the wrong way, but they most certainly out-gave God that day

 

What they did was written, but we're not told why they did it. In Acts 5:3-4 Peter asled why they did it, but that's not answered. And without that, we can't say for certain what about it offended God

Did they want to look more pious and generous than they actually were?

Did they feel peer pressure to do something they really didn't want to do?

Did they have some reservations about the apostles, feeling like they might have been gambling if they laid it all at the apostles' feet?

There are possibly other scenarios too