Tithing and Grace-Giving

 Article by Steve Crain

  When I was about three years old, someone gave me a used piggybank. That old pottery piece was about 14 inches long, 10 inches high, and colored light gray. The plug in the pig’s belly had been lost, so Mama used a thick sock to stuff the opening. A slot on the pig’s back encouraged thrift. If someone gave me a penny, nickel, or dime, I’d run to the piggybank and “ker-chink” the money into that slot. 

Mama tired of me shaking that bank to hear the jiggle-jangle. I was about five when Mom had me open a savings account at Greer Bank. We emptied the pig. I felt important as Dad took me to the bank. I had collected over $17 and felt rich. 

Children learn early the power of money. Later, I thought about these words of Jesus: “You cannot serve both God and mammon [money]” (Matthew 6:24). 

I also later learned about tithing to the Lord. Someone defined “tithing” as “a debt which everyone owes to the Lord as rent for using the things that the Lord has made and given to him to use.” We can tithe money or tithe of our time, talent, and energy. (Using time, talent, and energy applied is how we earn money.) Tithing is not “giving the Lord a tip” like one does at a restaurant. Everything we own comes from God. By tithing, all we are doing is giving back what is already his.  

Giving 10% of one’s income to church seems to be the standard in America. “Church members give one-tenth of their income to the Lord through his Church, and those tithes should help grow the Church and promote the Lord’s truth,” according to christianity.com. 

Pastor John MacArthur goes further by saying, “‘Tithing,’ are you familiar with the concept of tithing? — you know, ‘Give 10% to the church’ —  you know, that kind of thing? Tithing, basically, is never, ever advocated in the New Testament; it is never taught in the New Testament, never!”

MacArther also says, “It is true that when you give to the Lord, he does give back, but if that is your motive — it’s warped.”

If we tithed like they did in the Old Testament, we would be giving at least 25% of income to the church after contributing to festivals and to the poor as Israelites were expected to do.  

“MacArthur says. “Every year a Jew had to give 10% of all of his crop and all of his produce, and all of whatever he had. He gave 10%, which was called the ‘Levite’s Tithe,’ and what you have to understand is that the nation Israel was a theocracy, that is, it was ruled by God through priests.”

Because Israel was a theocracy, tithing was an income tax system, MacArthur says. 

“That was a system of taxation to fund the government and its religious activities and its welfare needs,” he says. “So when people today say, ‘We want to tithe now like they did in the Old Testament,’ they can't stop at 10%. They got 23.3% to start with. In addition to that, you paid a half shekel temple tax each year. In addition to that, if you had a field, you had to harvest the field in a circle and leave the corners open for the poor.”

Leviticus 27:28-32 NIV says, “A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord. Whoever would redeem any of their tithe must add a fifth of the value to it. Every tithe of the herd and flock — every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd’s rod — will be holy to the Lord.” 

Sources say tithing was done by some people before it was required under the law given by God. Tithing first appeared in the Bible when Abraham gave 10% of the spoils of war to Melchizedek, the priest-king of Salem (Gen. 14:18-20). Tithing as a tribute to God appeared later in Genesis when Jacob promised to give a tenth to God if he returned home safely. 

In the New Testament, Jesus, who lived under Old Testament structure until his crucifixion, criticized those who tithed tiny grains of spice — not because they tithed, but because they neglected the “weightier matters of the law” (Matt. 23:23). 

Jesus said, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.”

In the New Testament, the command to tithe is not there. It’s been replaced by “grace-giving,” someone said. In 2 Corinthians-eight, Paul refers to giving as an act of grace:

“We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints — and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us” (2 Corinthians 8:1-5 ESV).

Tithing seems to be the traditional standard and a good rule of thumb, though New Testament “grace-giving” goes further — “For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord… ,” Paul said of the Macedonians.