Tithing
Our mailbag is most often filled with greetings and fun questions about fashion and events at Dr. Wonder’s Workshop. Sometimes, though, we are asked more serious questions, and we are trusted to respond with faithful and true answers. Here’s a set of questions we recently received, and the answers we gave. We thought you may find some worthy thoughts in here as well.
Is tithing still even required? Wasn’t it an Old Testament law?
Whether old testament or new, giving of our financial resources to support the church and its ministries is a matter of honoring God. By giving, we show that we recognize our resources to be from His hand – His gift of strength, creativity, and opportunity for work. We show that we trust Him to supply our needs with or without the full bank accounts that so many strive for. We show that we’re in active support of His goals, whether that’s financing a house of worship for His people to gather in or providing food and clothing to minister to those in need, or providing income to His ministers so they might focus more on study, teaching, outreach, and bringing comfort during those random emergencies no-one can schedule around. It’s a means of partnership, of throwing your lot in with His, not that He needs it, but that we need to have an investment in His work.
Didn’t Christ abolish the law with His death and resurrection?
Christ didn’t abolish the law, He fulfilled it. All that the law required, all that no human could possibly do in full measure and detail, Jesus did for us. We had the law to understand God’s absolute righteousness in all things and to realize that we are nowhere near qualified, on our best days, to be called righteous. When we look at the law, we realize the only hope we have is His grace, and that’s what we cling to. There is no obligation we can fulfill, no rule we can follow, no sacrifice we can make, to put us in good standing with Him. Nothing but a complete trust in what Jesus gave us. It is from that recognition of His gift that we are motivated to give what we can to honor Him.
Should I tithe off the gross or net of my income?
Some choose to tithe from the gross, others choose to tithe from the net, still others choose a number that has nothing to do with 10% of either. We are told in the new testament to give willingly and cheerfully, not from a sense of obligation or duty. Whatever God lays on your heart to give as you seek to honor and obey Him, that’s what you should give.
Does God really expect me to tithe if I’m struggling in my personal finances?
While it’s good to be careful in your personal finances, it’s even better to recognize that we are stewards of His resources and He has promised to meet our needs as we trust and honor Him. Many have testified that God has done the impossible with their few resources when they’ve given God a portion first. When we do our best to live within our means and honor Him in all our choices, He arranges reality to provide for our needs — because He has promised to do so.
God’s expectations in our financial struggle can be seen in two old testament stories, the widow of Zarephath in I Kings 17 and another widow and her sons in II Kings 4. In the first case, there was famine in the land and the prophet Elijah was told to go to the town of Zarephath and stay with a widow there. She was preparing the last meal for herself and her son with the last bit of flour and oil she had. Elijah asked her to give him (as a way of honoring God) a portion of that meal. She did, and from that day to the end of the famine, there was enough oil and flour in her pantry to feed the three of them. In the second case, a man died with some debts yet unpaid. His widow and two sons were going to be held accountable, the young men sold into slavery and the mother left with no support. Elisha told her to borrow as many jars as she could get – this was her humble obedience, asking her neighbors for containers though she had nothing to put in them. Then she was told to pour the last bit of oil from her jar into the container, and a small jar managed to fill every jar in the room. The family sold the oil, and it was enough to cover the debts and support them as the boys became men. One miracle was a sustaining over several years, day by day, just enough. The other miracle was a one-time big event to solve a specific problem. Either way, God multiplied the resources of two women who honored, trusted, and obeyed Him. He did it again when a boy gave his small lunch to Jesus and it fed over 5,000 people.
I “tithe” my time to the church. Isn’t that enough?
Giving of time to church or other ministry is a great gift, helpful and necessary, and may even be your act of obedience. But I wouldn’t use it as a bargaining chip to replace giving of financial resources. Participating in the family of faith, whether its in the celebrations, teaching, or “chores,” is a matter of being in His family, bonding with your community and supporting one another’s relationships with Him. It’s something we are called to do as His children who will be with Him, and with one another, through eternity.
If God has laid on your heart to give an amount from your income, don’t look for a way to wiggle out of that — rather, look for how He will show Himself generous toward you as you are generous toward Him.
May He make His will for you clear and obvious, and He has already promised to give you the strength and resources to obey His directions.
If He is laying it on your heart to give to the ministry of Silent Blessings, developing faith resources in ASL for deaf and hard of hearing children and their families, you can do that here.